Our board is made up of volunteers who attend monthly meetings, participate in numerous committees, volunteer at events, and promote the preservation of the Loring Greenough House. Members of the Board are:
Diane W. Spears – Co-President
Diane Spears is a retired family law attorney and a longtime resident of Jamaica Plain. Volunteer service has been an important part of her life, including two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, where she and her husband, John, organized a citywide math program where no cohesive plan existed. Diane has substantial experience serving on boards of charitable organizations, including chairing committees, creating innovative programs, and serving as president. As president of the Board of Directors of the Jamaica Plain Tuesday Club from 2015 to the present, she is involved in many activities, but especially enjoys participating in landscape endeavors, the wreath-making fund-raiser, and financial tasks. Diane has a B.S. in accounting from Grove City College and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School. She also holds a graduate certificate in Conflict Resolution from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Carol Garfield – Co-President
Carol Garfield has been a longtime Jamaica Plain Tuesday Club member and Loring Greenough House supporter, following in the footsteps of her mother, Nora Fletcher. She is a member of the Development and Program committees. Carol enjoys being involved with many events at the House, including Thursdays on the Lawn, the Holiday open house and Halloween candy distribution. Carol grew up in Jamaica Plain, then spent 15 years living in Peabody, Mass. While there, she was active in the Peabody Garden Club, planning programs and becoming its president. Carol worked in the computer industry for more than 34 years, in positions ranging from consulting to sales executive. Having returned to Jamaica Plain in 2000, she is a supporter of The Footlight Club, Eliot School, and JP Local First. Carol lives in the Pondside area with her husband, Steve, and both are Social Media Travelers, through which companies, brands, and destinations send them on trips to then publicly share experiences via social media. Carol has a BS in business administration from Northeastern University.
Lorie Komlyn – Vice President
Lorie Komlyn has been involved with the JPTC/Loring Greenough House since August 2014. She serves as co-chair of the House Committee, and is a member of the Program, Development, and Enterprise committees. Lorie holds an A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis, a J.D. degree from Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, and a Master of Studies in Building History from the University of Cambridge (UK), where her dissertation studied and categorized the multifunctional opera houses of New England constructed between 1875-1910. She has completed the Program in New England Studies, and the Preservation Philosophies and Practice course, through Historic New England. Her professional career has included serving as judicial clerk for Judge Tierney of the Superior Court of Connecticut, Dean for Admission and Placement at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and the director of admission for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is currently the director of College Counseling at the International School of Boston. She is a member of the California and Connecticut state bar associations, as well as the First District Court of Appeals, the Ninth District Court of Appeals, and the Federal District Court for the District of Northern California.
Jonathan Brush – Treasurer
Jonathan Brush is a retired clinical psychologist who grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Earlham College and Boston University. He lived in Newton for 30 years and moved to Jamaica Plain 11 years ago, where he has enjoyed the social life and community immensely. Wanting to contribute and become engaged locally, he sought an enthusiastic group of people focused on an interesting project. For him, the Loring Greenough House provides both. Jonathan has been thrilled to learn more about the people who lived here, and to help enhance the structure while maintaining its historic fabric. Jonathan serves on the House Committee, the Board of Directors, and as Treasurer. He looks forward to continuing his involvement for years to come.
Nancy Leask – Clerk
Nancy Leask grew up in southern Connecticut and the rural suburbs west of Boston. She attended the University of Minnesota, where she ended up falling in love with the open vistas, cold temperatures and clean air of the northern Midwestern plains. She returned to the Boston area just in time to experience the blizzard of 1978 and settle into Somerville. She landed in Roslindale in 1998, where she purchased a 1906 two-family house with a friend. She has worked with Ray Dunetz Landscape Architecture in Jamaica Plain for the last 15 years. Over the years, she discovered that she loves old houses. She has been volunteering with Roslindale Green and Clean for over 10 years, which is a valuable garden club resource in Roslindale that has helped her learn and gain an appreciation for hardy, urban-tolerant plants. Fast forwarding to her volunteer work in the gardens of the Loring Greenough House starting in 2008, she later became involved with the Landscape committee at the house, which led to her eventually becoming a board member in 2012. With her history as a landscape architect, she has assisted with many of the landscape improvement projects over the last 10 years at LGH. Nancy serves on the Finance and Landscape committees, and has been involved with the Holiday Open House for a number of years.
Maya Baca
Maya Baca has served as co-chair of the Collections Committee since February 2019. She is passionate about preserving and interpreting history for the purpose of public engagement. Looking to use her historical research and museum studies skills while supporting her local community, Maya became involved with the Loring Greenough House in June 2018. Some of her training includes work in collections, historical interpretation, and the design and production of exhibitions. Maya also holds a bachelor’s in history and a master’s in theory and history of international relations.
Rhea Becker
Rhea Becker, a longtime journalist, served as president of the Jamaica Plain Historical Society for many years, launching the Society’s walking tour series, which has been running for more than 25 years. She is the owner of a home organizing business called The Clutter Queen. She worked for many years as editor of The Harvard University Gazette, and then as editor of the Emerson College magazine, also managing the college’s social media efforts. A longtime journalist with extensive writing and editing experience, she has worked for People magazine, The Harvard University Gazette, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, and other media. For six years, she managed her own blog — The Boomer Chronicles. Becker also holds a part-time position with a Boston-based nonprofit called Culture Reframed overseeing communications and marketing. She graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and from Emerson College with a master’s in integrated marketing. Rhea moved to Jamaica Plain in 1994 and lives around the corner from the Loring Greenough House.
Dorothy Clark
Dorothy Clark grew up in Boston and has lived in Jamaica Plain since 1985. Her love of old houses became a passion for historic preservation when she joined the group of Brookline and JP residents who fought to save the Pinebank Mansion on Jamaica Pond. Although the group’s efforts were not successful, Dorothy discovered that she wanted to be involved with the stewardship of historical and cultural resources. Answering a call for docents in June 2013, Dorothy made her way over to the Loring Greenough House with two goals in mind: to supplement her studies in the historic preservation master’s degree program at Boston Architectural College and to volunteer for a longtime Jamaica Plain institution. Serving as a docent led to joining the House Management Committee. In January 2016, Dorothy became co-chair of the Education Committee. Also in January 2016, Dorothy was awarded a Master of Design Studies in Historic Preservation. Dorothy also holds a master’s degree in American history and a bachelor’s degree in journalism/English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A full-time journalist in her previous career, Dorothy worked for the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald for more than two decades as a copy editor, and wrote feature stories as well as music and book reviews. She currently works as editorial services manager at Historic New England and is editor of Historic New England magazine.
James Doane
James Doane was raised in the Boston neighborhoods of Dorchester and Roslindale. He attended public and parochial schools in Boston. After a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Coast Guard, he went to work in the healthcare industry in Boston. James has a B.S in accounting from Boston College. His accounting work has been mostly in the healthcare industry, with a few years working for the Archdiocese of Boston. Lately, he has done contract work in higher education. Though he was aware of the house and the connection to the Doane Family as a kid, his first visit was in 1997. James has been a docent at LGH for the past three years. He is interested in the preservation of the house as an asset to the Boston community, and communicating the story of the house and its inhabitants as it relates to the wider history of Boston and the Atlantic World. James has been a member of the Doane Family Association (DFA) for over 40 years. He is a member of the DFA Investment Committee and is chair of the Doane Family Foundation. His other interests include flirting with the Gaelic language and teaching boxing. James lives in Milton with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter Judith.
Michael Epp
Michael Epp and his wife, Gayle, have been next-door neighbors to the House since 1980. Michael is an architect noted for the design of the South Station Bus Facility, Charles/MGH Station, and Green Line Extension stations. He has been a strong supporter of the LGH lawn programs and landscape improvements, loving how the Loring Greenough House has become the symbol of the new Jamaica Plain. Very active in JP activities, Michael has served on JP Centre/South Street Main Streets, where he has been a board member, and as a design committee member and former chair. This committee is responsible for the oversight and design review of over 30 retail storefronts on the Centre/South Streets corridor. Michael initiated the Centre/South “Vision” Master Planning initiative, which the city funded and has started phased construction of the proposed improvements. Additionally, Michael was a member of the 39 Bus Route Improvement Group and the Casey Arborway Public Review Committee. He was a pro-bono advisor to the Footlight Club from 1982-2005, developing a renovation master plan and designing and constructing new bathrooms, using mostly volunteer labor. He also serves on the board of the Sumner Hill Association and serves on City Councilmen Matt O’Malley’s Jamaica Plain Leadership Group, a group of 30 JP activists assembled to help understand the community’s viewpoint on a range of topics. Michael is a graduate of the University of Nebraska School of Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Michael was elected to The College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects in 2017.
Sharon Kong-Perring
Sharon Kong-Perring is a Southern California transplant to Boston. Sharon is a PhD student in Cultural Studies at Birmingham City University, studying the intersection between East Asia and “the west.” She holds her Bachelor of Arts Degree in history and anthropology from Chapman University in Orange, Calif., a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of Oklahoma, and a Certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University. Sharon has worked in a number of New England museums and historic sites such as the Paul Revere House and the Peabody Essex Museum, as well as trained at the Smithsonian and Victoria and Albert Museums. Currently, Sharon is the Collections Manager and Interpretation Manager for Revolutionary Spaces, the organization that stewards the Old South Meeting House and the Old State House. In this capacity, Sharon is responsible for the curatorial vision of the two sites. At the Loring Greenough House, Sharon chairs the Programs and Collections committees, is a weekend docent, and sits on the Board of Directors. If she’s not at work or at the LGH, Sharon enjoys traveling (Iceland and Istanbul are among her favorites), ardently listening to K-Pop, and spending time with her husband, Mark, and their two cats, Twyla and Lottie, and golden retriever who-think-she’s-a-human, Maggie.
Vincent Longo
Vin Longo has lived in Jamaica Plain for 20 years and has been a supporter of the Loring Greenough House for much of that time. He has a B.A. from the University of Rhode Island, majoring in journalism and theatre arts. He worked in health care for 32 years, and has also owned and managed an antiques gallery in Millbrook, N.Y. He became a volunteer on the collections committee at the LGH two years ago, and soon after became a docent. He has also worked on the planning and installation of the display case exhibits. Vin has had a lifelong passion for history, antiques, and early architecture, with a focus on the decorative and visual arts of the 18th and 19th centuries in England and America. He is interested in expanding the interpretive organization of the rooms and objects in the Loring Greenough House, to better tell the stories of its inhabitants and the worlds in which they lived.
Edward Stanley
Ed Stanley currently serves as co-chair of the House Committee. A longtime resident of Jamaica Plain, he has been a Loring Greenough House member since 2003. Ed served as vice president from 2008 to 2011 and president from 2011 to 2013. He is an accredited appraiser of fine art and antiques as well as a Jamaica Plain realtor specializing in historic homes. Ed holds a B.A. from Bates College, an M.B.A from the University of Connecticut and an M.A in historic preservation from Boston University. In addition, he is a graduate in appraisal studies in art and antiques from the Rhode Island School of Design. Ed brings an array of skills, enthusiasm, and commitment to his volunteer service, making valuable contributions to the preservation of the Loring Greenough House.