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Scott Nelson, CFRE | Chair – Executive Committee

Scott Nelson is Gift Officer at Gillette Children's Foundation. A fund raiser for more than 20 years, he has worked at a variety organizations including The Saint Paul Foundation, United Hospital Foundation, Children's Hospital of St. Paul, and Allina Health Systems. A long-time member of MPGC, he currently serves as a chair. Scott is also a board member and committee chair of St. Paul Rotary. He has a BA in journalism and economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Roxanne and son Eliot.

Tricia Bunten | Chair-Elect – Executive Committee

Tricia Bunten serves as the Senior Development Director for the Swenson College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). She also serves as the Director of Planned Giving at UMD. She has been with UMD since 2001. Prior to that she served in a variety of roles at Bemidji State University from Director of Annual Giving to Director of the BSU Foundation for over seven years.

She holds a MS degree in Philanthropy and Development from St. Mary's University and she received her CFRE (Certified Fundraising Executive) in 2000.

Tricia is actively involved in the Duluth community serving on the Board of Directors for the Duluth Rotary Club #25 and the Lake Superior Fundraising Executives. She is also involved in many other volunteer organizations.

Richard Kimbrough | Secretary – Executive Committee

Richard Kimbrough serves as the Associate Director of Institutional Advancement for Saint Thomas Academy. His responsibilities include the management of the Academy’s gift officers, marketing of gift opportunities, and identifying campus priorities for current and potential donors to STA. He also serves a leadership role for the Saint Thomas Academy Defining Moment Campaign.

Rick began his development career at Saint Thomas Academy. He returned to Saint Thomas Academy serve in August 2007. He has also Director of Development at Hill-Murray School and the Vice President for Development at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Arkansas. Rick's experience also includes a consulting role as a planned gift consultant for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

His wife Becky is an elementary school teacher in the Twin Cities and is working toward her Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Leadership at the University of Minnesota.

Sally Forbes Friedman | Treasurer – Executive Committee

Sally Forbes Friedman is the Director of the Jewish Community Foundation at the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. She holds a B.A. in History from UCLA and attended Southwestern Law School and received a JD. She has been an attorney at Kaplan, Strangis and Kaplan, PA; Thiel, Campbell, Gunderson, Anderson and Friedman (now known as Thiel, Campbell, Gunderson and Anderson).

Sally has been past president of the Minneapolis Jewish Day School (now known as the Amos and Celia Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School), past Executive Board Member at Beth El Synagogue; participant in the Harry Kay Young Leadership Program. She resides in Plymouth with three daughters, Blair, Nicole and Sloan.

Joe Thiegs | At-Large Board Member

Joe has been a Planned Giving Officer at the University of Minnesota Foundation since 2005, following more than five years as a tax, trusts, and estates attorney at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis. Joe has been named a “Rising Star” by Minnesota Law & Politics magazine multiple times, most recently for 2009. He is a 1999 cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, where he was a Managing Editor for Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice and won First Prize in the school’s 1999 Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition for legal writing. Joe received his undergraduate degree in 1996 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

In addition to active involvement in MPGC, Joe is a member of several other professional organizations, including the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning and various bar associations and their probate and trust law sections. He currently serves on the Legislation Committee of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Probate and Trust Law Section, and previously served on the MSBA Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA) Task Force.

Brad Reiners | At-Large Board Member

Bradley joined the Mayo development team in June 2007 and the Gift Planning team in December 2007 and has over twenty one years of experience in fundraising at various higher education institutions. Prior to joining Mayo, Bradley worked at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota; Waldorf College, Forest City, Iowa; Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin (where he began its current planned giving recognition program); and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. Prior to entering fundraising on a full time basis in 1987, he practiced law in Southwestern Minnesota for ten years.

A primary focus of his work at Mayo involves helping development officers and their benefactors understand and consider charitable gift options that frequently require a measure of tax, legal, or financial planning. His areas of interest include: income-returning gift arrangements, such as charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts; real estate; mineral rights; charitable estate planning, including wills and living trusts; and other complex gift arrangements.

Lynn Praska | At-Large Board Member

Lynn joined the Planned Giving Office at the University of Minnesota Foundation in December 2009. Prior to joining the Foundation, Lynn was with Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN where she had more than 17 years of planned giving and major gift development experience. Lynn holds both bachelor's and master's degrees from Hamline University.

Lynn has served a number of roles within the Minnesota Planned Giving Council, including Chair of the Board in 2008, Chair of the 2006 30th annual conference and currently serves as Chair of the Communications Committee. She is also a member of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (PPP).

Stephanie Oskie | At-Large Board Member

Stephanie Oskie came to the Minnesota Medical Foundation in 1997, where her primary role is to provide information on giving opportunities to prospective donors and advisers with clients who wish to support health-related education, research, and service at the University of Minnesota. In addition to helping donors complete a charitable contribution through their estate or financial plan, she serves as liaison to the foundation's planned gift administrator, Kaspick & Company, which invests and administers the foundation's gift annuity portfolio and charitable remainder trusts.

Stephanie started her career in nonprofit fundraising when she joined the planned giving department at the University of Minnesota Foundation in 1982. She also has worked at the United Way of Minneapolis and Courage Center in Golden Valley and served as director of planned giving at Children's Home Society of Minnesota for seven years.

Stephanie earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She currently serves as secretary on the board of the Minnesota Planned Giving Council's Board of Directors.

Glenn Thiel | At-Large Board Member

Glenn Thiel is retired from the LCMS Foundation in St. Louis, MO, where he served as a Gift Planning Counselor for 29 years. Currently, he works as an independent gift planning consultant to organizations and individuals.

Dayton Hultgren | At-Large Board Member

Dayton Hultgren offers a distinguished background in education and business consulting, including more than 30 years of professional experience in executive management, fund development, planning, coaching, mentoring and teaching. He has a talent for building cooperation and trust among diverse constituencies, personnel, and volunteer leaders. In 1997, he helped form HBH Associates.

Dr. Hultgren received his B.S. degree from Mayville State University, his B.D. degree from the University of Dubuque Theological School, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in educational psychology and higher education from the University of Minnesota.

He has worked actively with the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Mayville State University Foundation, Indiana Center on Philanthropy, Association of Governing Boards, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and more.

Keevan Kosidowski | At-Large Board Member

Keevan Kosidowski serves as the executive director of Regions Hospital Foundation. In addition to leading the foundation staff and board of directors, her work at Regions includes managing and successfully completing their first ever capital campaign and developing a planned giving program. Prior to joining Regions, she spent eight years at the University of Northern Iowa working in campaign management and annual giving followed by her work as a senior associate with Bentz Whaley Flessner serving educational and health care organizations. Keevan graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Business Administration. She has been involved as a youth mentor with the St. Paul School's Multicultural Excellence Program and Hosanna! Lutheran Church. She is married and has three teenagers.

Sheryl Morrison | At-Large Board Member

Sheryl Morrison is a principal at Gray Plant Mooty who, for over 20 years, has focused her practice in the areas of estate and wealth planning, transfer tax strategies, business succession planning, estate and trust administration, creation and administration of charitable trusts and nonprofit organizations, and guardianships and conservatorships. She helps clients accomplish their objectives for management, protection, and preservation of their wealth through strategies which minimize taxes and promote ongoing family management of assets, including wills, revocable trusts, testamentary and inter vivos irrevocable trusts, generation-skipping trusts, charitable trusts, and other charitable gift entities, gifts and sales to grantor trusts, GRATs and QPRTs, family partnerships, and other business entities. Her experience enables her to advise clients about the ongoing administration and operation of their trusts, estates, partnerships, and other business entities, and about the many issues that arise in those contexts. Sheryl also addresses the unique business succession planning issues and strategies involved in the estate planning for business owners.

Her practice also focuses on philanthropy planning through creating, qualification, and operation and administration of nonprofit and tax-exempt entities and counseling higher education institutions and health care organizations about their charitable gift acquisition and administrative programs and practices.

Laurel Hardgrove | At-Large Board Member

Laurel serves as Director of Ridgeview Foundation at Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia. Laurel has been in Development for almost 20 years, having served as Senior Vice President, Development for one of Canada’s largest teaching hospitals prior to moving to Minnesota in 2007.

Laurel has served on the national Board of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners, and was the founding Chair for the Leave a Legacy program in Canada. Prior to working in philanthropy, Laurel was with Sun Life Canada and Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker and financial advisor. Active in the community, Laurel has served on the Board of Directors for arts, health and community organizations.