Vice President of the Board of Directors
Beverly Chantalle McManus
Beverly serves as Vice President of the Board for Open to Hope. She has over 25 years of experience as a marketing executive, and has edited and co-written numerous books and articles. After the death of her husband, she began focusing on grief and bereavement support, and for the past 16 years has been a bereavement facilitator and frequent speaker and writer on the topic of loss and grief.
Secretary of the Board of Directors
Christina Gallagher Nelson
Christina Gallagher Nelson is Secretary of the Board of Directors and heads the Legal Committee for the Open to Hope. She is a partner with Greene Radovsky Maloney Share and Hennigh, LLP, a San Francisco law firm specializing in estate planning, trust/probate administration, commercial and transactional expertise. Tina is a member of the American, California, and San Francisco Bar Associations and a former director of the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation. She is a liaison representative and active member of the USF Law Assembly and previously has served on the Board of Governors of the University of San Francisco School of Law. Tina graduated with a B.S. from the University of New Mexico, and J.D. with honors from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she was Editor of the the USF Law Review. Tina periodically conducts seminars on estate planning at the request of the University of San Francisco and government agencies.
Christopher G. Gamble, CPA, CFP
Chris serves as Treasurer of the Board for Open to Hope. He is a partner at RDG + Partners CPAs, PLLC
located in Pittsford, New York, a public accounting firm that provides assurance, tax, consulting,
outsourced accounting, payroll, benefits consulting and wealth advisory services. Chris is a Co-managing
Partner and Senior Partner in the Tax Department at RDG and is responsible for the development of
strategies to assist closely-held businesses and high net-worth individuals manage their income and
estate taxes. Chris has previously served on the Finance Council of Blessed Sacrament Church
(Rochester, NY) and was Treasurer of the Rochester Rotary Charitable Trusts from 2004 through 2016.
Karla Wheeler
Karla Wheeler co-heads the Public Relations & Marketing Committee for the Open to Hope. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she is Founder and President of Quality of Life Publishing Co., a national publishing firm specializing in grief support books and a growing number of publications to help hospices provide their multidisciplinary care. Quality of Life is the publisher of the physician newsletter, Quality of Life Matters; and booklets for families, “When Death Is Near: A Caregiver’s Guide;” and “When You Are Grieving: A Guide to Understanding Loss.” Karla is the author of grief support books for adults and children and bereavement columns for newspapers and magazines across North America. Several of Karla’s family members have experienced a “good death,” thanks to hospice, including her 54-year-old husband. Following his death, their daughter Jenny wrote a teen-to-teen book, Weird Is Normal When Teenagers Grieve.Karla and Jenny enjoy bringing their messages of hope as a mother-daughter team traveling nationwide, speaking at professional grief conferences and to community groups. A longtime hospice volunteer in Southwest Florida, Karla has visited with hundreds of dying patients, providing bereavement follow-up care to grieving families.
Ken Ross
Ken Ross, son of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, is the founder of the EKR Foundation (2006) and President (2006-2013 & 2018-Present). He also served on the board of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Center from 1989-2005. Ken was the principal care provider for his mother in the last 9 years of her life until her passing in 2004.
His responsibilities include handling over 80 publishers of Dr. Kübler-Ross’ work in 43 languages, public relations, copyright & trademark issues, developing international Kübler-Ross chapters, developing strategic partnerships, as well as preserving her archives. While growing up, he traveled with her extensively while on her numerous foreign trips witnessing her lectures and workshops. Ken has lectured on his mother’s legacy for hospices and various conferences in South America, Asia, and Europe. There are several film projects that Ken is currently a consultant on including a major motion picture, a television series and various documentaries, both foreign and domestic.
Rick Haskins
Rick Haskins is the Executive Vice President, Marketing and Brand Strategy for The CW, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corporation. Prior to joining The CW, Rick served as Executive Vice President/General Manager for Lifetime television.Previously, Rick helmed his own marketing consulting company, The Haskins Group, from 1996-99. He held a variety of positions for The Walt Disney Company from 1988-96, including Vice President, Marketing, Buena Vista Television and Director of Development, Reality Programming. From 1982-88, Rick was a brand manager with Procter & Gamble. A published author, Haskins co-wrote Brand Yourself in 2000. A graduate of Utah State University, Haskins has a bachelor of science in psychology.