President Bush Appoints Members to the Board December 13, 2007
President Bush recently appointed three new members to the Access Board: John Gunnar Box of Corona, California, Ronald J. Gardner of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Neil K. Melick of West Palm Beach, Florida. The President also reappointed three current or former members: Douglas Anderson, of Wheaton, Illinois, James R. Harding II, of Tallahassee, Florida, and Gary L. Talbot of Foxboro, Massachusetts. |
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New John Gunnar Box, a native of Southern California, is founder of Colours ‘N Motion, Inc., a company that manufactures and customizes wheelchairs and wheelchair accessories. He has run the company as its president for the past 16 years. Previously, he organized and operated a family run aerospace company. Box sits on the boards of UNITY, a Corona youth organization, and the Los Amigos Research and Education Institute. |
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 Ronald J. Gardner of Bountiful, Utah is a blind attorney and has practiced law for over 25 years. His legal work includes serving as Legal Director of Utah's Disability Law Center, Senior Trial Attorney for the Office of Chief Counsel and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. He also served as Director of the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness in the graduate school at Louisiana Tech University and has taught Business Law as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University.He is President of the National Federation of the Blind of Utah. |
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Reappointed Members |
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 First appointed to the Board in 2003, Douglas Anderson, Associate AIA, is a Partner at LCM Architects in Chicago who assists both public and private entities in complying with the ADA. As an Accessibility Project Manager at the firm, he has advised various clients, including Fortune 500 companies, on meeting the design requirements of the ADA. Anderson previously was employed at the Great Lakes Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. |
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 Gary L. Talbot is Assistant General Manager for System-Wide Accessibility with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). He was named to his first term on the Board in 2003. Before joining MBTA in 2007, Talbot served as a Senior Engineer with Walt Disney World Ride and Show Engineering in Lake Buena Vista, Florida where he oversaw design and development of ride and attraction accessibility enhancements. He previously managed the General Motors Mobility Center in Warren, Michigan. |
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The new members, who will be sworn in at the Board’s next meeting, succeed Pamela Dorwarth of Sarasota, Florida, James J. Elekes, M.Ed, MPA/CPM of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, Denis Pratt, AIA of Kennebunk, Maine, and Gwendolyn Trujillo of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Board is structured to function as a coordinating body among Federal agencies and to directly represent the public. Half its members are representatives from most of the Federal departments. The other half is comprised of members of the public appointed by the President to four-year terms. |
Members 
Neil Melick, CBO, is Director of the Construction Services Department of the City of West Palm Beach, Florida. He is a Florida licensed Building Codes Administrator and International Certified Building Official, as well as a Florida Certified Building Contractor. He is Chair of the Florida Accessibility Advisory Council and is a member of the Florida Building Commission’s Accessibility Technical Advisory Committee. In addition, Melick has served as president of the Building Officials Association of Palm Beach County and chair of the Building Code Advisory Board of Palm Beach County. 
James R. (“J.R.”) Harding II, Ed.D., who previously served on the Board from 2002 to 2006, is employed by the Department of Education, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation as a Partnership Specialist for the Office of the Director. Dr. Harding is active in a variety of organizations and causes, including the Governor’s ADA Working Group, the Florida Building Commission Waiver Council, the Commission for Transportation Disadvantaged, the Citizens’ Advisory Council of Leon County, and the Chamber of Commerce.