CURE-Ohio's Board of Directors, 2004

The CURE-Ohio Board of Directors are volunteers. The organization is currently funded through memberships and donations.

 

Michelle "Indian" Baker

Executive Board-I.T.

Michelle "Indian" Baker serves as an executive board member focusing on inmate and internet issues. She was one of the original prisoner advisory board members during her incarceration. She served over 5 years at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville and the horrors she witnessed there have left a lasting and lifetime impression. While incarcerated, Baker was a jailhouse lawyer and social activist who drew much attention to the issues specifically affecting female offenders. She is a staunch inmate rights activist, women's rights activist and gay rights activist. She has a degree in Social Science from Urbana University, Magna Cum Laud, earned while incarcerated (prior to the cuts in education funding by the DRC). She has learned first hand that a term of incarceration does not end with the convict's release from prison. The stigma is lifelong. She also serves on the newsletter committee.

Ellen Kitchens
Executive Board-Treasurer

Ellen Kitchens serves as Cure-Ohio's Executive Treasurer. She lives in Dayton where she's worked as a registered nurse for five years. Previous experience includes 24 years in accounting with 13 years as a supervisor. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and an Associate Degree in business management. She had taken several classes to apply toward a Masters degree in addiction studies before her son was incarcerated. As a result, the focus of her life changed, and she decided she wanted to do something about the disparity Ohio's sentencing laws. She is an advocate for change in both the prison and legal systems and believes we can make a difference. She is the columnist for "Cure's Kitchens" and also serves on the newsletter committee.

 

Diane Malloy
Executive Board-Ombudsman

Diane Malloy is a long time and most effective activist and organizer. Diane accomplishes more before breakfast than many who collect salaries to advocate for inmates do in a month! She has been with CURE-Ohio since the early days. She is known as "The Guardian Angel of Grafton". Diane Malloy, however, has not submitted her bio as of yet....That is why this is so short!

 

Cindy Mollick
Executive Board-Public Relations

Cindy Mollick is a long standing Cure-Ohio member, as well as being a former Cure-Ohio board member. She is the President for Ohio S.O.R.T., (Stop Offenders, Rehabilitate and Treat), Vice President of the Restorative Justice Mission Group of Greater Cleveland, member of the ACLU moratorium against the death penalty and publisher of the renowned magazine, "The Challenger." She has made great strides in the penal activism field over the past decade. Not only has she successfully worked on issues surrounding inconsistencies between how men and women are treated who are currently housed on death row, but has also provided information to our state agencies which ultimately led to shedding light on how accounting within the DRC is flawed, and worked with our state in ensuring the public's safety by implementing the accountability of the DRC in providing qualified treatment for both male and female sexual offenders prior to their release. Not only does she hold a paralegal certification, but is certified in victim/offender mediation as well. She is a well respected community activist who educates the public on prison issues by speaking at many functions throughout the state. Cindy resides in the Greater Cleveland area with her husband Dick who is also an outspoken individual who is working on corrections issues as well.

Karen Thimmes
Executive Board Secretary

Karen has been intrigued by prison issues since the early nineties and over the years has developed a huge correspondence circle of prisoners. She is particularly interested in minority religions in prison; the death penalty; medical issues; and the concept of prison hospice. A mother of two grown sons and a grandmother, she is currently "mom" to two cats. She speaks fluent German and has worked for German-owned companies during much of her career as an admin.asst. and executive asst. An accomplished pianist, she sings in her church choir, enjoys reading (novels, newspapers, poetry), is a hospice volunteer and a member of the Pastoral Care Team at her church. She also serves on the newsletter committee.