Community foundation names new board members, appoints officers

SARASOTA — The Community Foundation of Sarasota County appointed new members and elected officers to its 2020-2021 board of directors.

Nelle Miller, co-founder of BizTank, will continue serving as chair, with Daniel DeLeo, a partner with Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, as vice chair. Andrew Stultz, president and owner of Atlas Building Company of Florida, was appointed treasurer. William Seider, partner with Williams Parker Harrison Dietz & Getzen, will continue serving as secretary, according to a statement. 

Joining the board for three-year terms are John Humphrey, Mercedes Soler, Carla Plush Smith, Dr. Janet Taylor and Judge Charles Williams. 

Humphrey retired from Sarasota-based Roper Technologies after serving as executive vice president and CFO from 2011-2017 and as vice president and CFO from 2006-2011. Roper designs and develops software and engineered products and solutions. Prior to Roper, Humphrey spent 12 years in a variety of financial leadership positions with Honeywell International. He is also on the board of directors of several public companies. 

Soler leads Solmart Media, a radio and digital media company that reaches over 300,000 Latinx community members across Southwest Florida, with her husband, Tomás Martínez. Prior to founding Solmart Media in 2014, Soler was a strategic media coach for leaders, executives and diplomats as a subcontractor for the U.S. State Department. She worked as a news anchor for CNN Español from 2010-2016 and spent two decades as an international investigative correspondent with Univision. 

Plush Smith is a Sarasota native with more than 25 years of experience as a CPA. She provides tax services to individuals, fiduciaries and business owners. She also holds designations as a financial planner, both as a Certified Financial Planner and Personal Financial Specialist.

Taylor is a Sarasota-based community psychiatrist who works with people who are involved in criminal justice and are afflicted by mental illness. Taylor is a speaker on subjects of minority health, self care, stress management, parenting and work-life balance. She is also a contributor to CBS’s “This Morning,” NBC’s “The Today Show” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” on issues of motherhood, parenting and mental health. 

Williams has worked as a prosecutor and defense attorney in the Sarasota-Manatee area. He is a Circuit Court Judge in the 12th Judicial Circuit, which includes Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. He was a founding member of the Sarasota County Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and works closely with the Booker High School Law Academy.

"The Board of Trustees and I are honored to welcome our five new members,” says Miller in the statement. “Each one brings a depth of experience, accomplishment, and connection that will help us and our community move forward in our work to make this a place of opportunity, equity, hope, and justice for all people."

Continuing their duties as board members are C.J. Fishman, Paul Hudson, Donna Koffman, Rodney Linford, Kelvin Lumpkin, Jeffrey McCurdy, Matthew Sauer, Drayton Saunders, Felice Schulaner, Marilyn Thompson, Lynn Wentworth and Mary Lou Winnick.

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County is a public charity founded in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council. The foundation has assets of $418 million in more than 1,500 charitable funds. It awarded $21.5 million in grants and scholarships last year in the areas of education, the arts, health and human services, civic engagement, animal welfare and the environment. Since its founding, it has granted more than $274 million to area nonprofits.