Three new members join IFDA Educational Foundation board

Ann Unal to chair board in 2011

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, November 2, 2010

Ann Unal

HIGH POINT — Three new members have been named to the 2011 Board of the IFDA Educational Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the International Furnishings and Design Assn.

Jeanne Matlock, 2010 chairman of foundation, announced that Barbara Daher of San Francisco will serve as vice chairman/treasurer, in line to become chairman in 2012. Mark Vonnahme of Dallas will be director of resources and Maureen Klein of New York will take over as director of communications.

The EF chairman for 2011 will be Ann Unal of Fairfax, Va., who has been serving as vice chairman/treasurer this year. Merry Mabbett Dean of Portland, Ore., will continue as director of grants/scholarships.

In addition to the appointed board positions, honorary EF trustees include Elizabeth Brown of Dallas, Harriet Schoenthal and Raymond Waites, both of New York, and Sarah Jenkins of Chevy Chase, Md.

A longtime member and fellow of the Northern California Chapter of IFDA, Daher trained as an elementary school teacher but discovered interior design during a two-month study tour of art and architecture in Europe. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in interior design from San Francisco State and she now teaches interior design at two California colleges while running her interior design business.

Vonnahme, also a longtime IFDA member, is a registered interior designer in Texas, specializing in stone and stonework with Verona Marble Co. For the past l4 years, he has been a consultant on numerous projects involving marble, granite and engineered stone.

Klein, a past president of the New York Chapter of IFDA, has created projects in various media for such publications as Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Home and Newsday. She also has produced successful designer show houses, including the first to be staged in Japan, where she laid the groundwork for IFDA's first Japanese chapter.

IFDA/EF offers the largest number of grants and scholarships of any organization in the furnishings industry - more than a dozen awards totaling $30,000-plus annually. Support is given to design students, interior design programs, and professionals who want to broaden their education. In addition, the EF Historic Preservation Grant has helped restore some of America's architectural treasures, ranging from an historic tomb in New Orleans to Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill cottage in Hyde Park, NY.

The foundation is online at ifdaef.org.