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Executive Team

A retired Director of Sales for The Dow Chemical Company, Copeland has 37 years of sales, marketing, new business development, and leadership experience. His expertise is assisting organizations develop more robust sales/development strategies, capacity building, and creating integrative solutions that will significantly contribute to an organization’s overall effectiveness.

Rick, being an avid activist, lobbies members of both Houses of the US Congress to support legislation to eliminate global poverty and health disparities. He has traveled to India, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, where he has met with Heads of State, US Ambassadors, Foreign Ambassadors to The United States, and many other influential business leaders.

Rick earned a Bachelors of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (Business Management, Journalism, and Speech Communications) from the University of Virginia. He is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt and has continuing educational hours in Finance and Marketing from the Wharton School and Change Leadership from the Stern School of Business. Some of Rick's selected activities include: college lecturer, speaker for United Nations Women National Conference, charter trustee Township of Montclair, NJ Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund, member of the Triangle Global Health Consortium, Life Membership of the University of Virginia Alumni Association, and Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. He has received numerous community service and global sales achievement awards and currently resides in Raleigh, NC.

Rick Copeland

Founder & CEO

Enrico "Rick" Copeland leverages his knowledge, corporate experience, and extensive network  to provide long-term strategies and meaningful partnerships for GHCI programs and initiatives. As visionary leader of GHCI, Rick also provides structure to GHCI's day-to-day operations, fundraising, donor relations, and bottom-line performance.

Dr. D is a professionally trained health  educator at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; where she earned both her undergraduate and Masters degrees  in Public Health from the Gillings School of Global Public Health. DeVetta earned her Ph.D. degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.  It is her dissertation, “Perception Analytics of an In-depth Observational Analysis of 6th Grade African American Male Students' Personal Agency, emphasizing self-concept and its relevance to personal agency in the classroom, which propels her to educate, mentor and affirm the lived experiences of historically marginalized students.  Her work supports the premise that academic achievement, critical thinking and high expectations converge to shift the paradigm in developing and molding future 21st century STEM leaders. Dr. D's expertise  in coaching, mentoring, and advising students in their academic success at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been an asset to campers and counselors at the Exxon Mobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp.

Dr. DeVetta Holman

Executive Camp Director

Dr. DeVetta serves the community around her through being a coach, mentor, and advisor, mostly to marginalized students at UNC Chapel Hill. Dr. D's expertise in public health and experience with students makes her a valued Executive Camp Director with GHCI.

Willis R. Foster, Camp Program Director, has more than 21 years of science and technology experience under his belt. After graduating from North Carolina Central University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, Foster has nurtured his STEM experience in the Research Triangle Park. After years of mentoring and teaching young adults math and science, he created curriculum guides and lesson plans for students ranging from middle school to college. Foster as a Kennan Fellow, has also cultivated his STEM skills outside of the classroom by working with Integrated Laboratory Systems, where he created, audited and inspected laboratory facilities. Foster continues to instruct middle and high school students in math and science education programs. He aids students with SAT preparations and was an advisor for the Team America Rocketry Competition—exhibiting how he goes the extra mile to mentor youth. When Foster is not in the classroom, you can usually find him on the soccer field coaching Kestrel Heights School students where he is currently a science teacher.

Willis R. Foster

Camp Program Director

Foster, having many years of experience teaching and constantly growing his knowledge about science and technology, has become the perfect Camp Program Director. Foster creates in-depth education plans, and ensures the camp follows the curriculum.

Saliim started his career as an environmental toxicologist. After obtaining his MS degree in toxicology, Professor Saliim has been instructing students in North Carolina Central University's Biomedical and Biological Sciences Program for over 14 years. As an educator, he is known for his student engagement and in 2017, was recognized by The Chronicles of Higher Education as a Classroom Trailblazer and Innovator. Professor Saliim is an adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University’s FABLAB. Saliim states, “I try to convey to students that, Science is really fun. We don’t wear suits all day." Since 2015, Professor Saliim has worked with an outreach program of MIT Center for Bit and Atoms called FABLAB and has served as Director of the first FABLAB on an HBCU campus. In this capacity, he has developed and managed the facility in order to engage students in digital fabrication and computation to facilitate a cultural change in a community excluded from the technological revolution.

Eric Saliim

Director of Curriculum

Eric Saliim has over 14 years of instructing experience, most recently working in the FabLab at North Carolina Central University as well as teaching science, and digital fabrication and computation. Saliim is known as a trailblazer, innovator, and most importantly, an exquisite educator, making him our Director of Curriculum.

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Global Health Connections International

P.O. Box 80234

Raleigh, NC 27623

Mobile: 919-931-6019

HQ: 984-221-1298

FAX: 919-882-1160

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