American Society of Interior Designers Foundation

BJ Peterson, FASID
Chair

Peterson is a partner in Peterson Arce Design Group, with offices in Los Angeles. Peterson is a longtime leader in ASID, and has held offices at both the Society and chapter levels. She was Society president in 1993 – 1994 and Los Angeles chapter president in 1989. A strong believer in volunteerism, Peterson was responsible for designing a major space at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, a project that received a 100 Points of Light award from former President Bush. She also was chairman of the Ronald McDonald House Project and now serves as president of its board of trustees.

Odette Lueck, FASID
Chair-elect

Lueck is owner and principal designer of Odette Lueck Interiors. Her projects include both residential and commercial installations. Lueck has worked as facilitator and director of training for Honeywell in their Anso Fiber division, instructor for education-works, inc., and as an adjunct professor of interior design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She also developed the CEU standard for ASID and was instrumental in the successful licensing efforts in Maryland and Washington, D.C. She has been chair of many ASID committees, task forces and councils as well as a competition judge in numerous national design awards and is past President of the ASID Washington Metro Chapter and a past member of the ASID Board of Directors.

Penny Bonda, FASID, LEED AP

Bonda works in the field of environmental communications and is a prominent writer and lecturer. As the eco editor of Interior Design magazine, she is a monthly contributor to their online resource, “The Green Zone.” Bonda is the founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council committee for LEED Commercial Interiors. She is chair of the ASID Sustainable Design Council, a former Society president and an ASID fellow. Bonda also serves on the Council for Interior Design Accreditation Standards Council, Antron Sustainability Advisory Council, Greenguard Advisory Council and USGBC’s LEED training faculty. She authored Creating Sustainable Interiors, a monograph for NCIDQ, and has written a book on sustainable design to be published by John Wiley & Sons.

Judy Pickett, FASID

Pickett is principal and founder of Design Lines, Ltd., in Raleigh, N.C. A longtime leader in ASID, Pickett was honored with an ASID fellowship in 2005. She was a member of the ASID Board of Directors, chair of the ASID Education Council and co-chair of the ASID Communications and Knowledge Resources Advisory Council. Pickett also has worn a variety of leadership hats for the ASID Carolinas Chapter, including serving as president. An advocate for professional interior design legislation, she was chair of the ASID Legislative Task Force, chair of the National Legislative Coalition for Interior Design and president of the North Carolina State Legislative Coalition.

Outside of ASID, Pickett currently is a member of the Council for Interior Design Accreditation Evaluation Committee and is its site visitor chair. She is a member of the Meredith College Advisory Board and a member of the Existing Building Committee of the North Carolina Building Code Council. Pickett received her bachelor’s degree in interior design from Florida State University.

Barbara Schlattman, FASID

Schlattman is principal of Houston-based Barbara Schlattman Interiors. She has designed commercial and residential interiors for more than 30 years. Schlattman has received numerous design awards and her projects have been featured in numerous publications, including Contemporary Stone Designs, Kitchens and Baths, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She is a sought-after public speaker on interior design issues. Schlattman is an ASID fellow. She is a former member of the Society’s board of directors, leadership task force committee and national development council, and is a past president of the ASID Texas Gulf Coast Chapter.

Teresa K. Sowell, ASID

Sowell is a principal facilities engineer for Raytheon Missile Systems, and has been employed at the company since 1999. Prior to Raytheon, Sowell was a consulting designer to the country's fifth largest architectural firm and a planner for facilities design and construction at a major university. Sowell has been a leader in ASID and other professional organizations. She is a former member of the ASID Board of Directors, president of the ASID Arizona South Chapter, member of the International Facility Management Association and a certified Six Sigma Specialist. She has received numerous design awards, achievement accolades for outstanding job performance, and has been published in various design related journals and textbooks. Sowell graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona in Tucson with a bachelor’s degree in interior design.

Ray C. Anderson
Member at Large

Anderson is chairman, CEO and founder of Interface, Inc., one of the largest producers of commercial floorcoverings headquartered in Atlanta. In 1996, he received the inaugural Millennium Award from Global Green and was recognized as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southeast Region. A year later, Anderson was appointed co-chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, which advises the White House on environmental policy. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

James P. Cramer, Hon. AIA, Hon. IIDA, CAE
Member at Large

Cramer is the Chairman and Principal of the Greenway Group, Inc. He is also an acclaimed lecturer, author of four books and editor of DesignIntelligence and Almanac of Architecture & Design. Along with being the founding co-chairman of the Washington, DC based think tank, The Design Futures Council, Cramer has served as CEO of The American Institute of Architects and as the former President and CEO of the American Architectural Foundation and publisher of Architecture magazine. He was also the co-founder of the National Design Council and a Director of the national Society of Architectural Historians.

A recipient of over eighty awards and honors, he received the University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Service Medal and received honors from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, the International Interior Design Association and others. Cramer is a Richard Upjohn Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and a Fellow of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI).

Nila R. Leiserowitz, FASID, Associate AIA
Member at Large

Leiserowitz is managing director for Gensler in Santa Monica, Calif. She joined Gensler in 1996 and was charged with leading the workplace practice in Santa Monica and rebuilding the practice in one of the company’s oldest offices. She expanded Gensler’s corporate client base to include a variety of business ranging from the entertainment industry to the financial sector. Gensler’s clients include Disney, Yahoo!, DreamWorks SKG, Herbalife, WPP, Universal Consumer Products Group, EnCana, Deloitte & Touche, Western Asset Management and Foothill Capital.

In 1989, Leiserowitz joined Perkins+Will as a vice president, leading the Chicago interiors practice and after a year, led the interiors practice firmwide. After being with Perkins+Will for two years, Leiserowitz was asked to serve on the company board—the first interior designer and woman on the board in the firm’s 65-year history. Prior to that, she started her own firm Wheeler Hilderbrandt, with Gary Wheeler, FASID, FIIDA, Associate AIA. The firm won a number of AIA, IBD and ASID design awards.

Steven Sonet, Esq.
Member at large

Sonet is a partner in the New York law firm of Levy, Sonet & Siegel, LLP. In addition to serving as the legal counsel to ASID, his firm represents numerous interior designers, industry sources, product designers, architects and fashion designers. Sonet previously was a faculty member at the New York School of Interior Design, where he taught business and legal practices. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Northwestern University in Chicago, and his juris doctorate from the Boston University School of Law.

Gary E. Wheeler, FASID, Associate AIA
Member at large

Wheeler is the director of workplace Europe with Gensler London. He began his career as co-founder of the Wheeler Group in 1978. When Perkins & Will acquired the company in 1996, he became national director of interiors and later managing partner of the firm’s headquarters office in Chicago. Among numerous other professional and design awards, Wheeler was inducted in the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame in 2000 and received the Architecture Alumnus of the Year and the Alumnus of the Year awards from his alma mater, Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, La. He was named ASID Designer of Distinction in 1999, is an ASID fellow and was Society president in 1994 – 1995.

Jerrold M. Sonet, Esq., Hon. FASID
Emeritus Trustees

Jerrold M. Sonet, a graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard Law School, has been regularly engaged in the practice of law for over fifty years.
For a large part of his legal career, Mr. Sonet specialized in representing various aspects of the design industry, inclusive of practicing interior designers, practicing product designers, practicing fashion designers, and the various firms that produce furniture, fabric, accessories and other merchandise utilized by interior designers in their regular practice, or who utilize the services of product designers in the design and creation of their products.
Mr. Sonet was the legal architect for the consolidation which joined the American Institute of Designers and the National Society of Interior Designers into one organization, which has been known since 1975 as the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). Mr. Sonet served as General Counsel for ASID until 1997, at which point his law partner, Alan M. Siegel, succeeded him in such position.
Prior thereto, Mr. Sonet served on the committees of the professional organizations which created NCIDQ and FIDER, and he was the draftsman of the original Certificate of Incorporation of NCIDQ as well as FIDER's original Indenture of Trust.
By reason of his long representation of the late Angelo Donghia, who was successfully engaged in all aspects of the design business, Mr. Sonet was selected by Mr. Donghia to operate the Foundation created by Mr. Donghia for the benefit of interior design education. The Foundation, which became active in 2001, has made substantial grants to various interior design schools, to design organizations, inclusive of the ASID Education Foundation, and FIDER, now known as the Council for Interior Design Accreditation, and to winners of a competitive national scholarship program for interior design students which the Foundation conducts on an annual basis.
Mr. Sonet is an honorary Fellow of ASID, and has received major recognition for his work from many entities.

Norman Polsky, Hon. FASID
Emeritus Trustees

Michael Alin, Hon. FASID
Executive Director, ASID

Jack Pruitt Jr.
Development Director