Board of Directors

Since 2017, Carol Lazerick has served as the Executive Director of ILIR and has guided the Board and organization through changes in venue and format. She believes that curiosity and openness to new experiences are qualities of interesting people and keep people vibrant and young. A Cleveland native, Carol relocated to Florida in 2016. With her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in Social Work and post-graduate work at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, she describes her professional background as a crazy quilt. Her professional background includes stints as a social worker specializing in Soviet resettlement, as a counselor of the chronic and terminally ill, as an advertising salesperson, and as Regional Director of Jewish Women International. In addition to working for ILIR, Carol is a writer and editor and a yoga teacher. When she has spare time, you can find Carol in the swimming pool, on the yoga mat, or by the ocean.

David Lipson serves as the ILIR Board Vice Chair and has been instrumental in organizing Zoom Happy Hours for our members during the pandemic. He is a native of New York and a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. He and his wife Toni Dee relocated to Boca Raton in 1991 after he had several careers, ranging from carpenter to stockbroker to dog groomer.  David and Toni both discovered ILIR shortly before the pandemic, have been regular participants ever since, and consider ILIR an oasis in what could have been a desert of despair. With seeming improvements in the current COVID situation, hopefully more of us will join the caravan.

The Joy of Poetry, Short Stories, Book Club—Bari Attis has enjoyed leading these ILIR classes, as well as attending classes on all things literary and many other subjects.  Before retiring, Bari had a 35-year career at Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton.  She served as an English teacher, English department chair, and for 5 years as Assistant Head and Interim Head of the Upper School. Her first career was as a science writer at the National Institutes of Health. ILIR has brought Bari new opportunities to share her love of learning and to spend time with new friends and colleagues, and she is delighted to serve as a member of the Board.  Bari earned a BA from George Washington University and an MA from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English.

Joel Ivers, ILIR’s Board Chair, is best known to our members as the leader of the Current Events Class every Monday morning.  Joel’s life-long love of politics and world affairs started with working for candidates during the 1968 presidential campaign.  Joel is a retired business executive who has been CEO/COO of five different start-ups and large biomedical and IT companies after beginning his career at Johnson and Johnson.  He also managed a seed-stage Venture Capital fund.  Since retiring in 2014, Joel has been a volunteer mentor for start-up companies in South Florida and a member of the Investment Committee for Florida Funders.  Additionally, he was formerly the Board Treasurer and is President of his condo association in Boca Raton.  Joel holds a B.S. in Chemistry from The University of Redlands (CA) and an M.A. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Indiana University.

Paula Kessler came to ILIR after a 28-year career as a teacher in the NJ public school system. She and her husband Lenny moved to Florida 15 years ago; when they later discovered ILIR, they immediately enjoyed the stimulating, interactive classes and personal connections they made here. Paula has also served as a Board member for the past two years, helping us develop new classes and, especially, devising ways to keep ILIR programs going throughout the pandemic. Before retirement, Paula and Lenny, also a former teacher, spent over 10 years working at summer camps, seeing countless Broadway and regional theater productions, and many, many movies. Paula has a BA in Special Education and an MA in Learning Disabilities.  Her mild manner and ability to get along with people served her well in her teaching and camp leadership experiences and in her work with adolescents with learning and emotional disabilities. She is open to new ideas and progressive thinking and has brought all these qualities to her decade-long commitment to ILIR.