Leadership Team

No bio.

Vinny is the Communications and Administrative Assistant for Safe Passage for Children. She believes that all children should feel safe in their own homes and hopes to continue to push that belief and work towards advocating for a better system. She is also a Real Estate Agent with Superb in the Urbs Team at Realty Group and is a 2024 Board Member for AREAA Twin Cities Chapter.

Before she became a Realtor, she had years of experience in various administrative, event, and marketing roles. Aside from work during her free time she enjoys writing, creating arts and crafts, trying new food, watching movies, and meditating.

• Board – Canterbury Park, Audit and Compensation Committees
• Board – Bachman’s Garden and Gift Stores
• Interim CMO Mayo Clinic
• CEO MN Super Bowl LII
• EVP Mall of America

Maureen Bausch is currently a partner with Bold North Associates (BNA). BNA is a consulting firms specializing in business development, marketing and destination development.

A major focus of current assignments include strategic sponsorships, business development and large scale event planning.

Prior to joining BNA. Maureen was the Interim CMO of Mayo Clinic. Maureen has spent almost a year in this position during a period of transition at Mayo Clinic. During this time, she led marketing, provided oversite for a large team, managed professional sports partnerships market specific corporate outreach and site growth.

Maureen has spent the majority of her career working with retailers. She joined Mall of America in 1990, 2 years prior to opening. She rose to Executive Vice President managing the $1B asset and reporting to the Ghermezian family. As EVP, Maureen had responsibility for a $100M budget, all aspects of the P&L, managed a team of 1500, worked with 800+ retailers, restaurants and attractions over 25 years. Maureen lead the Business Development efforts, attracting new retail and attractions. Mall of America opened in 1992 and generated total sales of over $800M within 5 years.

She began her career directing advertising for Cub Foods, her family’s business. During her 13- year tenure, the company grew from 4 stores to 85 in 14 states. Cub was sold to Super Valu and transitioned from a private family organization to part of a publicly held, large wholesale food organization.

Maureen left Mall of America in 2015 to become the CEO of MN Super Bowl LII. During this 4-year assignment, she launched 2 companies a 501C3 and a 501C6. Raising $60M in private funding, she created the Bold North brand, hired a staff of 32, secured 10K volunteers and engaged 400 committee members from the public and private sector. She had oversight responsibility for 200+ events and 5800 visiting media. The Minnesota Super Bowl LII has been deemed by the NFL as the most successful in history with an economic impact of $450M for Minnesota.

Maureen graduated from the University of Minnesota with an MA in Journalism/Marketing and has taken further continuing board education courses at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. She has always been active in the community. She has been a board member for several non-profit organizations, St. Catherine University, Minnesota Retailers Assoc. US Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism. Today she is a board member of the MN Orchestra, Taste of the NFL as well as others. Maureen and her husband Bill, live in St. Paul and have 5 adult children. They enjoy traveling, family and outdoor activities.

Lisa Hollensteiner is a physician who practiced 32 years in Emergency Medicine.  Due to frustrations with receiving inadequate responses to her reports to Child Protection about children who had been abused or were in significant danger, she sought out involvement with Safe Passage with Children as a way to improve child welfare. Lisa subsequently served on the Governor’s Task Force for Child Protection which put forth 91 recommendations to improve child safety. She recognizes that there is still much work to be done and is committed to continuing to work toward change through legislative advocacy with Safe Passage.

Lisa attended University of Pennsylvania Medical School and is  board certified in both Family Practice and Emergency Medicine. She has given educational lectures to medical staff about recognizing the importance of social factors such as home environments, abuse, mental health, and previous traumas, and how they impact better understanding and providing the best care for the patient. She currently lectures on medical advocacy, advance care planning, and how to best navigate medical care.

Greg spent all but 15 months of his 40 year social work career working in the Child Protection system. He retired from Hennepin County, Minnesota in June, 2014, after having worked there for 37 years. Greg worked as a direct service worker in both the case management and the investigations areas of Child Protection. He was a unit supervisor for 30 years in foster care, Child Protection Case Management and for the last 24 years of his career in the areas of Child Protection Screeening, 24/7 Immediate Response and mostly in the area of CP Investigations. Greg served on several hospital and community based Child Abuse Teams, as well as on the Hennepin County Child Abuse Team. He also functioned as the Child Protection liaison for Hennepin County with the Minneapolis, Bloomington and Richfield Police Departments. For a number of years during the 1980’s and the early 1990’s Greg was also an adjunct faculty member of the University of Minnesota School of Social Work. Greg received his BA in sociology from St. John’s University (Collegeville, MN) and his Master’s of Social Work from the University of Minnesota. During his working career he was a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Academy of Certified Social Workers. He was also licensed as a “Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker” by the State of Minnesota Board Of Social Work.

Nalee is a mom of a blended family, wife, entrepreneur, coach, mentor, community advocate-leader, Team Lead of her Real Estate Team, and a Shamanic Energy and Spiritual Healer. After attending Hamline University and graduating with a B.A. in Legal Studies and Paralegal Certificate, she worked in the legal field for 12 years as a Complex Commercial Litigation Senior Paralegal. Nalee’s passion to help children fueled from different aspects of her ability to see and empathize as a natural born Shamanic Healer, to the years of hardship through life as a single mother who protected her child’s best interest and fought to keep her blended family safe from a neglectful and toxic environment. She started her journey with Safe Passage as a volunteer in 2015 and later became a board member and annual donor. Nalee extended her ability to advocate for children and women to being a voice in the BIPOC community. She led a 4-year term as the first Hmong person and Hmong Woman Vice-President and President of the national organization, Asian Real Estate Association of America-Twin Cities Chapter. AREAA is one of the four largest diversity trade organizations in the nation to promote homeownership within the AAPI community and close the racial disparity gap. Nalee later became one of the Co-Founders of the first and largest annual BIPOC homeownership events in Minnesota, “Twin Cities Diversity Homeownership Fair,” where real estate, lending and housing professionals come together to educate and empower thousands of consumers annually. Today, Nalee continues to find ways to advocate for neglected children to protect their innocence and diverse families of multi-generations who want to achieve the homeownership dream. She believes that if we want to see change, start first by raising children who will be of contribution to society and have compassion to love and help humanity in return.

Melissa DeBilzan is the former executive director of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (MNAAP), where she worked for 10 years before deciding to spend more time with family. During that time, she oversaw a variety of work groups that met on a regular basis, managed multiple state and national grant projects, communicated with legislators and state agencies, planned annual conferences for pediatric professionals, organized Pediatricians’ Day at the Capitol, and led numerous other activities that contributed to the organization’s mission of advancing the health and wellbeing of children in Minnesota. One of those work groups was on child abuse and maltreatment. 

She has more than 20 years of experience in communications and project management, mainly for small nonprofits but also for small businesses. She earned a degree in journalism from the University of St. Thomas in 2001 with a concentration in public relations and a minor in computer science. 

Melissa recently earned a Digital Marketing Professional (DMP) designation from the American Marketing Association/Digital Marketing Association to better understand how organizations can better leverage digital communication tactics. She is a wife and mother of 5 children and also serves as a mentor to 8 international students in Saint Paul. 

Maggie Carney is  a retired pediatric nurse (RN) formerly employed at Children’s Minnesota Hospital for the entirety of her 40-year career.  As a pediatric nurse she advocated for the health and safety of her young patients in multiple areas, completing her career at Midwest Children’s Resource Center (MCRC) a clinic within the hospital specializing in the evaluation and treatment of suspected abuse patients.  Maggie has valuable experience interfacing with a variety of community partners including child protection, law enforcement, court officials, mental health and public health providers.  She continues to hone her skills through regular attendance at peer review conferences with her former local and national colleagues.  Maggie’s knowledge base and expertise in the child abuse field brings valued skills to the Safe Passage for Children of MN board.

Ashley Harrison is Safe Passage for Children’s 2026 Ireland Justice Fellow. A New Jersey native by way of Jamaica, Ashley relocated to Washington, D.C., to pursue her undergraduate education, earning a bachelor’s degree in Criminology from Howard University in 2019. She later moved to Minneapolis in the summer of 2022 to pursue her legal education and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of St. Thomas School of Law in 2025.

During her time at St. Thomas, Ashley served as a law clerk with LegalCorps, a nonprofit organization that provides pro bono transactional legal assistance to nonprofits, inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. She later became a student practitioner in the Criminal and Juvenile Defense Clinic, where she represented youth and adult clients in criminal and delinquency matters who otherwise lacked access to legal representation. In this role, Ashley regularly appeared in court, conducted fact investigations and witness interviews, provided client counseling, and drafted legal motions.

Following her clinic experience, Ashley continued her student practitioner work with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. There, she conducted legal research and writing for prosecutors on complex cases—primarily involving child abuse and homicide—and regularly appeared in court prosecuting traffic-related offenses.

In her role at Safe Passage for Children, Ashley conducts research and analysis of child fatality review data and supports the advancement of public policy aimed at improving outcomes for children who are at risk of or experiencing maltreatment. When Ashley is not working, she can be found volunteering at her church’s Children’s Ministry and planning game nights with friends.

John graduated from St John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota with a BA in Biology in 1980. He also has a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of St Thomas. He spent most of his career at Ameriprise Financial where he held various jobs in Marketing, Compliance, Business Development and Technologies. He has volunteered with several non-profit organizations including several years as Treasurer of the Shoreview Area Youth Baseball organization. Currently retired, John enjoys skiing, traveling with his wife, Maggie, and spending time with his three children, their spouses and his eight grandchildren.

Kim Berg works as Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Children’s Hospital and Clinics of Minnesota. Kim has been practicing as a nurse practitioner for over twenty years, spending the last 10 years working specifically with children who have been sexually or physically abused, providing medical care to high risk adolescents and working closely with law enforcement, child protection and resources in the metro area for sexually exploited youth. 

Kim is an Affiliate Faculty Professor at the University of Minnesota and is a member of the Ramsey County Sexual Assault Protocol team. She received a Bachelor of Arts in nursing from the College of St. Catherine and Masters of Nursing from Case Western Reserve University.

Doug (D.J.) Tice retired in April, 2024 as Commentary Editor, Opinion Page columnist, and a member of the Editorial Board at the Star Tribune, Minnesota’s largest news organization. During his 45-year career as a Twin Cities journalist. Doug covered and commented upon child protection issues over the course of decades, beginning in the early 1990s as an editorial writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press calling for the opening of juvenile and child protection court proceedings to the press and public. At the Star Tribune, first as political news editor and later on the Opinion pages, he continued to cover efforts to reveal and reform inadequacies in Minnesota’s systems for protecting abused and neglected children, including commenting on revelations in several major Star Tribune investigations of the system. 

Doug’s varied career in Minnesota journalism including writing and editing roles for Corporate Report, a regional business magazine, and Twin Cities, a general interest city magazine, and as both editor and publisher of the Twin Cities Reader, an alternative weekly newspaper. His writing about state and national politics, history, economics and legal affairs has won numerous awards, including the Minnesota Book Award for History in 2000 for ‘Minnesota’s Twentieth Century,” and a Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Award in 2009.   

Angelo Licursi leads the Development & Donor Relations efforts for Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota, where he is dedicated to building the sustainable philanthropic support necessary to protect at-risk children and improve the state’s child welfare system. Angelo brings a mission-first approach to fundraising, ensuring that every donor’s contribution directly advances the organization’s advocacy and reform goals.

His commitment to the Safe Passage community is backed by:

• Strategic Advocacy Fundraising: A successful history of helping national nonprofit organizations in children’s advocacy, education, and healthcare fund critical initiatives through comprehensive campaign development and annual giving.

• Dedicated Donor Stewardship: A focus on major gift acquisition and stewardship, prioritizing transparent and impactful relationships with supporters who share a vision for a safer future for Minnesota’s children.

• Deep Local Roots: A 20+ year career as a veteran executive in the Twin Cities marketing industry, where he has cultivated long-term, trust-based relationships both locally and nationally.

Angelo is thrilled to apply his extensive experience and fundraising best practices to help Safe Passage advocate for the safety and well-being of children across Minnesota.

Lisa Montpetit Brabbit is the Associate Dean for External Relations at the University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis). She also serves on the School of Law Executive Committee. In her dual role, she provides leadership for a significant portion of student professional development, experiential learning (Mentor Externship), alumni relations, law board relations, external relations with partner organizations and events. She also works on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) matters and contributes to building a strong and inclusive culture. Across all her roles at the School of Law, Lisa is known for her innovative and inclusive approach to advancing organizational objectives, breakthrough strategies and motivating teams in the process. She consistently exceeds institutional goals and has provided leadership for several nationally recognized programs. Given Lisa’s work with institutional advancement and her extensive professional connections, she understands the role of relationships in the profession and the importance of stewarding those relationships at the highest level. Lisa is a former trial lawyer. Her practice focused on personal injury, product liability, and negligence matters. She was an associate at SiebenCarey and a founding partner at McCoy, Peterson, Jorstad and Brabbit. Client relationships and excellence were central to her work as a lawyer. She currently serves as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, and a court-appointed trustee in civil rights and wrongful death cases. She has extensive leadership and nonprofit experience as a member of nine boards, including Catholic Charities, YWCA, the Ward 8 Benevolence Fund, Minnesota Association for Justice and the Minnesota State Bar Association. She has served as president of Minnesota Women Lawyers, The Infinity Project, and The Minnesota Women’s Forum. Lisa is a frequent presenter, contributing her thought leadership to topics that include leadership, governance, diversity, mentoring, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and relational engagement. She has been recognized on numerous occasions for her leadership and impact in the profession.