Hon. R. Benjamin Cohen
President
Ben has been a resident of Maplewood since 1947. In 1962 he graduated from Columbia High School, where he met his future wife, Joan. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1966) and Rutgers School of Law (1969). After law school he served for one year as a staff attorney for Essex County Legal Services, then for seven years as an Assistant Essex County Prosecutor, where he was the Chief of the Appellate Section, then for four years as the General Counsel of the New Jersey Casino Commission. Thereafter he was appointed as a Judge and served in the Superior Court of New Jersey for 25 years. After retiring from the bench in 2006, Ben has served as Of Counsel to the Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer law firm for six years and then for the Parker Ibrahim & Berg law firm for the last ten years, where he has concentrated on Mediation.
Joan and Ben have two children, Amy (a teacher, who has moved back to Maplewood after living in Costa Rica for 18 years and Dan (a television producer, who lives in South Orange), and five grandchildren. They all love Maplewood.
Ellen M. Davenport
Treasurer
Ellen and her husband moved to Maplewood as newly-weds in 1968. They have two children, Donald and Susan, and six grandchildren. Ellen served as an interim-appointed Essex County Freeholder in 1988. She served on the Maplewood Township Committee from 1990 – 2001. She was Mayor of Maplewood from 1994-1997. Ellen worked as Supervisor of the Bills and then Secretary of the New Jersey Senate under Governor Richard J. Codey. Ellen was a member of the Board of Trustees of Family Connections for fourteen years, serving as President for three years. She is a member of the Maplewood Village Alliance and serves as Director of Dickens Village. Ellen retired as Secretary of the New Jersey Senate. She is the Treasurer of the Maplewood Memorial Library Foundation.
EVA BACON
Eva is a Program Manager at Google in New York where she works in Corporate Engineering. She is also a member of the advisory board of the Digital Workplace Experience. But her first love is reading. Before joining Google she worked as a literary scout for international publishing houses and still translates the occasional novel from her native German into English. She grew up in the Frankfurt area and graduated from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. She and her husband discovered Maplewood in 2016 and moved here from Brooklyn within two months of their first visit, joined by their little daughter and two cats.
Rowland Bennett
Mr. Bennett worked in libraries in high school, college and Peace Corps (Malawi, Africa). He holds a professional library degree from Case Western Reserve University and a second master’s from Princeton Theological Seminary. After several years as asst. director of Princeton Public Library, Mr. Bennett moved to Maplewood in 1974 to become Library Director. He looks back on the computerization project as the highpoint of his career, at which time both Main and Hilton Branch were fully computerized. At the same time, working with librarian Barbara Laub, floorplans were improved and custom furniture was installed at both buildings. He retired in 2003.
After retirement he was elected by a wide margin to the SO-M Board of Education. He served as president of the board for a transition year during a change of superintendents and subsequently was elected to two more regular terms, nine years total. He also served the community as a trustee of the CHS Scholarship Fund, was a long-time member of the Durand-Hedden House and Garden board, and remains a longtime Maplewood Garden Club member even though he now lives in suburban Philadelphia.
Jonathan Brudner
Jon Brudner is Director of U.S. Music Sales at Future PLC, a global publisher of brands including Guitar World and TechRadar. Jon graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a double major in English and Journalism. Moving to Maplewood in 2018, Jon, his wife Emily, an attorney and their two children love calling Maplewood home.
Diane Haase
Born and raised in New York, Diane moved with her husband Mark to Maplewood in 1995 where her son Max and daughter Ali joined the party in 1996 and 1999. In 2003, Diane retired from Neville, Rodie and Shaw, a long standing NYC investment management firm. She had worked there since graduating from Barnard in 1983, (the last ten years spent as principal and portfolio manager). The ensuing and current life chapter have been filled with volunteer work of all kinds, tennis and paddle, 2 book clubs, travel, and writing. Diane joined the MMLF board in 2012 and has been working on communications, investments and fundraising ever since.
ROGENE JACQUETTE
Rogene is an editor in the Standards Department of The New York Times, where she has served in a variety of editorial roles since joining the newsroom in 2007.
She grew up in metro Detroit and graduated from University of Michigan where she had a wonderful work-study job stacking books at the business school library. Her love of libraries and the knowledge they hold helped steer her early career as a research editor and writer for Gale Research in Detroit and then to work in book publishing in New York and then to journalism.
Before joining The Times, Rogene was an assistant managing editor at Facts On File World News Digest and a coordinating producer at ABCNEWS.com.
She and her husband, Lawrence, moved to Maplewood from Brooklyn with their daughter, Claire, in 2019; their chocolate lab, Buster, joined the family shortly after.
They looked at one house and spent an afternoon exploring the town. Finding a park, a bookstore and a library - right in the heart of town - they knew this would be home.
ROBERT A. LADD
Robert is an attorney who works for Novartis as Vice President, Global Head of Ethics, Risk & Compliance, Oncology. He is a senior legal advisor with diverse operational, transactional and compliance experience at one of the world's leading global corporations. Prior to that he had been General Counsel at G.E. Healthcare Partners. He has also worked for Pfizer and Goldman Sachs. Robert received his J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and holds an M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Economics, both from North Carolina State University. Robert served for many years on the Library Board.
Jody Lipsky
Jody Lipsky works as Director of Operations at Nastasi Architects in Hoboken. Prior to joining the Nastasi team she worked as Senior Director of Operations for Limited Brands. Jody was born and raised in New York. Looking for a place to put down roots, she discovered Maplewood and knew right away she had found her new home. Jody and her daughter Emma moved to Maplewood in 2000 and from the very start knew they’d found their community.
Jody is a passionate advocate for the power of inclusive community. She has been a member of the Family Connections Board of Trustees for 11 years, serving as Board President for 3 years. She also chaired the Development Committee for many years, and was instrumental in the creation of the board DEI committee.
Akshatha Gopal Shetty
Akshatha is a Staff Solutions Architect for TuneIn Inc. She has previously led the Solutions Engineering Team at Spotify. Her educational background includes an MBA from Bangalore, India and she worked for Yahoo before relocating to New Jersey in 2014.
Despite a limited selection of, and access to free books growing up in India, Akshatha developed a love of reading at an early age. Her childhood memories of being enthralled by fiction but frustrated by one book-per-week checkout at her school, have fueled her desire and enthusiasm to serve her local library—especially one like Maplewood’s that strives to be accessible to all children. Akshatha currently lives in Maplewood with her husband, daughter and two cats.
Advisory Board
Pamela Erens
Ian Grodman
Carmen Lawrence
Leigh Slaton Mumford
Deryck Palmer
Richard Roper
Kevin Sheridan
Ellen Zimiles
Jonah Zimiles