CSS SENIOR STAFF

• David R. Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer
• Steven L. Krause, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
• Juan Cartagena, General Counsel
• Robin F. Willig, Vice President for External Affairs
• Jeffrey F. Rizzo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Walter Fields, Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs
• Christine Molnar, Vice President for Strategy, Policy and Advocacy
• Alina Molina, Vice President, Program Services

David R. Jones

President and Chief Executive Officer

David R. Jones has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Service Society of New York since 1986. Prior to joining CSS, Mr. Jones served as Executive Director of the New York City Youth Bureau, and from 1979 to 1983, as Special Advisor to Mayor Koch. Mr. Jones was a member of the transition committee of New York's mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg and was recently appointed by the mayor to the Commission for Economic Opportunity, a task force to confront poverty and unemployment. He was also a member of the Construction Opportunity Commission that addressed inequities in employment opportunities for people of color.

Mr. Jones received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Yale Law School. He clerked for Judge Constance Baker Motley of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York and was a member of the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he specialized in corporate antitrust cases and contract litigation.

Steven L. Krause
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Steven L. Krause has been the Chief Operating Officer of the Community Service Society since 1986. Before coming to CSS, Mr. Krause served as Director of Finance and Management, Senior Financial Officer, and Deputy Executive Director of the New York City Youth Bureau. As Deputy Executive Director he was responsible for administration of the Finance and Management program operations, program planning, Management Information Services, and Intergovernmental Relations.

Juan Cartagena
General Counsel

Juan Cartagena has served as General Counsel at the Community Service Society since November 1991. His overall responsibilities include directing the legal department in public interest litigation on behalf of the poor in the areas of voting rights, education, housing, health and environmental issues.

Prior to joining CSS, Mr. Cartagena was the legal director in the New York Office of the Department of Puerto Rican Community Affairs in the U.S., Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and an attorney at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund. He also served as a municipal court judge in Hoboken, New Jersey.

From 1992 to the present, Mr. Cartagena has been a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University, Department of Puerto Rican & Hispanic Caribbean Studies. He teaches the course "Law and the Latino Community in the U.S."

Mr. Cartagena received his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and his B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Robin F. Willig
Vice President for External Affairs

Robin F. Willig joined the Community Service Society in September 2004 as Vice President for External Affairs. In that role, she oversees fundraising and communications for the organization.

Previously, Ms. Willig served as Senior Vice President for External Relations for the National Academy Foundation, a nonprofit that partners business leaders with public high schools across the country to support students' educational achievement and career development.

Prior to that, she served as Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for Teachers College, Columbia University, and brings 14 years of development and nonprofit management experience to the position, including work with the New School University and Asphalt Green.

Ms. Willig received her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Rhetoric from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and has participated in several creative writing programs, including a residency at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and the New York State Writers Institute at Skidmore College.

Jeffrey F. Rizzo
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Jeffrey F. Rizzo joined the Community Service Society (CSS) in June 2004 as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. His overall responsibilities include management of all finance and accounting activities for CSS, including payroll; budget preparation and monitoring; long-range financial planning; management of daily cash flow; bank relations with depository and custodian banks; monitoring the performance of and maintaining contact with CSS's investment advisors; and working with the Investment, Finance, and Audit Committees of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Rizzo also oversees the areas of Information Technology, Facilities and Office Services, the Print Shop, and Human Resources.

Previously, Mr. Rizzo served as Controller for Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. Mr. Rizzo was also the Director of Finance and Operations for New York Cares, and Director of Finance for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he developed and managed capital revenue raising projects including financing for the restoration of Grand Central Terminal. In the private sector, Mr. Rizzo spent over 15 years at Moody's Investors Service where he was Managing Director of the Public Finance Group.

Mr. Rizzo has served on the faculty of the Mayors Leadership Institute and the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission, and has lectured at both Columbia and New York Universities. He earned his B.A. in Economics from Fairfield University in Connecticut and studied at New York University's Graduate School of Public Administration.

Walter Fields
Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs

Walter Fields is Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs, responsible for overseeing the agency’s legislative agenda, and determining its political and communications strategy. He rejoined CSS in 2005 after a 14-year absence during which he was the principal of a New Jersey-based political consulting firm, established a nationally recognized black public affairs web site and served as the Director of Public Affairs for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

In the past decade he has served as a consultant to both Democratic and Republican political campaigns; conducted an assessment on democratization in sub-Saharan Africa for the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID); established a training program for new black city managers in post-apartheid South Africa for the International City Managers Association and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators; advised the Japanese legislature on product liability issues; and worked with London based Operation Black Vote on voting rights issues in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Fields has had a distinguished career as a journalist. His writings garnered several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Garden State Association of Black Journalists.

He was one of the original contributors on the MSNBC cable news channel and contributing columnist to MSNBC.com, and a regular roundtable contributor to the nationally syndicated “News and Notes” on National Public Radio (NPR). Mr. Fields is a recurrent guest on national and local public affairs programs on radio and television. He has appeared as a guest on CNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” CNN’s “Talk Back Live,” MSNBC’s “Equal Time,” Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity & Colmes,” “America’s Black Forum,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” “All Things Considered,” and “The Tavis Smiley Show,” “BET Tonight,” and Court TV’s “Pros & Cons,” among others. He also is a regular participant on the public affairs and morning news programs on WRKS-FM (KISS-FM) in New York City and is the voice of the station’s daily business report. 

Mr. Fields holds a bachelors degree in Political Science from Morgan State University and an MPA in Public Policy from New York University, where he was a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow and is a recipient of the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He also pursued postgraduate study as a National Science Foundation Fellow in Political Science at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Christine Molnar
Vice President for Strategy, Policy and Advocacy

Chris Molnar is the Vice President for Strategy, Policy and Advocacy at the Community Service Society. She oversees CSS’s core advocacy functions of research, advocacy campaigns, and service in support of advocacy.  Ms. Molnar has been with CSS since 1995 and has developed much of the health work for CSS.  In 1999, she created the New York City Managed Care Consumer Assistance Program, an all-payer ombudsprogram targeting vulnerable populations that has provided over 300,000 New Yorkers with information and assistance with their health insurance.

Ms. Molnar has designed and implemented multi-lingual, multi-cultural programs that provide information and education in community-based settings to Medicaid beneficiaries on how to access health care services. She is the author of Knowledge Gap: What Medicaid Beneficiaries Understand--and What They Don't--About Managed Care, documenting the serious impact that the lack of accessible information about managed care has on access to services for Medicaid recipients. In March 2001, she organized the first national conference on Medicaid and SCHIP education, “Beyond Eligibility: Educating Consumers to Improve Access to Health Care,” hosted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Community Service Society.

Ms. Molnar holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University and a Master of Science in Public Health from Harvard University.

Alina Molina
Vice President, Program Services

Alina Molina has 29 years of experience in program development and administration, volunteer management, and intergenerational programming. Ms. Molina is currently Vice President, Program Services at CSS. She oversees all of the direct services of the organization, including the Center for Benefits & Services, the workforce Advocacy & Support Initiative, and the AmeriCorps Program. In addition, she is the Director of the Retired & Senior Volunteer Program, which engages 7,500 older adult volunteers in more than 500 nonprofit agencies throughout the five boroughs of New York City. In 1996, Ms. Molina created the New York City Experience Corps Project, an intergenerational early childhood literacy and mentoring program. ince its inception, the program has provided services to thousands of elementary school children and has achieved national recognition for programming excellence.

Before coming to CSS, Ms. Molina was a community organizer with People Acting Through Community Effort (PACE) in Rhode Island. Prior to that, she served as a Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) community organizer at Dorchester Neighbors Organizing Neighbors in Massachusetts.

Ms. Molina is the past President of the New York Association for Volunteer Administration (NY AVA) and has taught Managing and Working with Volunteers at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. She also conducts Developing & Managing Volunteer Programs for the Support Center for Nonprofit Management. Ms. Molina holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from the New School's Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy.