Debra A. Greenwood, President/CEO
Debra A. Greenwood, President and CEO, has spent more than 35 years in non-profit management, with extensive experience in strategic planning, fundraising, community mobilization and leadership and program development. Prior to joining The Center for Family Justice in 2007,she served as a CEO at various YMCAs in the region, leading four successful capital campaigns that resulted in the creation of a new YMCA, two renovations at different Ys, and most recently the remodeling The Center for Family Justice as it became the state’s first Family Justice Center in 2016..
Her tenure on the Town of Monroe’s Youth Commission in the 1990s led to her passion for strengthening youth programs that focused on after-school activities, in addition to implementing physical and well-being initiatives into these programs through the national YMCA. For a decade, she served as a faculty advisor with the national YMCA, writing curriculum and mainstreaming children with disabilities into physical educations programs in public schools throughout Connecticut.
She received a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Sacred Heart University; an M.S. degree in Exercise Physiology from Southern Connecticut State University; in addition to advanced studies in Special Education at Springfield College and Fundraising and Grant Writing Programs at New York University and the Grantsmanship Institute. Her awards include: Woman of Achievement in 1996 for the Eastern Field (YMCA of the USA); Woman of Distinction, Girl Scouts of America; Education Award from the Monroe Public Schools; Sacred Heart University Alumni Achievement Award in 2013. She and her husband, Jim, reside in Monroe, and have three adult daughters and six grandchildren. Her volunteer interests include being a public policy advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation and a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut for the past 5 years.
