Poise Foundation Announces the Appointment of Three New Board Members

PITTSBURGH, PA (PittsburghNewsWire.com) — The Board of Trustees of POISE Foundation recently appointed three new Board Members to its ranks. Rev. Cornell Jones, Ron Lawrence and Derrick Wilson are all committed community leaders, entrepreneurs and philanthropists and bring a wealth of practical knowledge and visionary leadership experience to POISE Foundation.  Full biographies are attached to this release.

 

 

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BIOGRAPHIES

 

REV. CORNELL JONES

Rev. Cornell Jones is a pastor, activist, mentor, father and husband. He is currently the Group Violence Intervention Coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh where he brings outreach teams and law enforcement together to counteract and prevent violence in the Community.   Rev. Jones served as the Protestant Chaplain at SCI Pittsburgh Prison (formerly known as Western Penitentiary) for over 10 years. While working in the prison, he was involved in many crises, deescalating and gang prevention teams such as: Security Threat Group Team, CISM, and the CERT team.  He is a crisis chaplain and a trained member of the National Organization of Victim Assistance (NOVA) where he assists people who have been victims of large-scale crimes. He recently launched an internet radio station, WXCN Power Radio, with programs to train returning citizens from the prison system.

Rev. Jones truly has a heart for incarcerated youth and adults and the marginalized communities. He continues to walk the path of community activists that his father, the late Bernard H. Jones, paved for him many years ago. Rev. Jones was the program manager for Urban Youth Action, founded by his father, who inspired him to always fight for equality for those who are oppressed. He continues to work with at risk youth in schools, detention centers and neighborhoods all over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who many people label as lost causes. Rev. Jones continues to provide trainings on topics such as violence prevention classes and rites of passage programs with people of all ages. He has been a featured speaker on many college campuses including the University of Pittsburgh, California State University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Penn State, CCAC, Carlow College, Pittsburgh Public Schools and numerous community organizations. Rev. Jones is a workforce development specialist, a violence prevention specialist, an advisory member of the Allegheny County Violence Prevention Advisory Board and a member of My Brother’s Keeper Committee for the City of Pittsburgh, (founded by President Obama). He was recently featured in the newly published book called “YNGBLKPGH”, which focuses on Pittsburgh’s young leadership and mentors.

Rev. Jones has received many community service awards including the “Dare to Dream” Visionary Award from the South Side Coalition for Peace, the Bernard Jones Community Service Award which is the highest award given by Urban Youth Action and the UYA volunteer of the Year Award.  He is also the recipient of the Pittsburgh Black Media’s Communicator of the Year Award and the winner of the Champion Enterprises Local Hero’s Community Award. He was a proud winner of the New Pittsburgh Courier’s Top 40 under 40 people in Pittsburgh and in 2014 he was given the Men of Excellence Award from the New Pittsburgh Courier Newspaper. In 2017 he won the Circle of Courage awards and he recently won the BMe Leadership Award as a result, he was invited to the White House for his amazing work with Black Males. 

As former co-owner of Team Neva, he and his business partner organized the first motorcycle Ride 4 Peace, which brought hundreds of bikers to ride in unity through the city’s rough neighborhoods where there have been numerous killings. Team Neva was also the originators of the t-shirt that stated “Stop Killing” to combat the once popular “Stop Snitching” t-shirt. This controversy stirred up national attention. He is the founder and Pastor of Iron Cross Community Ministries, a community empowerment and anti-violence ministry dealing with street intervention, motorcycle ministries, health, fitness, and Christ Centered Outreach.  He is the son of the late Bernard H. Jones, founder of Urban Youth Action and POISE Foundation, and Geraldine Jones. He is married to Toya Jones,LCSW and the proud father of Cornell, 12 years old and Naomi, who is 8 years old.

 

 

RON LAWRENCE

Ron Lawrence was born in Gulfport, Mississippi and attended segregated elementary, middle and high school there. He began college in the Fall of 1964 at HBCU Xavier University of New Orleans, Louisiana. Ron later graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Detroit. He also earned a BS degree in Math with a minor in Physics from Xavier University, New Orleans, Louisiana and did extensive coursework towards a Master’s degree in Business Administration at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.   

He began his career with the Boeing Company as a telemetry engineer and test assistant working in the NASA Apollo Moon Landing Space Program in 1968 on an engineering co-op assignment where he worked with the African American women of “Hidden Figures”.  Upon graduating from the University of Detroit in 1970 he accepted an engineering assignment with the General Electric Company in Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked in Design, Advance design and Production Engineering.

He and his wife, Valerie and son Ronnie latter moved to Virginia in 1974 with the Westinghouse Electric, Corporation, where he worked as Manager of Market Planning and Distribution in the Industrial and Commercial Air Conditioning Division.  Westinghouse transferred him to Pittsburgh in 1978 where he worked at its corporate headquarters as Manager of Market and Strategic Planning for the Air Conditioning Group. Ron moved to the Transportation Division of Westinghouse in 1981 where he worked as deputy program manager, program manager, and Senior Program Manager for the Washington D.C Metro, Atlanta Airport People Mover, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System, Denver Airport People Mover system, and Singapore Bukit Panjang Transit Projects. After Westinghouse was bought out by the Daimler-Chrysler in 1988, Ron was promoted to Vice president, Signaling and Auxiliary Equipment, ABB-Daimler-Chrysler Transportation, then to Director, Project Development and Sales Total Transit Systems Division, Director Project Management of Sekurflo Security Products, and then to Director, Marketing, Sales and Proposal Management, Bombardier Transportation, Rail Control Solutions, Americas Division. Ron Retired from Bombardier in April of 2015.

Ron has travelled extensively over six continents, and some 24 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Nordic Region, Middle East, and Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Ron is very much interested in the education of African American Youth and works tirelessly to help them navigate “life’s highway”.  In 2015 he was selected as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Highmark, and Bank of NY Mellon’s Jefferson Award winner for the Pittsburgh Region’s Most Outstanding volunteer and represented the Region at the National Jefferson Awards Ceremony in Washington DC. The award was for his 30 years of volunteer service with the 100 Black Men of Western Pennsylvania Mentoring Organization.  Ron also received the Urban League’s 2015 Ron Brown Award for Community Service, the Omega Psi Phi 2015 award for Citizen of the year, and 2019 Judge Livingston Johnson- Boy Scouts Life Time Achievement Award Ron also serves on several Boards in Pittsburgh, including the Boy Scouts Laurel Highlands Council Scout-Reach Division, A+ Schools, 100 Black Men of Western Pennsylvania, and the Iota Phi Foundation of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

Ron’s perspective and hope for life for Africans in America is based on a quote from Paul Robeson; “We realize that our future lies chiefly in our own hands.  We know that neither Institutions nor friends can make a people stand unless it has strength in its own foundation; that people like individuals must stand or fall on their own merit; that to truly succeed they must practice the virtues of self-reliance, self- respect, industry, perseverance and economy.” As current Board Chair of the 100 Black Men of Western Pennsylvania, Ron has dedicated himself, for the past 34 years, to working with over 3,000 African American youth in the Western Pennsylvania region, motivating them to achieve and to believe in the immortal words of Malcolm “X”, “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”.

 

 

DERRICK WILSON

Derrick Wilson, President and CEO of The Wilson Group, LLC kw23, is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Economics and a minor in Psychology and has been in the workflow solutions industry for over 20 years. In 2011 Derrick started to put into motion his desire to own a family business based on his beliefs, values and his passion of establishing a true partnership with his customers and on July 26, 2012 launched The Wilson Group, a MBE owned company, with a completely decentralized business model that caters to the goals and objectives of business partners while streamlining their processes, increasing employee productivity and decreasing hard/soft cost. Derrick is an active community member and sits on several boards including the Jewish Community Center(JCC), Bridgeway Capital, AMACHI and the Kyle B. Wilson Scholarship Fund. Throughout Derrick’s career the not-for-profit companies have been very supportive in patronizing his efforts to be successful in the workflow solutions arena. Derrick can appreciate the struggles and challenges that non-profit organizations endure because he and his family founded a 501(c)(3) organization in honor and memory of his son Kyle. For more information, go to http://kylewilsonscholarshipfund.org/.