Board Members and Officers

Thomas J. Spulak, Chair/President

Thomas J. Spulak is with the Washington, D.C. law firm of King + Spalding LLP. Prior to joining King + Spalding LLP he was a partner at the law firm of Shaw Pittman. He was Staff Director and General Counsel of the House Rules Committee, serving most of that time under the chairmanship of Claude Pepper. His previous government experience included serving as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Florida Senate Congressional Apportionment Committee and District Representative for Congressman Pepper in his Miami office. Mr. Spulak received a B.A. from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, and his J.D. from the Florida State University College of Law. Mr. Spulak is a member of the Florida and D.C. Bars. Mr. Spulak is also a Director of the Hospice Foundation.

John T. (Tom) Herndon

See bio below

Irene Hudak, Executive Vice President

Irene Hudak was Controller/Campaign Treasurer for Senator Pepper. She managed both his professional and personal finances for many years and until the time of his death. Mrs. Hudak received her M.B.A. from Northwestern University. She is a member of the National Association of Legal Administrators, the National Association of Hospital Administrators, the National Society of Tax Professionals, and the National Society of Professional Women. She has received awards for her charity work as a foster parent for Catholic Service Bureau. Mrs. Hudak is listed in the Whos Who and Why of Successful Florida Women.

Branson Willis

Branson Willis is the son of Sarah Pepper Willis and the nephew of Claude Pepper. Mr . Willis is an Investment Counselor formally with Josephthal, Lyon and Ross and AG Edwards. He now owns Branson Willis Investment Counseling. He is a Certified Business and Personal Tax Preparer and a graduate of Florida State University. He is a U.S. Air Force, Stategic Air Command, Viet Nam vetran and was a member of the first B-52 Combat Wing in Air Force history. Mr. Willis is married to the former Rosemary Margaret Musso of Long Island N.Y. for 32 years and he and Peggy have two children, Daniel and Caroline. Daniel is a Firefighter/EMT with the Tallahassee Fire Department and Caroline is a junior in the College of Education at Florida State University. Mr. Willis is a member of the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee, Florida.

Monsignor William A. Kerr, Ph.D.

For biography, see staff page at the Claude Pepper Center.

Stephen R. MacNamara, J.D.

Stephen R. MacNamara, J.D. has worked with members of the U.S. House of Representatives and served as a Special Assistant to a U.S. Senator. He was also a Special Assistant to the Florida Senate in 1982, primarily involved in reapportionment and served for a short period in 1992 as the Federal Government's Florida expert in that area. Steve was appointed Secretary of the Department of Business Regulation under Governor Bob Martinez and succeeded Governor Lawton Chiles as the Director of the Collins Center for Public Policy. He served for three years as the Associate Dean of the Florida State University College of Law.

MacNamara was the General Counsel and Media Consultant to No Casinos, Inc., founding President of the Coalition for Family Safety and founding and immediate past president of the Florida Association of Health Plans. For eight years, he also assisted the Miami Herald in its annual ranking of the Florida Legislature. During the 1999 Legislative Session, he was asked to serve as the first Professor in Residence for the Florida House of Representatives and during the 2000 Session served in the position of Chief of Staff for the Florida House under Speaker John Thrasher.

MacNamara served as the Executive Director of the Claude Pepper Foundation and Claude Pepper Center in 2005 and 2006. He is currently an Associate Vice President in Academic Affairs at Florida State University as well as an Associate Professor of Communication where he specializes in mass media law issues and political communications and strategies.

James A. Brennan

James A. Brennan, Jr., is Chairman of the Board of Brennan Construction Corporation, a Florida corporation organized in 1940. As Chairman, Mr. Brennan did most of the general contracting work for Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. Mr. Brennan attended the University of Havana in Cuba. In 1963 Mr. Brennan was employed by the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. He later became the Honorary Vice Consul of the Republic of Panama and Executive Assistant to the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee until its Chairman, Claude Pepper, passed away in May 1989. Mr. Brennan is a former member of the Board of Directors of American Savings Loan Association of Florida; former Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Union Bank of Florida; and was also the Receiver for two Federal Judges. As a consultant to Brennan Realty, Inc., Mr. Brennan brings a wide range of experience dealing with the Federal, State and Local Governments.

Frances H. Campbell

Frances Campbell was Chief of Staff to Congressman Pepper for his final decade in office. She served asPresident of the Foundation from 1989 to 2004. She also served as Executive Director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University and was formerly the Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission in Washington, D.C. Ms. Campbell graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in Government. She did graduate work in Executive Management of Not-For-Profit Organizations at Florida State University. Ms. Campbell served as a Director of the Florida State University Foundation, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and Zonta is listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in The World.

Talbot (Sandy) D'Alemberte

Talbot Sandy D'Alemberte is an honors graduate of the University of Florida, class of 1961. He was chosen President of Florida State University in 1994 and also served as dean of the FSU College of Law from 1984 until 1989. President D'Alemberte is a past president of the American Bar Association and past president of the American Judicature Society. He served as a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 1966 until 1972, Chairman of the Florida Commission on Ethics (1974-1975), and Chairman of the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission (1977-1978). He is the author of The Florida State Constitution (Greenwood Press 1991). He has written on a wide variety of subjects, including free speech and legal ethics. He retired as president of FSU in 2002 after eight years.

Grace Cavert Nelson

Grace Nelson is a third-generation Floridian, born and raised in Jacksonville. She has been a full partner in the public service career of her husband, Bill Nelson, supporting him through his six terms in the U.S. House and now in the Senate. She has served as President of the International Club, which promotes worldwide friendship and understanding among women. For over fifteen years, she has been involved in the crusade to end hunger in the world. She was instrumental in initiating an effort to harvest 150 billion tons of crops not picked from American farms each year. She has worked with Farmshare, a food recovery program, to further the cause of complete harvesting in Florida's fields to end hunger for children. She and her husband initiated the Florida Student Leadership Forum, which distributes 46,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to the poor.

Tina Pepper
Heather Greenaway

Heather Greenaway became a board member of the Pepper Foundation in 2006. Currently, Heather is a vice president for OnPoint Advocacy, a public affairs grassroots firm in the Washington D.C. area. As vice president, Heather manages key local grasstops and earned media efforts, as well as provides strategic counsel and support to clients. Her years of experience in grassroots and earned media at the local levels provides an invaluable asset to OnPoint as they assist clients in making their voices heard in the places that matter.

Before joining OnPoint, Heather worked at Direct Impact, where she served as senior media manager and oversaw clients' local earned media campaigns nationwide. Prior to that, Greenaway served on the staff of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), where she managed all media correspondence and conducted press conferences across the state of Florida, as well as on Capitol Hill. She joined Senator Nelson's staff after years of grassroots and election-related campaign management in the state of Florida. Since moving to the Washington, D.C., area, Greenaway has continued to travel to Florida to manage media efforts for a variety of political campaigns.

Executive Director

John T. (Tom) Herndon

In a state government career that spanned 32 years, Tom Herndon served at the highest levels of management in Florida government including key positions in the Executive Branch, the Legislature and the Cabinet. A Florida native, Tom started his government career working as a child abuse counselor in his hometown of St. Petersburg. He ended his public service career as the Executive Director of the Florida State Board of Administration (FSBA), managing $125 billion dollars of the State's investments and pension fund assets.

The breadth of Tom's public service to Florida is truly unique in that no other senior state official has served in as many powerful and high profile positions for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Tom also enjoys the rare experience of having served as a senior official in all three aspects of Florida's fiscal system. His munique and intimate understanding of Florida's planning and budgeting process is unparalleled.

He has served on the Board of Directors of numerous national organizations including: National Association of State Budget Officers, Council of State Planning Agencies, National Association of State Tax Administrators, Council of Institutional Investors, National Association of State Investment Officers; and, was twice appointed by the NYSE to the Pension Manager's Advisory Board.

Board of Advisors