Chau-ming Lee
Executive Director
Chau-ming Lee has been the Executive Director of the Asian American Civic Association since 1982. A graduate from the University of Hong Kong, Chau-ming Lee is currently a mayoral appointed member of the Boston Private Industry Council, a public-private partnership to create innovative workforce and education solutions for the City of Boston.
Sunny Schwartz
Chief Operating Officer
Sunny Schwartz has twelve years of experience in workforce development programs and planning and four years professional social work experience. She has served as AACA’s Chief Operating Officer for seven years, directing the agency’s workforce development programs and internal operations. Under her leadership, AACA has developed several new job training and job placement programs. Previously, she served as Program Development Manager at Commonwealth Corporation for five years. Sunny holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University and Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan.
Spencer Klein
Director of Finance
Spencer directs the Fiscal Dept., and provides leadership in financial planning, operations, and reporting for AACA. Before joining AACA, Spencer was Director of Operations for the Center for Workforce Innovation at Commonwealth Corporation. Prior to working at CommCorp, Spencer was Manager of Contracting and Finance at the New England Research Institutes. Between the two organizations, Spencer has gained over 18 years of knowledge and experience in Grants and Contracts Management and Sponsored Research Administration. A licensed attorney in Massachusetts and New York, Spencer holds a BFA and MFA, and a Juris Doctor from Suffolk University Law School.
Georgiana Tam
Office Manager
Georgiana Tam is the Office Manager of the Asian American Civic Association. A graduate from Hong Kong Polytechnic University majoring in office administration, Georgiana has worked for the Asian American Civic Association for more than twenty-five years. She is in charge of office management and personnel administration.
Kristan Camp
Program Manager
Kristan Camp’s career as an educator began over 10 years ago in Vermont where she worked with underprivileged and learning disabled youth in pre-school, elementary and secondary schools. Her experience as an AmeriCorps volunteer, teaching English to former refugees in Lowell, Massachusetts sparked her passion for English language teaching and social justice advocacy for immigrants. In 2005, after receiving a Masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and Applied Linguistics from St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, Kristan began teaching ESL at the Asian American Civic Association in Boston. Currently, she coordinates the agency’s volunteer program, manages two ESL programs, and teaches intermediate English to adult immigrants as part of the Next STEP Transitional English Program.
Gillian Burleson
Adult Education Coordinator
After starting her career working in Early Childhood Education, Gillian Burleson obtained her certificate to Teach English as a Foreign Language in 1995. She found her Linguistics degree from UMASS Boston helpful in transitioning to this field. She spent the late 1990′s teaching English in the former Soviet Union. In 2000, she returned to Boston and taught English at several private English language schools. Since 2002 she has taught ESOL to immigrant adults at Jewish Vocational Service, Concilio Hispano, and JFY Networks. She also won a yearlong contract to individually provide workplace ESOL training to employees at a research facility at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2007 she has been at AACA, first as a workplace education coordinator and instructor, and, since 2010 as the Adult Education Coordinator. In this role she supervises the Next Steps Transitional English Program and two Workplace Education programs: at Tufts Medical Center and South Cove Community Health Center, still teaching a few hours per week in the Tufts Med. Ctr. program. She is a member of the Massachusetts Coalition of Adult Education, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the Chinatown Community Education Partnership, and the Boston Adult Literacy Initiative.
Christopher Albrizio
Green Programs Director
As Green Programs Director, Chris is responsible for managing AACA’s two “green jobs” training programs, BEEMS and PACE, as well as supervising recruitment/outreach activities for AACA’s job training and ESL programs. Chris has been with AACA for five years, having previously worked as an Employment Specialist and Program Coordinator. Chris graduated from UMass Boston with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a program certificate in Asian American Studies.
Leslie Klein Pilder
Interim Director of Buds & Blossoms
Leslie has decades of experience in early childhood education including having been the director of a well-respected preschool in Manhattan. Leslie has an M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education, certification from The American Montessori Society, and many years working with teachers, parents, and students of early childhood education. She also has an M.A. in Adolescent Rites of Passage from New York University, where she worked for several years as a field facilitator in the Teaching for Success program, designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Head Start centers across New York City. Leslie has been an instructor at Empire College (SUNY) in both adolescent development and early childhood education.
