Carla Denison-Bickett is currently the Vice-president of Finance & Administration and came to The Cara Program in 2009 to serve as Director of Finance after six years (2003-2009) as Vice President of Finance at Lehman Brothers Asset Management LLC. Carla is a C.P.A. and holds a Master of Business Administration from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, which she completed in 2004. She has extensive management, reporting and budgeting experience and is responsible for the financial reporting, budgeting, accounting and government contract management for The Cara Program and its social enterprises. Carla is also a managing member for the 180 Properties LLC governing board and a member of the IL CPA Society NPO Committee.

Greg Wangerin, Executive Director, has devoted more than 31 years to humanitarian work around the world, serving refugees directly in Asia, Africa, Europe, and now in North America.  He spent over 21 years working as an international officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  UNHCR appointed Greg to nine separate duty stations, including postings in Kenya where he participated in site development for the Dadaab Refugee Camp complex for Somali refugees in east Kenya as well as the Kakuma Refugee Camp in the Turkana region, originally established for the so-called “Lost Boys” of Sudan.  In Pakistan, he revamped repatriation programs leading to the voluntary return of 380,000 Afghan refugees.   Some years earlier, in the Philippines,  he supervised screening of and assistance for the “Boat People” from Viet Nam, and ensured resettlement processing and pre-resettlement training for Amerasian children, the Lao, and survivors of Kampuchea’s “Killing Fields”.  Prior to joining UNHCR, Greg served as a case manager in Hong Kong for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the national resettlement arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

Greg joined Interchurch Refugee and Immigration Ministries in February 2002, and has been instrumental in leading the agency to its re-branding as Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries and, finally, RefugeeOne.  The re-branding efforts made the agency more welcoming to clients, donors and volunteers of all religious beliefs, and has strengthened  the agency’s capabilities to gain support from corporate funding bodies.  Greg attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, and then graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Colorado State University.  He completed the Non-Profit Executive Management Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

In addition to his passion for helping people who have fled war, terror and oppression, Greg is the proud husband of an artist and father of two adult sons.  He also spent the early part of his life involved in music.  His educational credits include a minor in music; he plays the trombone, and in the early 1970s worked constructing, tuning and repairing pipe organs.

Volunteer Clinicians

Hugh Cole, CADC

Caty Harris, MSW

Matt Lozano

Shravya Raghunand, MSW

Joanna Vergoth, LCSW

Loyola University Chicago, Clinical Social Work Interns:

Amanda Blowers, 1^st year intern

Leah Sennett, 1^st year intern

Alison Korte, 2^nd year intern