Meet Our New Board Members

We’re proud to introduce three new board members and one new member of our advisory board. As you know, a strong, committed board is crucial to a non-profit organization like ours. It’s hard not to crow over the talents and range of skills these new members bring to helping us shape the future. A special thanks to Chuck Ashman, our Chief Marketing Director, for his guidance.

Brian Tippens

Brian Tippens is Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer with global responsibilities at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. There, he has pioneered a veteran’s hiring initiative at HP throughout Silicon Valley. Tippens has been honored by the Latino Coalition, the Disabled Veterans Alliance, the SBA and the Small Business Development Center. In his current capacity, he is the point person for his company’s efforts to hire more veterans and secure supplier opportunities as well.

Carole Bionda

Carole Bionda is General Counsel and Vice President of the Nova Group, a leading provider of underground construction for the Department of Defense in the United States and internationally. She is one of a handful of women having been selected for the Construction Industry Hall of Fame. She has been honored by the Disabled Veterans Alliance, Veteran Matchmaking and the Small Business Development Centers. A frequent speaker at corporate events, her message is “hire vets not just because it is the right thing to do but it is the business-smart thing to do.” Her comment at a major Veteran event hosted by the City of San Francisco has become a message nationally. “If someone can help build a bridge in heavy combat in Iraq, how tough is it for him to work in Santa Barbara, California?”

Don Gonneville

Colonel Don Gonneville (US Army-Ret) is a highly decorated former Ranger, Special Forces and Airborne Viet Nam disabled veteran. A recipient of the Bronze Star, he was an instructor at West Point and the U.S. Army Airborne liaison with the French Army. He is the past president of the Disabled Veterans Business Alliance and one of the craftsmen of federal and state laws providing business benefits to disabled vets. He is active as CEO of Gonneville, Inc. a machinery distributor serving several federal agencies and California departments.

Dr. Joe Franklin

A new member of our advisory board is Dr. Joe Franklin, director of the technology and psychopathology lab (TAP lab) at Florida State University. The TAP lab’s mission is “to ignite large- scale reductions in mental illness by harmonizing advances in technology with advances in psychology.” No stranger to veterans’ issues, Franklin was the co-investigator for the Military Suicide Research Consortium Grant from the US Department of Defense in 2015 – 2016. In 2016, he was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science. Joe’s work has been supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, among others.