HONORARY BOARD MEMBERS
Dan Lauria
Dan Lauria has been a supporter of Feed Our Vets from the beginning of the organization’s work, as well as other Veterans’ causes and organizations. A Vietnam War Veteran, Lauria served as an officer in the US Marine Corps in the early 1970s, at the same point in his life that Jack Arnold, his character in The Wonder Years did during the Korean War.
He has appeared as a guest star in over seventy television episodic programs and more than twenty Movie Of The Week productions. He has a score of film credits which include, Stakeout, Another Stakeout, both with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estaves and the commercial blockbuster, Independence Day and most recently; the Frank Miller production of Will Esiner’s; The Spirit.Dan was also in the cult comedy: Alien Trespass. Dan is also a very familiar face to the off-off, off and regional theatre scene having performed, written or directed over 50 professional stage productions.
Dan is most recognized as the Dad on the highly acclaimed, Emmy winning, ABC television show, The Wonder Years.
Joe Mantegna
A longtime supporter of Veterans’ causes, Joe Mantegna has received critical acclaim for his award-winning and highly praised performances on the stage and in numerous film and television productions. He was awarded the Tony and Joseph Jefferson Awards for his role in David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross. His long-standing association with Mamet includes the premieres of A Life in the Theatre, The Disappearance of the Jews and Speed The Plow on Broadway. Mantegna has also directed a highly lauded production of Mamet’s Lakeboat, which enjoyed a successful theatrical run in Los Angeles and he later directed the film version starring Peter Falk, Robert Forester, Andy Garcia, Charles Durning, Denis Leary and George Wendt.
In the world of film, he has starred in over 90 films. Among them The Godfather III, Alice, Celebrity, Liberty Heights, and Bugsy. He starred in the critically acclaimed Mamet films House of Games, Homicide, and Things Change, for which he received the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival In recent years Joe has stared in the critically acclaimed CBS series’ First Monday, Joan of Arcadia and currently stars as David Rossi in Criminal Minds. For the last 20 years, he has been the voice of Fat Tony on the Fox series The Simpsons. In April 2011 Joe will be receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Victor Bumbalo
Victor Bumbalo’s plays have been produced worldwide. He is the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Award for playwriting. Many of his plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, including Niagara Falls, Adam And The Experts, What Are Tuesdays Like?, Tell, and Questa. Show is included in The Best American Short Plays, published by Applause Books. Bumbalo has written for several popular television series: NYPD Blue, American Gothic, Relativity, and HBO’s Spawn. His short film, Two Boys, has recently appeared in several major film festivals, including the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and the Beverly Hills Shorts Film Festival where it won the Jury Award for Best Drama.
Ray Abruzzo
Prior to appearing in the world premiere production of Dinner with the Boys at NJ Rep, Ray Abruzzo received rave reviews as Lombardi at Florida’s Mosaic Theatre. Theatre: Sterling in the west coast premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius at the Pasadena Playhouse, Louis LaRusso’s Vespers Eve and Stooplife, Aldo in the world premiere of John Patrick Shanley’s Italian American Reconciliation and many others in and around the L.A. theatre scene. Ray performed Robert Dubac’s one-man show The Male Intellect: an Oxymoron in Chicago and Boston. For 10 years Ray was a part of L.A.’s Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble with the other “Boys.” In 1977, Ray was a founding member of The Bond Street Theatre Coalition, an international company that is thriving to this day. Television: “NYPD Blue,” various “Law & Order,” “NCIS,” “House,” “Criminal Minds,” “Brooklyn 99,” “Ray Donovan” and numerous more. Series regular or recurring “L.A. Law,” “Dynasty,” “Night Court,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “The Practice,” “Boston Legal,” “Mad Men,” most notably a s Little Carmine Lupertazzi for four seasons on “The Sopranos.” Ray was also head writer and director for Nickelodeon’s “Weinerville” (yes, that really was the name).
Richard Zavaglia
Richard is an accomplished director, gifted teacher and veteran actor of the stage and screen who has been in the business for over 40 years. He studied with Uta Hagen and Michael Shurteff in New York, and graduated in 1968 from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the oldest acting school in America. He has taught beginner and advanced acting in New York, Los Angeles, Texas and Florida. Most recently at the Burt Reynolds Institute of Film and Television in Jupiter, the Cuillo Center in West Palm Beach, the Delray Beach Playhouse and the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton. His directing includes many productions nationwide, most notably LBJ, the one-man show starring Laurence Luckinbill at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C., which raised $75,000 in one night to benefit world hunger. Richard was trained for the stage, and has performed on Broadway twice, starring in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two and Passione directed by Frank Langella. Richard’s film credits include Donnie Brasco with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, Bird directed by Clint Eastwood and many others. More of his credits can be viewed at IMDB and IBDB. Lynne-Jebens The Krasny Office. www.richardzavaglia.com
Major General (Ret.) Peter Lennon
Native of Central New York where his family has lived since the 1880’s. Following graduation from New Berlin Central School, he attended Bucknell University earning both a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Civil Engineering. He later earned a Masters in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Stationed in Germany as a Lieutenant at the height of the Cold War, Peter quickly established a reputation as an innovative and highly effective leader, both in the Active Army and as a Citizen-Soldier with the Army Reserve. His command assignments have ranged from the tactical level to the largest two-star command in the Army (37,000 Soldiers across 34 states). His career highlights also include leadership or membership on senior staffs charged with addressing a variety of national and international challenges.
Examples include service as;
- A senior civilian transportation engineer and analyst in support of the Congressionally-Mandated Mobility Study and Army’s Strategic Mobility Program (1990-1994),
- A senior military transportation planner during the initial implementation of the Dayton Peace Accord for Bosnia-Herzegovina (1996),
- A senior transportation advisor to Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (2003),
- Creator and first director of the multi-national “watchdog” office charged with financial oversight and operational execution of the United Nations’ $10 Billion “Oil for Food Programme” (2003-2004),
- Architect of and negotiator on behalf of the “Northern Distribution Network” which enabled supplies to flow into Afghanistan through the former Central Asian States of the Soviet Union (2008), and
- Director of strategic/international military deployment and distribution operations throughout the Middle East (2008-2009).
Peter’s final military assignment was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he was responsible for the training readiness of the 200,000 Soldiers in America’s Army Reserve Command.
His ability to lead forces to unprecedented levels of success was recognized with the Defense Superior Service Medal and Bronze Star for service in the Middle East, the NATO medal for service in the Balkan Theater, and two Distinguished Service Medals (the Army’s highest award for service in a non-combat environment.)
Transitioning to full-time civilian life, Peter and his wife, the former Elaine Rovazzi of Little Falls, New York, have returned to their Central New York roots and again call New Berlin home. Elaine continues to consult as a nuclear medicine physicist to hospitals and imagining centers in southeastern New York and northern New Jersey. Peter is actively engaged in numerous veterans/military support, community wellness, and economic development initiatives throughout the Mohawk Valley and the Southern Tier.