Board of Directors
Tony Addario
Tony is a driving force behind fundraising efforts and in recruiting champions for the Foundation.
Prior to helping launch the Foundation, Tony spent a successful career helping build several technology leaders and is on the advisory board for several Silicon Valley start-ups. He’s a retired vice president for Customer Support and Services for both Bay Networks and Juniper Networks. He also spent several years as a senior technical advisor on several of NASA’s programs including the Manned Space Flight Network. In addition to the Foundation, he serves on several boards including the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society in Lake Tahoe, the Green Hills Country Club in Millbrae CA and on the Computer Science Advisory Board for Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village NV. He’s also the past and current Chair of the Sequoia Hospital Golf Fundraiser and past co-chair with Bonnie of the hospital’s annual Gala.
A Philadelphia, PA native and Temple University graduate, Tony is the father of three and grandfather of seven.
Denise Brown, MD
Zheng Cao
Zheng Cao, Mezzo-Soprano, joined the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation in the summer of 2009 after learning of her Stage IV Lung Cancer diagnosis in April 2009. Zheng plans to sing away her Lung Cancer and thanks to her wonderful doctors, Dr. Thierry Jahan and Dr. David A. Larson, her radiation treatment was kept away from her vocal chords.
Zheng is a regular guest of the San Francisco Opera and starred in The Bonesetter’s Daughter written by Amy Tan. A personal favorite of Seijii Ozawa, she has appeared with him as Marguerite in a concert presentation of La Damnation de Faust at the Saito Kinen Festival. Mezzo-Soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for the recent Winter Olympic games in Japan, and as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly for her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Zheng came to the United States from Shanghai with forty-five dollars in her pocket and the only words she knew in English were “Merry Christmas!” She is the epitome of the American Dream and as far as her Lung Cancer goes, she delares, “Lung Cancer picked the wrong person!” She now speaks and sings in eight languages.
She began her professional career with the San Francisco Opera as an Adler Fellow and has subsequently performed Idamente in Idomeneo, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffman, Siebel in Faust, and Suzuki, Washington Opera as Rufino in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Suzuki, Los Angeles Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Penelope in Il Ritormo de Ulisse in Patria, Opera Pacific as Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffman, Michigan Opera as Rosina, Pittsburgh Opera as Sesto in Guilio Cesare, San Diego Opera as Siebel and Suzuki, and Grand Theatre de Geneve as Suzuki.
Recent engagements include appearances with the San Diego Opera and San Francisco Opera as Suzuki, Houston Grand Opera as Varvara in Katya Kabanova, their world premiere production os Salsipuedes and as Cherubino and with the Kentucky Opera as Rosina.
On the concert stage, she has performed Ravel’s Sheherazade, with the Honolulu Symphony, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the San Francisco Ballet, Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw Philharmonic and Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Boston Synphony. She has also appeared in the recital at the J.F.K. Center for the Peforming Arts in Washington, D.C.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and a Master’s Degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she performed the role of Carmen in Peter Brook’s The tragedy of Carmen, Amastris in Zerxes and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. She was a 1992 Metropolitan Council Auditions finalist and a winner of the 1993 Palm Beach Opera International Vocal Competition.
In October, Zheng will be singing the National Anthem at the opening ceremony of the President’s Cup for all the living President’s followed by a fly-by of U.S. Navy F-18 fighter jets.
Zheng lives in San Francisco. The love of her life was Troy Donahue. Today, when you ask how she is doing, she responds, “I am busy living!”
Carole Carney
Carole is a native of Port au Prince, Haiti from where she immigrated to the U.S. in 1970. Carole has lived in Massachusetts, California and Paris, France. She is fluent in French, English and Haitian Creole.
In addition to serving on the Executive Board of the Bonnie J. Addario Foundation, Carole serves on the board and is the President of the Lloyd and Carole Carney Foundation. The Foundation is focused on charitable support for children in need and medical care in developing countries. The Foundation provides the majority of the financial support for the Ikhayalethemba Village near Cape Town, South Africa.
The goal of the Village is to provide integrated community-based residential and daycare for HIV+ children, Aids orphans as well as other abandoned, abused, neglected and/or disabled children.
The Foundation also is a significant sponsor of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. Support also has been provided to hospitals in Jamaica in the form of new medical equipment and refurbishing of operating theatres.
Carole has a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston State College in Business Management. She resides in Atherton, California today with her husband and two children. Her children attend college at Wellesley College, Massachusetts and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles.
Carole enjoys golf and painting in both oils and watercolors.
Deborah Flanagan
Deborah Flanagan spent 20 years in technology sales and sales management responsible for both domestic and European sales campaigns. Deborah retired from Juniper Networks where she was Operations Director of the UK and Ireland. As a native of Indianapolis, she started her career as a high school English teacher and spent five years with Random House Publishing in sales management prior to entering the high tech industry. Deborah is retired and divides her time between Northern Indiana and the San Francisco Bay area.
Dani Gasparini
Jack Hanson
Jack Hanson, a third generation San Franciscan, host of “Jack’s Place,” former KGO reporter, and 5-year host of “AM San Francisco,” and currently host of Comcast Local Edition (a local interview program that airs on the half-hour with CNN Headline News) has over a half a century of broadcast experience in the Bay Area.
Born August 8, 1932, Jack grew up in the Panhandle near the Haight. Hanson attended Lowell High School and City College of San Francisco before joining the Air Force. He returned to San Francisco after his service, graduating from San Francisco State University in 1956.
As a cousin of Bonnie J. Addario, it did not take much arm-twisting to get Jack to join the BJALCF Board. As an astonishing interviewer who is best known and loved for “spontaneous conversation,” Jack is best known and loved at this Foundation for hosting our “show” at every turn-every step of the way.
Steven R. Lloyd
Deborah Morosini, MD,
is a sister of the late Dana Reeve. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in English, she received her MSW from the NYU School of Social Work. Pre-medical studies at Columbia University were followed by her 1990 matriculation at Boston University School of Medicine. Deborah has two teenage sons, James and Peter, whom she raised as a single parent while completing medical school part time. Christopher Reeve, her brother-in-law, was the commencement speaker for her 1997 medical school graduation. She completed a residency in pathology, at Boston Medical Center, where she was chief resident. Currently, Deborah is the Principal Pathologist for AstraZeneca in the R&D area of oncology discovery medicine.
As a board member of the Lung Cancer Alliance, Deborah has met with key national legislators, including Nancy Pelosi, Hilary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and Chuck Hagel to further lung cancer research and treatment. She recently joined the board of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, http://www.lungcancerfoundation.org and can be heard nationally on public service announcements promoting lung cancer awareness. She is a talented public speaker whom audiences have described as “mesmerizing and unforgettable.” Media appearances include Entertainment Tonight, the Howard Stern show, as well as multiple network news interviews and feature stories with local Boston affiliates (Fox, ABC, NBC). Her writing appears in the Summer 07 issue of CURE magazine. Other writing appears on www.lungcanceralliance.org and, in the recent publication Voices of Lung Cancer (5 star review on Amazon.com).
Alissa Robinow
Whitney Spagnola
Whitney Spagnola spent her early working years as a consultant for hotel and restaurant development. Whitney worked for Laventhol & Horwath then Kimpton Properties, both in San Francisco. After deciding to become a full-time mother, she became heavily involved in volunteering for the Mill Valley School District as well as the Kiddo! Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the arts in public education. She was a member of the Financial Advisory Board for the school district Superintendent and worked in a leadership role raising money for educational programs as well as Parcel Tax Measures. Her work helped the district manage through a difficult time of state funding cutbacks for public education.
When a close friend was diagnosed with stage four, lung cancer, she learned about A Breath Away From The Cure. After reading the statistics, learning about the lack of resources dedicated to lung cancer and meeting Bonnie, she realized she wanted to put energy behind such an important cause.
Whitney graduated from the University of Denver and currently resides in Los Gatos, California with her husband, Jeff Spagnola and two children, Jeffrey and Carly.
Debbie Tully
Debbie Tully was born in Buffalo, N.Y and moved to California as a young girl. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She has a degree in Social Welfare with a concentration in Political Science and Public Policy. She also has an MBA from Golden Gate University.
After a career in retail as an executive with Macy’s and managing the Intellectual Property program for Bank of America she turned her focus to the non-profit sector. She worked for the American Heart Association in their school site program. After leaving the American Heart Association she continued her interest in non-profit work on a volunteer basis with various organizations.
She volunteers at the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project (BAHOP) in San Mateo, CA. BAHOP is dedicated to giving witnesses of the Holocaust the opportunity to record their life histories and to create a legacy for future generations. She has researched available grants for BAHOP and assisted in writing a grant to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Debbie, her husband Larry and their very outgoing yellow Labrador Retriever Dexter also volunteer with Furry Friends. Furry Friends is a pet assisted therapy group that visits hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in the Bay Area.
Debbie joined the Foundation Board shortly after her Mother passed away from lung cancer in February 2006. She feels her work with the Foundation has helped her and her family to focus their pain and loss into something positive and serves as a way to honor the memory of her Mother, Gloria Tully.
