IFDA Educational Foundation Names 2018 Board of Trustees

Furniture World News Desk on 11/22/2017

The Educational Foundation of the International Furnishings and Design Association recently announced its 2018 Board of Trustees, selected to oversee and administer $28,000 in annual design-related scholarships and grants.

Caroline Baer Rogow (of IFDA's Florida Chapter), the Foundation's current Vice-Chair/ Treasurer, becomes the 2018 Chairman. An IFDA member since 2008, she assumed multiple roles on her chapter board before becoming president in 2014. Earlier, after studying architectural design at the Royal College of Art, London, she shifted her focus to interior design while attending the University of California, Berkeley. During a design career spanning nearly four decades, Caroline has created spaces for clients in the U.S. and abroad—in Nova Scotia and Europe. Her expertise embraces textile design and the inventive use of color. "My goal," she says, "has been to make any space I touch 'sing.'"

Joining the board as Vice-Chair/Treasurer is Merry Mabbett Dean, FIFDA (of the former Texas Chapter), whose career in interior furnishings spans some 35 years. After two decades of managing a showroom before opening her own, Statements, Inc., in Salt Lake City, Utah, she formed a consulting firm—to assist owners and managers of new design start-ups—and also began teaching part-time at the Art Institute of Portland, Oregon. In 2008, she and her husband, John Dean, established an office-furniture company, Absolute Office of Oregon. Her IFDA membership began in 1986. After serving as International President in 1994, Merry was named to the EF board, for the first time, in 2010 as Director of Scholarships and Grants.

Karen Dzendolet (New England Chapter) joins the EF board as Director of Scholarships and Grants, overseeing the awarding of funds to deserving and highly motivated design students and professionals. A graduate of the Masters of Interior Design Program at Suffolk University-New England School or Art and Design, she heads her own firm, KDZ Designs, in Pelham, Massachusetts. A longtime member of IFDA's New England Chapter, Karen has served repeatedly on its board and led the chapter as president. Early this year, she won EF's Valerie Moran Memorial Grant, enabling her to visit and ultimately report on historic 20th-century properties in New England and New York.

Returning to the foundation board in 2018 will be Linda Hunt (Richmond Chapter) as Past Chair/Advisor; Dede Radford, FIFDA (Arizona Chapter), Director of Resources; Shirley Ebert (Carolinas Chapter), Financial Manager; Earline Feldman (also Carolinas Chapter), Website Manager; and Mervyn Kaufman, FIFDA (New York Chapter), Director of Communications. For details and news about next year's EF DesignEDGE event in Las Vegas, plus all scholarship and grant application deadlines, see www.ifdaef-org.