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 Gorilla Foundation Board Members
Governing Board

Penny Patterson Penny Patterson, PhD
Chairman of the Board
President and Director of Research, The Gorilla Foundation

Dr. Penny Patterson received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Stanford University where, as a graduate student in 1972, she began working with one-year-old Koko, a western lowland gorilla, thus beginning the longest ongoing interspecies communication study ever undertaken. For 30 years, Dr. Patterson has worked with Koko, who has advanced further with sign language than any nonhuman. Able to reveal her thoughts and feelings through the use of 1,000 gestural words, Koko provides unique insight into the mind of a gorilla.

In 1976, Dr. Patterson, Dr. Ronald Cohn, and the late Barbara F. Hiller established the Gorilla Foundation to benefit gorillas living in captivity and those struggling to survive in the rapidly disappearing African rainforest. Dedicated to the preservation, protection and propagation of gorillas and other endangered primates, the Foundation disseminates information about animal intelligence, gorilla behavior and psychobiology through its website (www.gorilla.org), journal, and scientific meetings and articles, and is currently developing a 70-acre gorilla sanctuary on the island of Maui, Hawaii.

The author of more than 40 publications including The Education of Koko with Eugene Linden, and the award-winning children’s books, Koko’s Kitten and Koko’s Story, Dr. Patterson has earned numerous awards and honors — including National Geographic Society grants and the Rolex Award for Enterprise — for her work with Koko and fellow gorillas, Michael and Ndume.

Ron Cohn Ronald Cohn, PhD
Treasurer of the Board
Vice President and Photo-Documentarian, The Gorilla Foundation


Dr. Ron Cohn has been with the project from its inception and shares Dr. Patterson's life-long commitment to the gorillas. Ron serves as an authority figure for Koko and his presence is an integral part of their daily routine. His award winning pictures and films of the gorillas have helped to make the Gorilla Foundation a well known organization around the world.

Prior to co-founding TGF/Koko.org, Dr. Cohn received a PhD from the University of Illinois. He was a cell biologist at the Stanford Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics and did much of the initial ground breaking research in genetic engineering and membrane structure. He also discovered that adult cells make hyaluronic acid from glucosamine and led the way for glucosamine treatment for arthritis.
Maizie Sanford Mary C. Sanford
Secretary of the Board (Gorilla Foundation)
Director Emeritus÷Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Ltd
.

Mrs. Mary C. Sanford (Maizie) comes from a family with a long-standing background in Maui agriculture. Her grandfather, H.A. Baldwin, was head of the Maui Agricultural Co. and descendant of Protestant missionaries from New England in 1830. Her father, J. Walter Cameron, was head of Maui Pineapple Co., Ltd. Maizie graduated from Dana Hall School in 1948, and Smith College in 1952. Maizie has served on the Board of Maui Land & Pineapple Co. for 25 years, and is currently Director Emeritus. Additional board service includes: Haleakala Ranch Co., and these non-profit organizations: J. Walter Cameron Center, Fred Baldwin Memorial Foundation, Hawaiian Mission Childrenâs Society, and the Gorilla Foundation. Currently Maizie writes two columns for the Maui Newsâ monthly employee newsletter and is also writing a bi-monthly column in the Maui News for its centennial year. The Maui News was a family-owned daily, founded in 1900. It was sold in February 2000 to Ogden Newspapers, West Virginia.

Maizie has made possible the donation of 70 acres of land from Maui Land & Pineapple Co. for the Gorilla Foundation's Maui Ape Preserve (MAP). This gift is made in memory of her son, Allan G. Sanford, and the MAP Sanctuary is dedicated to Mr. Sanford.
Michael Crichton
Author, FilmMaker ...


After graduating from the Harvard Medical School, Michael Crichton embarked on a career as a writer and filmmaker. Called "the father of the techno-thriller," his novels include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, and Timeline. He has also written four books of non-fiction, including Five Patients, Travels, and Jasper Johns .

He has sold over 100 million books and his books have been translated into thirty languages and twelve have been made into films. He is also the creator of the television series ER. He is the only person to have had, at the same time, the number one book, the number one movie, and the number one TV show in the United States.

Always interested in computers, Crichton ran a software company, FilmTrack, which developed computer programs for motion picture production in the 1980s; for this pioneering work he won an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Technical Achievement Award in 1995. His film Westworld was the first feature film to employ computer-generated special effects.
Crichton has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America award for ER.
Larry Tesler Larry Tesler
Vice President of Engineering, Amazon.com

Larry Tesler is a vice president of Amazon.com, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. From 1997-2001, he was President of Stagecast Software, Inc., a children's educational software company. Previously, he served as Vice President and Chief Scientist of Apple Computer, where one of the research groups that he headed built a gorilla-proof computer for Koko. A graduate of Stanford University, Tesler conducted software research at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
Peter Roberts Peter Roberts
Vice President of Human Resources, Pioneer Electronics

Peter Roberts, Vice President of Human Resources for Office Depot and Viking International, has extensive experience in operations management and human resources in the corporate world. He has been in his present position since 1999 and is responsible for all Human Resources activities associated with the acquisition of Viking Office Products.
AVery Chumbley Avery B. Chumbley
Former Hawaii State Senator

Senator Chumbley has been a State Senator since 1994, representing the 6th District, South and East Maui-North Shore Kauai. In the Senate, he has served as the Vice President of the Hawaii State Senate, 1999 to present; Co-Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee, 1996 to present; State House 1992 to 1994; appointed Commissioner & Hawaii Steering Committee Member, Education Commission of the States (ECS); Directorate of Public Policies, World Sustainable Agriculture (WSAA); appointed Maui Representative, Hawaii State Board of Agriculture; appointed Maui Historic Commission. He is also President of the Wailuku Agribusiness Co., Inc. & General Manager at the Maui Tropical Plantation. Averyâs community involvement includes: President, Maui County Fair Association; Board Member, Maui Economic DeveloKoko.Orgpment Board; Board Member, Maui Visitors Bureau; Board Member, Maui Community Arts & Cultural Center; and Member, American Cancer Society
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Advisory Board
Ina K. Bendis,
M.D., J.D. Ph.D., M.S. (Management), F.C.L.M.
Specialist in Internal and Respiratory Medicine
Santa Clara, CA

Stewart Cheifet
Scientific Writer and Media Specialist
Former host of the award winning PBS series Computer Chronicles
Northern CA
Elizabeth S. Fry, Management Consultant, Nevada City, CA
Ruth B. Heller, Kentfield, CA
Barry Munitz, Los Angeles, CA
Ronald Reuther, Belvedere, CA
Michael Sack, Certified Public Accountant, San Francisco, CA
Phillip M. Shaw, Jr., Attorney at Law, San Francisco, CA
Jonathan Steel, Hampshire, England
James R. Wheeler, Oceano, CA
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Scientific Board
James R. Wheeler, Oceano, CA
Dr. H. S. Robert Glaser, Professor of Biology, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
Dr. Edward J. Maruska, Executive Director, Cincinnati Zoo
Dr. Peter G. Veit, Regional Director for Africa, Center for International Development and Environment, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Richard Wrangham, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MS
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