Top row, from left: Craig Parker, Jeremiah Brown, William Young, Susan Pyke, David Pyke, Caitlin Reiner, Catherine Chamberlin, Joel Wickre
Bottom row, from left: Milton Ochieng’, Frederica Ghesquiere, Sarah Young, Fred Ochieng’
Milton Ochieng - Founder
Milton Ochieng’ grew up in the small rural village of Lwala in western Kenya. He is the second born in a family of four boys and two girls. His parents were both teachers. He attended Alliance High School in Nairobi, Kenya then attended Dartmouth College in the United States for his undergraduate studies. He graduated from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2008 and is a first year resident in internal medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. He and his younger brother, Frederick Ochieng’, who is a medical student at Vanderbilt, founded the Lwala Community Alliance and built the Ochieng’ Memorial Lwala Community Health Center to honor their parents who died of AIDS.
Fred Ochieng - Founder
Otieno Fred Ochieng’ is the third born of Margaret and Erastus Ochieng’s six children born in Lwala. He attended Alliance High School in Nairobi, Kenya before joining Dartmouth College from which he graduated in 2005. He is a member of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine class of 2010. He was inspired by his parents’ selflessness and generosity. Family, faith, community support, and his friends in Kenya and abroad have helped him immensely in dealing with the painful loss of his parents. He hopes to continue working with his rural community to improve their health care, education and general well being.
William W. Young M.D. - President
Bill Young is an Associate Professor Emeritus in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth Medical School and a former member of the Executive Board of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Now retired from his clinical practice, Dr. Young continues to work on the “Healthy Newborns Project” in Kosovo, a joint venture between the Dartmouth Medical School and U.S.A.I.D. He also sustains an interest in the production of health care education videos and computer programs. Dr. Young met Milton Ochieng”, Joel Wickre and Frederica Ghesquiere in 2001 on a Dartmouth College Cross Cultural Community Service and Education trip to Nicaragua. He and his wife Sarah, and their two children maintain an active relationship with all of the Ochieng” family, and Milton and Fred have both lived in their home for extended periods.
Craig Parker - Vice President
Craig Parker serves as the Northeast Collegiate Regional leader for the Navigators, an international, non-denominational Christian organization, overseeing nineteen campus ministries in New York and New England. He has served with the Navigators since 1980 in Virginia, Germany and New Hampshire. For seventeen years he was the Campus Director of the Navigators Christian Fellowship at Dartmouth College, where he led fourteen service trips to seven U.S. inner cities and four countries. He is a recruiting partner of two children’s relief organizations in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Ain Leuh, Morocco. He specializes in fund-raising and networking for the LCA. He and his wife Nancy have four children and three grandchildren. Craig became involved with Lwala through his friendship with Fred Ochieng” who was an active member of the Navigators at Dartmouth.
Susan Pyke - Secretary
Susan Pyke is a teacher and writer. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the College of William and Mary. She has written numerous articles as a freelance writer, including case studies for the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. In 1990 she was a founder of Crossroads Academy, an independent K-8 school in Lyme, NH. She taught English composition and literature in grades six through eight at Crossroads Academy from 1996-2005. She then became a leader of Upper Valley Bible Study, an interdenominational group of over 70 women. From 2006-2008 she was the Teaching Director for this group, writing and presenting weekly lectures. Susan is raising three boys with her husband David. She enjoys traveling and outdoor activities with her husband and sons, including skiing, hiking and biking.
Tina Swenson - Treasurer
Tina Swenson is a CPA and has worked most recently for Deloitte & Touche as a Tax Manager specializing in high net worth individuals and their closely held entities including not for profit organizations. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 1997 Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting and Financial Resource Management. She continued her education with a Masters in Accounting at the University of West Florida in 1998. After seven years with Deloitte & Touche she has taken a five year sabbatical to invest in her personal interests of being a mother to her two year old daughter Kate and wife to her husband of 10 years, Aaron, who is attending Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, NH. In her spare time she enjoys leading a women’s bible study as well as skiing, hiking, snow shoeing, fly fishing, and walking with her Doberman pinscher.
Jeremiah Brown Ph.D.
Jeremiah Brown received his doctoral training at the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School. He is trained in epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy reform, shared decision making and quality improvement of health care. Dr. Brown assists the LCA in health surveys, prevention, education, and public health.
Catherine Chamberlin
Catherine Chamberlin is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has 13 years of experience in outdoor education. She worked as a desert survival guide for the Boulder Outdoor Survival School from 1996 to 2002 in Southern Utah, where she also served as a cultural interpreter for the Tarahumara people in northern Mexico. She has worked as a mountaineering and rock climbing instructor and course director for Outward Bound since 2002. She has been a Wilderness Medicine Instructor for the Wilderness Medicine Institute since 2004 and teaches classes up to the Wilderness EMT level. In late 2006 and early 2007 she lived in Lwala to assist in the opening of the clinic. She has also lived in Costa Rica, Mexico and the Ivory Coast. In fall 2007 she began medical school at the University of New England in Biddeford, ME. She plans to pursue a fellowship in Wilderness Medicine. In her spare time she loves all manner of outdoor pursuits, but especially ice climbing and distance running.
Frederica Ghesquiere
Frederica Ghesquiere graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 with a double major in religion and environmental studies. After graduation, Freddie served as an environmental education volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. She has interned for the Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College and recently co-led a volunteer service trip to the Gulf Coast. She is currently pursuing a Master’s of Arts in Religion at Yale Divinity School. Freddie first met Milton Ochieng” on a Tucker Foundation service trip to Nicaragua in 2001, working alongside Joel Wickre and Dr. William Young. She is the chair of the LCA volunteer committee.
David Pyke Ph.D.
David Pyke is a chaired professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, and has been at Tuck since 1987. He earned his undergraduate degree at Haverford College and his MBA at Drexel University. He obtained both a Masters and Ph.D. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. In the spring of 2002, he was named associate dean for the MBA program, and is currently responsible for all academic aspects of the MBA program at Tuck. He has held visiting professorships at the International University of Japan, Helsinki School of Economics, the Wharton School, and the WHU in Germany. His expertise is in operations and supply chain management, low cost country sourcing, and operations strategy. He has co-authored two books, has published numerous academic papers, and has consulted for The Rand Corporation, Accenture, Corning, Eaton, and many other companies. In addition to serving on the board of the Lwala Community Alliance, he serves on the Board of Directors of Concepts NREC and GW Plastics. He is a scientific advisor for SignalDemand and for SeeControl. In July 2008, he will become the dean of the School of Business Administration of the University of San Diego. David and his wife Susan have three boys and enjoy skiing, hiking, biking and other outdoor activities.
Caitlin Reiner
Caitlin Reiner graduated from Dartmouth College in 2006 with a BA in History. She completed the Dartmouth Teacher Education Program and received her certification to teach secondary school social studies. She is currently employed as the tutor for Bruce Springsteen’s children. In fall 2008 she plans to begin a master’s program in public health. Caitlin has spent about 6 months in Lwala since 2005, and established the scholarship program for secondary school students. She now serves as the chair of the LCA education committee.
Sarah Young
Sarah Young, R.D. received her BS in dietetics in 1974 from the University of California Davis. She volunteers at the Good Neighbor Clinic, a free clinic in White River Junction, Vermont. She, her husband William Young, and their two daughters have become a second family to the Ochiengs’.
