Board
Friends of Tucson Board Members
Gloria Avillar
Gloria was born in New Mexico and raised in Chihuaha, Mexico. She received a B.S. from the University of Arizona in business administration. She is a graduate of the Bryn Mawr Women’s Leadership Institute and is certified in Human Resources by IPMA and SHRM. She has been UA Assistant Dean of Libraries for Finance and Human Resources, Assistant Director of UA Facilities Management and City of Tucson H.R. Administrator for Education, Training and development.
Gloria is currently retired. Her passions include family and serving the Tucson community. She serves on the Boards of the Pima Community College Foundation, Jewish Family & Children’s Services and volunteers at the UA Chicano/Hispano Student Center. Gloria and her husband, Ted Earle, live in the Jefferson Park Neighborhood. Their children, Christopher, Erik and Dominique have a total of five.
William DuPont
Bill was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and is a descendant of Jose Ignacio Moraga, Commander of the Tucson Presidio in 1791. He received his B.A. from the University of Arizona in education and has a specialty in Special Education.
He has been in retail for over 40 years and has held a various managerial and training specialist positions in Southern Arizona.
His interests are his family, gardening, art, antiques, and travel. He has been a neighborhood advocate for over twenty years and neighborhood president for two decades. He currently serves on the Arizona State Liquor Board as the neighborhood representative.
Bill and his wife, Denise, live in historic Colonia Solana located in the center of Tucson known for the landmark Roy Place Water Tower and the riparian area known as Arroyo Chico. They have one child, Alexandra.
Diana Hadley
Diana recently retired from the University of Arizona, where she served as Associate Curator of Ethnohistory and director of the Arizona State Museum’s Office of Ethnohistorical Research, where she specialized in the translation and editing of Spanish historical documents.
With degrees in archaeology and history from Washington University and the University of Arizona, her work continued to focus on the history of land use and ecological change in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. A former rancher, she is currently writing a history of the cattle industry on the United States-Mexico border. She has co-authored several book-length ethnoecological land use histories for the Bureau of Land Management and the U. S. Forest Service, including studies of Aravaipa Canyon, the San Rafael Valley, the Bonita Creek area, the Arizona/New Mexico Borderlands area, and the upper San Pedro River watershed. She is co-editor of The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, 1700-1765 (University of Arizona Press, 1997). She participated in the citizen planning teams for the Mission San Agustín Master Plan (1991) and the Tucson Origins Plan (2001) and, as part of the WLB Group design team, wrote the historical overview for the Tucson Origins Heritage Park Master Plan (2003). She has served on the boards of the Center for Desert Archaeology, Native Seeds/SEARCH, the Research Ranch Foundation, the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, the Northern Jaguar Project, the Jewish History Museum, and as a commissioner on the Tucson Pima County Historical Commission. She has organized conferences on grassland restoration, Native American sacred sites, deforestation in the Sierra Madres, the ecology of the prairie dog, restoration of the Santa Cruz River, and chaired a conference on the Tucson Mission Garden (2006) which brought dozens of experts on Spanish Colonial agriculture and mission construction to Tucson.
Roger Pfeuffer
Roger was born and raised in Michigan and received a B.S. degree from the University of Michigan in 1965 in education. In 1969 he received an M.A. degree from SUNY-Brockport in educational administration. He has done post-masters work at both University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. He has been an educator since graduation and has taught or administered in Ann Arbor, MI, Ft. Defiance, AZ, Brockport, NY, Singapore, Vail, AZ and Tucson, AZ.
His passions are his family, travel, public education, photography and Tucson’s prehistory and history. Roger is on the Board of the Educational Enrichment Fund, the Pan-Asian Community Alliance and is vice-chair of Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace.
He lives in the Mercado District of Menlo Park near the base of A Mountain with his wife, Vera. Both are retired. They have three “children”: Adin-39; Joshua-35; and Bree-33
Raul Ramirez
Native Tucsonan, married for 40 years with three children. Graduate from University of Arizona with a Bachelors of Science and from Arizona State University with a Masters in Social Work. Completed post graduate studies at Brandeis University at the Heller School for Policy Analysis.
For the last 40 years, Raul has worked in clinical and juvenile correctional settings providing counseling services to high risk minority families and children.
Active in community affairs and has served on the Tucson Model Cities Advisory Committee, Arizona Board Chapter for NASW, San Agustin Parish Council, TUSD Desegregation Committee, Nostros Board of Directors, and Patronato de Kino Board.
He currently serves as Board Recording Secretary for Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace and Kino Heritage Society.
Kevin Dahl
Kevin Dahl
Kevin Dahl is Arizona Program Manager for National Parks Conservation Association, where he works on issues concerning the Arizona 25 units of the National Park Service, including such well-known parks as Grand Canyon and Saguaro. Prior to NPCA, Kevin was executive director of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a regional group that works to preserve the genetic diversity of Southwestern Native American crops. He was also executive director of the Tucson Audubon Society, and Natural Resources Superintendent for Pima County’s Parks and Recreation Department.
An alumnus of both the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, his interest in plants led him to obtain his degree in ethnobotany from Prescott College. Kevin is author of Wild Plants of the Sonoran Desert, published by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and Native Harvest: Authentic Southwestern Gardening, published by the Western National Parks Association.
Phil Hall
Phil is a native Tucsonan and mostly a life long resident. He earned his B.A. from Arizona State University in 1971 and his law degree from the University of Arizona in 1973. He has practiced law in Tucson and throughout Arizona ever since. He also serves as a Judge Pro Tem for the Pima County Superior Court.
Phil has traveled extensively throughout Southern Arizona and Mexico by foot, horseback, automobile, bus and train. He has had a lifelong interest in the history and culture of native gardens, foods and drink of the Southwest and Mexico. His spouse of 43 years, Anne-Marie, is a long time educator who currently directs the Writing Program at the University of Arizona. They have three children: Josh, Megan and Aaron and three grandchildren.
Katya Peterson
A native Tucsonan, Katya is passionate about our community: its history, its many cultures, its environment and its potential. She received a BA from the University of Arizona in French and Spanish literature. She studied at the UNAM in Mexico City, the Sorbonne, the Ecole de Sciences Politiques, and the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She received an MA in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. As an activist gardener in NYC, she volunteered with youth and immigrant families in community gardens on the Lower East Side. While working at Housing Conservation Coordinators in Hell’s Kitchen, she joined together with the Green Guerillas and the Trust for Public Land to coordinate a national campaign to permanently preserve the Clinton Community Garden. Eventually, Katya and her family migrated back to Tucson where she worked in school science program evaluations, historic property management and retail. Currently she is a joint owner in a family retail business founded in 1931 and serves on several non-profit boards. Katya loves people, plants, food and life.
Susan Wong
Susie, the daughter of immigrants, was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. Her mother, Guadalupe Salinas Wong immigrated to Tucson in 1921 from Tuape, Mexico. Harry Frederick Wong, her father, immigrated through California to Tucson in 1930 where he met and married Lupe.
In 1971, Susie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music History from the University of Arizona. She completed all coursework for her Master’s degree in Music History with an emphasis on Russian Romantic Music, but left before completing her thesis to take a job at the University of Arizona. She was employed at The University of Arizona for 35 years as Assistant to the Dean of the Graduate College, Assistant to the Provost for Health Sciences, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs in the College of Business, and Assistant Dean for Graduate Professional Programs in the College of Business.
While at the UofA, she served as Co-Chairman of the University’s Diversity Action Planning Committee, and as the University’s appointed representative on the Metropolitan (Tucson) Education Commission. She also served as a member of the Ron Brown Fellowship Selection Committee for the Institute of International Education (IIE) of the U.S. Department of State, and as a National Spokesperson for the Graduate Management Admission Council.
Since leaving the University in 2002, Susie has used her external affairs and organizational skills to benefit such organizations as the University Medical Center (providing toys and books for hospitalized children; books, blankets and supplies for adults undergoing treatment for cancer; and volunteering with the UMC Foundation).