Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Administrative Board Members
Jim Benbow, current Board Chair, resides in Council District 2. Mr. Benbow is Associate Director of the Addictive Treatment Center at Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center. He has worked in the mental health and addictive treatment field for 30 years. The majority of his service has been with military veterans cared for by the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. He has several years of experience in the provision of treatment and social services for people with substance use and mental health disorders.
Pat Godfrey, current Vice-Chair, resides in Council District 7. Mr. Godfrey was the Senior Staff Coordinator for the Washington State Senate. Mr. Godfrey was an advisor and confidant to Senate Leadership for nearly nineteen years, retiring in 2001. He joined the Board due to the depth of his interest in and commitment to recovery programs stemming from his personal experience with the disease of alcoholism. He has been sober for twenty-nine years and is active with alcohol and substance abuse recovery programs in the Federal Way area.
Linda Brown resides in Council District 4. Ms. Brown earned her Ph.D in Nursing from the University of Colorado. She worked as Research Scientist for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute-University of Washington from 1998 to 2003; as Research Assistant Professor, School of Nursing at the University of Washington in 1991-1998; and in nursing management positions at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics and Cedarcrest Regional Hospital in Connecticut. She has published in the areas of community and mental health, addiction, and program evaluation. She has spent 9-10 years doing program evaluation with public sectors programs including mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice programs for offenders. Ms. Brown served as KCASAAB Chair in 2002-2006. She is currently serving as Board Liaison to the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Oversight Committee (MIDD OC) and co-chaired the MIDD OC Prioritization Sub-committee.
Joan Clement, M.S.W., LICSW, resides in Council District 2. Ms. Clement has held supervisory positions in social work since 1980 at Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington Medical Center, and Veteran's Administration Medical Center. She has been an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine. Ms. Clement has also published several articles on emergency health services. She was the recipient of the1990 Outstanding Clinical Faculty Award from the University of Washington, Dept. of Psychiatry School of Medicine, and the recipient of the 1992 National Association Workers Knee/Whitman Lifetime Health/Mental Health Achievement Award. She has been on the King County Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Administrative Board since 1984. She served in various King County committees and task forces, which include Chronic Public Inebriate Task Force, Systems Integration Advisory Council, Human Services Roundtable Family Violence Work Group, Jail Psychiatric Services Task Force, and Mental Health Crisis Services Evaluation Task Force. Currently, she is the Social Work Supervisor for the HIV/AIDS program at Harborview Medical Center.
Mike Elsner resides in Council District 1. Mr. Elsner is a retired King County employee who worked for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Division for thirty-five years. Mike held a wide variety of positions throughout his career including detox van driver, counselor, treatment supervisor, program administrator, contract lead/supervisor, and program/project coordinator. Upon retirement he accepted a position on the board in order to continue to be involved in and influence the direction of services to the clients to whom he dedicated his entire work career – chronic, homeless substance abusers in particular. His other interests include gardening, woodworking, home repairs and remodeling, and being involved in the basketball program at Seattle Preparatory High School. He is married with two children, and one grandchild of whom he is quite proud and cares for two days a week. He also enjoys spending time and traveling with his wife, Jody, of 36 years.
Roger Goodman resides in Council District 6. Mr. Goodman is an attorney licensed in Washington and is an appointed member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Substance Abuse. Mr. Goodman served as senior staff in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1980s and 1990s in Washington D.C., and in the late 1990s he served in Olympia as Executive Director of the Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. In 2008, Mr. Goodman was re-elected to the Washington State House of Representatives from the 45th Legislative District. In addition to his current legislative position, he serves as Executive Director of the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers, working nationwide with bar associations on drug policy reforms.
Gina Grappone resides in Council District 4. Ms. Grappone earned her Bachelor of Arts in English (Honors) and Women’s Studies (summa cum laude) from the University of New Hampshire. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) Foundation. For over fifteen years Gina has worked extensively and collaboratively to improve services and systems affecting underserved populations, with a focus on women, children and young adults. She has held communications and policy positions within non-profit organizations and state government, including the offices of governors in Arizona and New Hampshire.
Mary Ann LaFazia resides in Council District 8. Ms. LaFazia has a master's degree in social work and has worked over 40 years in the public social services arena. This first 20 years were spend in child welfare services and the past 20 years in alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse treatment and prevention services. A major emphasis of her work in the substance abuse prevention and treatment arena has been in evaluation and research. She has been the project director for several major research and demonstration studies, including a perinatal treatment study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which evolved into the highly recognized MOMS Treatment Service. Ms. LaFazia's prevention work over the past fifteen years has been with multiple states and academic institutions to expand prevention research on the risk reduction and protection enhancement framework related to youth problem behaviors including substance abuse, violence, juvenile delinquency, school drop out, and teen pregnancy. Ms. LaFazia has demonstrated a commitment to "bridge research to practice" by incorporating the learning from multiple prevention research studies toward the development of the Washington State Substance Abuse Prevention System (2002). Upon retirement from state services in January 2003, Ms. LaFazia worked on the national level through contracts from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, providing technical assistance to states around substance abuse prevention issues.
Ruvin Munden resides in Council District 5. He graduated cum laude from Seattle University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration. As a recruiter he has done advocacy & community engagement for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound. He has served for the last 7 years as an Activities Coordinator for a local drug and alcohol recovery community center in North Seattle. He also worked with children incarcerated at Echo Glen WA State Juvenile Corrections Facility as a Group Format Coordinator, and as a Sobering Technician for Recovery Centers of King County's Sobering Center. Most currently he is an active Board Member for Youthcare in Seattle. He has a deep passion for social justice and child welfare issues, and believes where community and government intersect is a place where great change can happen.
Esther Osborne resides in Council District 4. She earned her MSW in Social Work from the University of Illinois in Chicago, and has worked in a wide variety of substance abuse and mental health settings since moving to Seattle in 1967. She was a Probation Counselor for King County Juvenile Court for five years, serving as consultant to two early Juvenile Diversion Boards. She is a former clinical director of the Community Mental Health and Alcoholism Clinic in Cordova, Alaska, serving this stricken community in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. She has worked with Native American, Alaskan Aleut, and Mexican Perapeche populations, and has extensive experience with addiction problems among homeless adults, delinquent youth, pregnant and parenting women, and medically indigent. Her recent experience has been with Project START and a youth program in south King County. She has been sober for 34 years, and currently volunteers with faith-based outreach programs.
Robyn Smith resides in Council District 8. She earned her AA Degree from Bellevue Community College in 1991 and completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Arts from Oregon State University in 1993. In 2004, she completed her Chemical Dependency Professional Certificate at Seattle Central Community College (Phi Theta Kappa). After graduation, she was accepted into the Masters in Socal Work Program at Eastern Washington University and graduated with her MSW in 2007. She is currently the Deputy Director for the Alcohol Drug Helpline and Teenline. Robyn began her social work career working with families and their children in foster care. This experience influenced her decision to become a state certified chemical dependency professional and has worked for the past 8 years in the field of prevention and treatment.
Sarah Swenson resides in Council District 2. After receiving her BA (honors) in English and German literature, she served as director of student services at Immaculate Heart College and worked as public affairs representative for Kaiser-Permanente in Los Angeles before moving to Seattle to raise her family. She served as a volunteer arts educator at the Seattle Art Museum for 11 years and filled many other volunteer positions related to her children's schools before returning to graduate school for an MA in Pastoral Counseling at Seattle University. During this three-year program, she interned for 18 months at Harborview Mental Health Services under the auspices of the Harborview Medical Center Department of Spiritual Care working as a therapist with clients with dual diagnoses of mental illness and alcohol or substance abuse issues.
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