About Us
Youthline America’s operation is a mix of staff, consultants and partnerships.
Youthline America maintains a small staff in its national office in order to provide efficient and quality service to our partners and clients. We work with consultants throughout the United States that are renowned in their fields.
Youthline America’s Board of Directors is made up of visionaries and veterans in the youth development field and beyond.
Youthline America’s products, developed by its personnel and partnerships allow us to be a human connection in a digital world.
Robert Newman
The Chairman of the Board is Robert Newman.
Mr. Newman is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for AmeriDream, one of the first nonprofit organizations to pioneer providing down payment assistance to low-and-moderate income individuals and families to help them become homeowners.
Mr. Newman has 20 years of senior management and leadership experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, including the areas of strategic planning, customer service, financial management, information technology, organization development, human resources, facilities management and grant management.
Mr. Newman has also served as Vice-President and Associate Director of the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research with the Academy for Educational Development. He has a broad range of experience on issues ranging from recreation to budgeting, from space to transportation policies. He worked with donor agencies, foundations, organizations, as well as state and local governments around the country to promote youth development initiatives. He has worked with more than 30 jurisdictions to implement YouthMapping and Youthline, programs.
Mr. Newman also served as Director of the Office of the Department of Recreation and Parks for the District of Columbia. Mr. Newman was responsible for providing quality leisure services in safe and well-maintained facilities and was charged with improving customer service, promoting greater innovation, and championing public private partnerships to better meet the needs of working parents and their children.
Mr. Newman also served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services in New York City from 1990 to 1994. He was responsible for a $70 million budget, which saw a 100% increase during his tenure.
Carla Sanger
Carla Sanger also serves on the Board. She is the President and Chief Executive Officer of LA’s BEST (Better Educated Students for Tomorrow) After School Enrichment Program. Mrs. Sanger, has been a specialist in children’s education policy and advocacy for more than 39 years in the public and private sectors. Over the course of her career, she has been a public school teacher, curriculum writer, supervisor of day care services for the state of New Jersey, Executive Director of LA Child Care & Development Council, President of the California Children’s Council and co-chair of the California State Department of Education Task Force on School Readiness.
Ms. Sanger co-founded a K-12 school (Nuevo Colegio Bilingue Larchmont) in Bogotá, Colombia in 1969, which is still active today with 300 students.
Ms. Sanger has been a longtime activist on various community boards of directors, which have included the California Women’s Law Center, United Way Metro Region, Child & Family Services, Highland Hall School, Northridge Knights Youth Sports League, Getty House Children’s Committee and Dolores Mission Women’s Cooperative. Nationally recognized in the field of after school programs, she serves on numerous after school quality and evaluation advisory committees and task forces for the US Department of Education, the State of California and the County of Los Angeles. Most recently, she was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California State Advisory Committee on Before and After School Programs. She has also been appointed by the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction to several task forces, including the Title I Committee of Practitioners, as well as by Los Angeles Mayors James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa to the LA President’s Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance.
She has been a featured speaker and conference presenter for numerous school districts throughout California, keynote speaker for the California State Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education and countless community-based after school organizations throughout the United States. She holds a B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.Ed. from Goucher College.
Robert F. Sherman, Ph.D.
Robert F. Sherman, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger.
The Action Center to End World Hunger is a cornerstone of Mercy Corps’ Global Engagement Initiative, which seeks to dramatically alter the way young Americans think about the world and their role within it. This Initiative also encompasses the Global Citizen Corps, a network of thousands of high school students in the U.S. who run awareness-raising campaigns around issues like the global AIDS epidemic and lack of access to education.
For 14 years, Sherman was the founding program director for Effective Citizenry at the Surdna Foundation in New York City. The program supports efforts that help young people participate meaningfully in shaping civic and community life. The Effective Citizenry program funds youth organizing, youth media, policy development and a range of youth development strategies which promote individual growth and social change.
Prior to this tenure at Surdna, Sherman was Executive Director of the Increase the Peace Volunteer Corps, a city-wide, grassroots race relations initiative sponsored by the Office of the Mayor in New York City. For four earlier years he directed the Community Relations Institute.
Isaac Lee
Isaac Lee is the Editor-in-Chief of Page One Media, a company he founded in 2005. Prior to founding Page One, Lee was editor-in-chief of Zoom Media Group, publishers of PODER and LOFT magazines, two titles he developed and founded in 2001.
Lee has been a magazine editor for over a decade. At the age of 25, he was named editor-in-chief of the oldest magazine in Latin America and at 26 of Semana, Colombia’s most prestigious news magazine. While at Grupo Semana, Lee launched several new titles, including the highly successful men’s lifestyle magazine SoHo.
Lee came to Miami from his native Colombia in 2000, to found Zoom Media Group. In 2005, after founding Page One Media, Lee bought PODER and LOFT magazines and relaunched PODER in a joint venture with Editorial Televisa earlier this year. Besides the U.S., PODER has editions in Colombia, and also in Mexico where it is known as PODER Y Negocios. The magazine targets affluent decision makers in its respective markets.
PODER has a partnership with The Economist through which it is authorized to publish that magazine’s content. PODER also hosts an annual forum in partnership with Georgetown and Columbia universities, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the City of Miami, and Kissinger McLarty Associates. Forum participants have included President of Colombia, Alvarop Uribe Velez, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, Editor in Chief of the Economist Bill Emmott among others. The magazine also produces the PODER Business Awards with the Boston Consulting Group.
LOFT won the Folio Award for Best Lifestyle Magazine and an Award for Best Design from the Florida Publishing Association. PODER won the Freedom of Press Award from IAPA.
Lee has a Master’s degree in Journalism and postgraduate studies in Publishing, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Stanford and Harvard Universities.
He is a member of the Georgetown Leadership Seminar, Foro Iberoamerica, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the IAPA. He serves on the board of Paraiso Pictures, a company dedicated to producing movies for the U.S. Hispanic market.
Richard Murphy
Youthline America is helmed by Richard Murphy, an innovator with over thirty years experience in youth development work. Richard is the founding director of the Rheedlen Center for Children and Families, now known as Harlem’s Children Zone and served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Youth Services from 1990-1994. During that period, New York City made an investment of $40 million new dollars to create Beacon schools and Youthline.
After his time in New York City government, Richard served as the Director of the AED Center for Youth Development and Policy Research. Richard led the Center in the creation of Community Youth Mapping, a model that has been replicated in over 100 localities and four countries.
James Logan, Esq.
James Logan is the Project Director for Youthline America. James oversees daily operations at Youthline and manages partner and consultant relations.
Prior to his work with Youthline, James worked as a Community Development/Tax Attorney working primarily with low-income individuals and nonprofits. He has participated in the creation and maintenance of numerous nonprofits and community businesses. James has also devoted significant time to youth causes and campaigns throughout New York City.
He is a graduate of Loyola College in Maryland and Fordham Law School.