Class of 2016

Tania Barber G'09

As the President and CEO of Caring Health Center, Tania Barber leads the only federally funded Community Health Center in the city of Springfield. The Caring Health Center offers primary care services; many research, prevention and education programs, including a Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program; interpreting services; and a Refugee Health Assessment Program, which serves the largest number of refugee and immigrant patients west of Boston.

Joining Caring Health Center in 1996, Tania worked in various roles. She began in switchboard operations and worked her way up the ladder and assumed her current role as President and CEO in 2013.

Under Tania’s leadership, the Health Center has increased its patient base from 14,000 to 18,000 with a goal of doubling to 28,000 patients in a five year period, and has increased staffing by over one hundred percent from 109 employees to 236 and growing. In addition, Tania has added new programs and services such as the pharmacy, behavioral health, substance abuse programming, and most recently urgent care.
Recognized as a compassionate Servant Leader, Tania serves as a full-time pastor and founder of Living Water Church, Inc., in Springfield. She sits on several boards including the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, the Regional Employment Board, Health New England, and Mission Church Ministries.

Tania earned a Bachelor of Administration degree in Organizational Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the University Without Walls program, and a Master of Business Administration degree in Entrepreneurial Thinking and Innovative Practices from Bay Path University.

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Robyn Glaser

Robyn Glaser currently serves as Vice President of The Kraft Group. Reporting to Robert Kraft, chairman of The Kraft Group, and Jonathan Kraft, president of The Kraft Group, she evaluates and executes business and strategic opportunities for the various companies and divisions of the business.

Prior to joining The Kraft Group, Robyn served in a variety of business development and demand generation roles for digital media start-ups. In 1999, she accepted a position as Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs, New Media, at EMI Recorded Music in Los Angeles.

There, she negotiated and closed over 100 deals, formulated strategy and created digital initiatives and opportunities for EMI’s record label. In Los Angeles, Robyn was a member and on the Board of Directors, also serving on the Executive Committee and Finance Committee, for Women in Film, a non-profit founded to empower, promote and mentor women in the entertainment and media industries.

Upon her return to the Boston Area in 2003, Robyn became a business advisor to high net worth individuals seeking to support poverty intervention initiatives in Africa, and also provided business structure, financing, marketing and technology advice to a worldwide sports management company, whose clients included top major league baseball, national football league, and national basketball association talent, among others.

In 2007, Robyn accepted a position with the Kraft Group as Vice President and Senior Advisor. In this role, she serves as a business and legal advisor to the Kraft Family, and oversees the business operations of Kraft Sports Productions, the Kraft-owned multimedia production company and television studio. Robyn is also Club Counsel for the New England Patriots, supporting player personnel and football operations, and representing ownership and the club in National Football League matters.

Robyn holds both a Juris Doctorate and an MBA from the School of Law and The John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Veronika Scott

Veronika Scott is the founder and CEO of The Empowerment Plan, an organization that began around a single idea: to design a coat specifically for the homeless.

Six years ago, Veronika Scott accepted a challenge from her college professor to "fill a need" in Detroit. An art student, Veronika found her inspiration on the streets. In 2010, she created a coat that is self-heated, waterproof, and transforms into a sleeping bag at night. She called it the EMPWR coat.

That idea has now been transformed into a system in which homeless women are paid to learn how to produce coats for people living on the streets, giving them an opportunity to earn money, find a place to live, and gain back their independence for themselves and their families. Veronika calls it The Empowerment Plan. Currently employing over 20 people, mostly single mothers, The Empowerment Plan provides free GED and financial-literacy classes and offers micro-loans to those who qualify. Nearly all the employees eventually move into permanent housing, and some go on to jobs in the auto industry and construction.

Since 2012, the group has made and distributed more than 15,000 free coats for the homeless nationwide and around the world.

Her efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Veronika is the youngest recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the JFK Library Foundation and Harvard University. She has received an IDEA Gold Award from the Industrial Design Society of America and has an honorary PhD of Humane Letters from Johnson State College.

Veronika has been named one of CNN’s Ten Visionary Women in the World and is the winner of the 2014 DVF People’s Voice Award. She has also been named a 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. In 2016, Veronika was selected and profiled as a CNN Hero. The Empowerment Plan story has been told across the world and shared at events such as the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit with Oprah Winfrey, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett.