Marti LaTour

Vice President

Marti M. LaTour is Director of Marketing for The A.I.D. Group an independent financial advisory firm, and a limited partner of BELLE Capital, LP, a women’s angel fund that invests in women owned or run start-up companies.

Marti previously served as a Vice President Wealth Advisor at BMO Private Bank and as a Vice President and Financial Advisor at Bernstein Global Wealth Management. Marti carries Series 7 and 66 licenses. Prior to the financial industry, Marti worked for PepsiCo as one of six business-unit sales directors in the US responsible for net sales of $346 million, and directed 15 key account managers throughout the Southeast. Prior to that, she was Vice President of the Florida Division of PepsiAmericas, where she directed a 640-person sales operation and was a founding member of the firm’s Diversity Advisory Council. Marti received both a BA in business and marketing (with high honors) and an MBA with a concentration in finance, business and marketing from Lewis University. While there, she earned the Academic Excellence Award and was a member of the University Honor Organization and the Gamma Chi chapter of the Delta Epsilon Sigma national scholastic honor society.

Caroline Harless

Secretary

Caroline Harless is an entrepreneurial executive with more than 25 years of experience in the management of accounting and financial services companies. Ms. Harless began her career as a Bank Examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank.



Currently, Ms. Harless is a General Partner of Harless & Associates, CPAs with offices in West Palm Beach and Tequesta/Jupiter, Florida, where she is responsible for the firm’s marketing, practice development, financial operations and human resources. She supervises the firm’s Accounting and Family Office services and oversees operations of the Tequesta office. She holds Series 7, 24, 63 and 53 securities licenses and has been a member of Financial Planning Association since 1992.

Ms. Harless is currently a nominee Director to the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce to commence May 2019. She serves on the Corporate Partners Executive Committee and Education Committees of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, West Palm Beach, and on the Advisory Board of Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. of Atlanta.

Blake G. Betheil

Treasurer

Blake is an estate planning and tax attorney. He has been practicing law in Palm Beach County, Florida since 2013. Prior to joining the Florida Bar, Blake practiced law in New York City. His law practice is multifaceted, as he has advised clients on inter-generational transfers of wealth, charitable giving, incorporating and transferring of closely held business interests, asset protection planning, probate planning, and forming and obtaining tax-exempt status for charitable organizations. International estate planning for multinational families is a particular focus of his practice. Blake takes immense pleasure in assisting clients with setting up asset structures to protect and preserve wealth, reduce tax burdens, and provide for smooth transitions as family and business dynamics change so that clients can have peace of mind.

Blake graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School. While at Vanderbilt, he served as a Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review and received the Editor’s Award for his contributions to the journal. Blake also holds a Taxation LL.M. from New York University School of Law, which is a specialized degree for expertise in tax law. He was a contributing author to a civil rights report of the New York State Bar Association titled "Steps Towards a More Inclusive New York and America".

Karen Cosmos

In 1970 I entered the travel industry working in Michigan. I continued to work for American Airlines and the Detroit Red Wings and then owned my own agency for ten years. I also taught travel but missed working one-on-one with individual clients. Wanting to travel to my second home in Florida in the winter I decided to leave the brick-and-mortar business model and work from my home. This resulted in “Elena’s Getaways.” My passion for travel has extended forty years, having the opportunity to travel, experiencing the cultural and excitement of the world. Through my many years, it has given me the chance to travel, tasting the food, seeing amazing sights, and enjoying the people.

However, my major was in art, with a degree in graphic design from the College of Creative Studies. I worked in freelance design for a few years, but my goal was to work in glass,. A conflict in class time between the design studio and glass class delayed my goal. In 2018 while traveling to Florida I stopped in Beckley, West Virginia and went to Tamarack where I had a chance to try my hand at glass blowing. I then attended Benzianten Center for Creative Arts to continue with classes. I also worked out of Michigan Hot Glass in the North. Besides studying glass blowing, I am also taking up fusing and glass bead making. The latter will help provide products for my jewelry design business.

Steve Funk

My wife and I became interested in glass art for our home. We started visiting glass retailers and art shows and subsequently created a large and substantial collection. I eventually decided to learn glass blowing and was a student of the Pilchuck Glass School. I have studied in Murano and also taken classes at various glass studios during my career. For the last 13 years I have been a trustee for Pilchuck Glass School. I create my glass art at the Benzaiten Art Center in Lake Worth, Florida.

Vice President of Manufacturing with oversight of 11 upholstered furniture manufacturing facilities in 3 states with weekly average production of 10,000 pieces. Primary customers were Sears and Montgomery Ward. Our firm became the 10th largest upholstery company in the United States. Primary responsibilities included operations, product development, plant management, and maintaining relationships with key suppliers. Incorporated “just in time” concepts to purchasing, manufacturing and delivery.

Julie Kime

Palm Beach State College alumna Julie Kime has dedicated herself to those in need, giving back to local organizations, supporting equity, diversity and at-risk youth, as well as providing resources and access to education. She knows firsthand the meaning of leveling the playing field through education and broadening opportunity. As a mentor, philanthropist and scholarship donor, she has established the Julie Kime Hispanic Women Scholarship at Palm Beach State College. For her contributions to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County, she was nominated to the prestigious Jeremiah Milbank Society. Since 1987 she has served on their Corporate Board of Trustees. When the new club in Wellington opened eight years ago, a generous donation from Kime and her husband, John, supported its construction. Their name is proudly displayed at the Welcome Center.

Stephanie Pew

I've been coming to Florida since 1975 and became a resident in 1984. I’ve spent fifteen years sailing with my husband of forty-five years.  I've always been interested in art, sports & gardening. That is why I found myself in short order serving on such boards like the MacArthur Beach State Park, The Nature Foundation, Mounts Botanical Garden and The Mary & Robert Pew Education Foundation. I learned how to blow glass at the Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts about six years ago in the elusive pursuit of creating the perfect goblet or any goblet for that matter!  Before my sojourn into glassblowing I was a stone craver. I am excited about serving on the Benzaiten board because I've been a real part of the center from it's inception. I also love golf, biking, hiking and traveling.

Bill Roebel

- Emeritus

Bill has been a professional Insurance Agent for over forty years. He was the President and founder of INSURIT, INC and INSURIT GROUP employing 15 insurance professionals in an Independent Insurance Agency. An active entrepreneur, Mr. Roebel has also formed, owned, and run other successful retail, manufacturing, and real estate businesses. As investor and manager, his other successful business interests have included Roebel Properties, Ltd., Three Rivers Beauty Supply, Wedgewood Development Corp., B & R Properties, LLP, R & B Properties, LLP, Ruffalo-Benson (equity investment group), Newell Industrial, LLC, Orland Duck Club, LLP (200 acre Wildlife Habitat), and W & R Realty, LLP.



During his insurance career he served in varisous board capacities with the Independent Insurance Agents Association and the Professional Insurance Agents Association, as well as serving on the Agent's Advisory Boards of Secura Insurance Company, Monroe Guaranty Insurance Company, American States and others.

Ken Rogers

Ken has spent his business career in the packaging field, in sales and marketing, both domestically and internationally. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an engineering degree in 1960. He began as a territory sales manager for Hudson Pulp and Paper Corporation, followed by subsequent positions as Vice President of Sales for Gulf States Paper Corporation, Trinity Paper and Plastics and Devon Tape Corporation. Joining the Intertape Polymer Group as Vice President of Sales in 1989. He also served as President of the IFCO Division, Director of the Portuguese Film Operation, FIBOPE, and Vice President of International Sales. Ken maintains a strong support role in Community Arts.

Rob Stern

Over his 28 year career in glass, Rob Stern has risen to the top of the field. From 1990-95 he trained at John Lewis Glass factory in Oakland, Calif., and has advanced degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of Miami. Stern has traveled, lived, and studied extensively in numerous countries, and has worked with the most accomplished glass artists and masters throughout the world. He trained to be a master in the Czech Republic where, in the glass factory Ajeto of Master Petr Novotny, he continues to design and execute monumental site-specific sculptures.



Stern has participated in and led numerous workshops worldwide and travels annually to teach and serve as a gaffer at the most prominent institutions for glass – Pilchuck Glass School (Wash.), Penland School of Crafts (N.C.), Bildwerk, (Frauenau Germany), and The Glass Furnace (Turkey). He was a professor at the University of Miami Glass program from 1997-2004 and was most recently a visiting professor at the Glass Department University of Texas, Arlington for 2010. Since 2004, Stern has operated his own studio in the Wynnwood Arts District of Miami where he and his team create and execute all aspects from design to production and installation. He is frequently hired to work as a master craftsman to execute the designs of some of world’s leading artists.

John Sullivan

John has a passion for glass work and began working with glass artists in Cleveland. He has been coming to the Benzaiten Center for the Creative Arts for four winter seasons, to continue pursuing his love of flameworking. He teaches classes to patrons who have expressed an interest in learning. 

John’s business career started in 1975 in sales and marketing while working for his father’s chemical distribution company. He and his brother began developing a replacement for a raw material, asbestos fiber, utilizing wastepaper, and created a company, Interfibe. In 2008 they sold the company. 

John has provided, time, talent, and treasure to Malachi House in Cleveland Ohio for over twenty years, whose mission is providing a home to those individuals who are in the later stages of life without an available caregiver. He has served in every capacity on the Board including event chairman. He has also served on a nonprofit Board in Delray Beach.

Suzy Brodie Vogler

Suzy has 30 years of philanthropic experience running her family foundation, Willow Springs Charitable Trust Foundation. She has an extensive background in philanthropy supporting numerous foundations in the San Francisco area, upstate New York and Palm Beach County.

Suzy is currently Vice President of the Board of Trustees of Suffield Academy, Suffield Connecticut, a private day/boarding school and has been on the board for the past 12 years. She has served on the following committees: Development, Marketing & Communications, Long Range Planning and Maintenance & Construction. She also has a long history of serving on various educational boards in San Francisco.

Suzy is from the mid-west, receiving her BA of Fine Arts from California College of Arts & Crafts from Oakland California in 1982. She and her husband Bill live in Ballenisles, Palm Beach Gardens, FL. When they are not in Florida, they reside at their homes in San Francisco and the Northern Catskill’s of New York.

Steven Alan Tendrich was one of Benzaiten's Founding Members along with his wife, JoAnne Berkow. Steve was a native Floridian and a major developer in Palm Beach County helping to create such projects as PGA National, Ibis, and Devonshire. As our Board Treasurer, Steve was very active in all aspects of the Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts. He was a very generous and enthusiastic supporter who tried to attend every event we ever had. He especially loved watching the glassblowers and even brought his own comfortable, canvas chair so he could sit for hours waiting until the bitter end to see the pieces developed in their entirety. Because of his generous pledge to the center of $100,000 our 5,000sf 'Hot Shop' will be officially named in honor of the Tendrich Family Foundation. Steve will be missed by us all.

Anita Holmes

Chief Executive Officer

Anita has broad and diverse experience in nonprofit leadership and management in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin Counties. She has a long volunteer and professional history of advancing nonprofits in our local community for over 25 years. Her specialties include innovative fundraising, creative program development, strategic planning, relationship building, corporate and community partnerships, public relations, and cause marketing.

In leadership roles as the Vice President of the American Heart Association and the Executive Director of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the American Cancer Society, Anita forged partnerships with foundations and partnered with over 30 local nonprofits to develop programs that benefitted the health and well-being of people in South Florida. She has also established close ties with area businesses and organizations to increase revenue, support, and awareness of these nonprofit organizations, their special events and community programs.

Charles Contessa

Executive Director

Charles Contessa was born in Garden City, N. Y. and spent his childhood on the Jersey Shore. He has been a long-time resident of Palm Beach County, was graduated from Florida Atlantic University and began his career in public accounting. After several years, he evolved into the hospitality industry. He has managed hotels in Palm Beach, South Beach and Palm Beach Gardens - including 18 years at what is now the Doubletree on PGA Boulevard.

In 1999, Charles was recruited by Clubcorp, Inc. and was introduced to private club management. Then most notably, he managed the Governor’s Club atop the Phillips Point building in West Palm Beach. While there, Charles initiated a series of monthly fundraising luncheons that continued until the club closed eight years later. Charles stayed involved in the charitable community by serving on the Strategic Planning Committee at Lourdes Noreen McKeen Senior Residence facility. He also acted as their First Chair of Fundraising luncheons. Charles has served on the Board of the Center of Family Services; he was Treasurer and is now Vice President of the Palm Beach Flagler Rotary; and he is President of the Palm Beach Black Tie Club.

Creative Director

Eli Cecil born in Frederick, MD earned his B.F.A. from Salisbury University in 2012. Much of Cecil’s work orbits the dialogue of a conscious and sustainable future. His sculpture reflects on the balancing act between humanity and nature. Many of the themes are a narrative about growth, causality and the legacy left from one generation to the next. In 2018 the Imagine Museum recognized Cecil with the “Artist of the Future Award.” This same year the Duncan McClellan Gallery presented him with an “Emerging Artist Residency” in St. Petersburg Florida. Cecil was also a speaker and presenter at the Glass Art Society National Conference “Charting a Course to the Future” in 2019. He is currently the ‘Creative Director’ at the Benzaiten Creative Arts Center in Lake Worth, Florida.

Administrative Assistant

Deborah comes to us from the world of technical theatre. After a career at venues spanning from Burt Reynold’s Dinner Theatre in Jupiter to the Caldwell Theatre in Boca and The Crest Theater at Old School Square in Delray Beach. While working for The Crest Theatre she also started working for the Creative Arts School at Old School Square where she became the school’s Coordinator and assistant to the school’s Director. Deborah is excited to join the Benzaiten Center as Administrative Assistant and learn more about the world of glass.

Director of Repairs and Commissions

David attended the New Orleans School of Glasswork and graduated in 2002. He continued his education at the Haystack School for Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine until he finished and went to study in Istanbul, Turkey at the Glass Furnace in 2004. After his studies in Turkey he continued his education at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. In 2006 he finished his education at Tulane University in New Orleans. In the winter of 2004, he was Assistant for Giles Bettison at Wet Dog Glass in New Orleans. During his studies, he became the Assistant for Anthony Shaefermeyer at the Energy Exchange in Ashville, NC. After he completed his studies he became the Head Glassblower at Tulsa Glassworks in Tulsa, OK.

Manager of Fusing Studio

Camille Perrin is a multimedia artist and has worked in warm glass for over 25 years. Her past teaching experience includes the positiion of Manager of the Warm Glass Department at the Armory Center in West Palm Beach and instructor at Fused In Glass in Boynton Beach. Her education and background includes jewelry design, surface design and textiles. “Glass offers more soul and character than anything else I have ever worked with; after 20 minutes in a glass studio many years ago I knew I had found my voice.”

Manager of Flameworking & Glass Casting Studios

Graduate of The California Collage of the Arts Jose Ugas returned to his home city of Miami, FL and continued his practice focusing on topics of transition and displacement. With a background in sculpture/casting and studying under contemporary glass sculptor Clifford Rainey, Ugas’s influences from ritual, street art, and cultural discourse greatly inform his work today. Using glass and other mediums Ugas creates a visual narrative connecting generations. Working now along side The Benzaiten Center for the Creative Arts as it’s casting studio manager and Robert Stern’s studio assistant.

Manager of Metal Working Studio

Meeting Steve is quite an experience as few people have his talent, ingenuity and values. He is a third generation iron worker with a strong work ethic. One of the skills he professes to be most proud of is that he learned to weld at about eight years of age to help his disabled grandfather repair farm equipment on his farm in Ashland, Ohio. Realizing that creating works of art in metal was his passion, eventually, he obtained a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Institute of Art where he studied for two years while working part time as an apprentice in a jewelry factory. Wanting to return to Ohio, he worked to obtain scholarships for the last three years of his education at Columbus College of Art and Design. During this time he realized that sculpture was his passion and working with iron and other natural products were his future. Steve continued his education and gained great experience while working at Fortin Iron Works in Columbus, Ohio. There he worked with men who really knew their craft and were willing to share their knowledge.

He gained extensive experience making gates, fences and furniture and after a few years felt he was ready to go out on his own. That was ten years ago and Steve says he has never looked back. He is proud of the fact that, while working on his own, he is able to produce one-of-a-kind pieces, which are designed custom for his clients. In the ten years since he started his business he has hand produced more than 3,000 unique pieces. His work is displayed in 24 different states and 4 countries at the present time and he hopes to expand even further.