Board of Directors

The Council’s nine-member Board of Directors, as its governing body, is responsible for ensuring that the Council fulfills its mission and that the organization maintains its legal, fiscal, and ethical integrity. It is also charged with the strategic planning and relationship building needed to support the organization’s goal of continuous quality improvement.

Throughout its history, the collaboration between the Council and the profession has been integral to fulfilling its mission. Today, the Council maintains relationships with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC), the Interior Designers of Canada (IDC), and the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ). One Council board member is drawn from each of the five collaborating organizations.

“The board brings fresh ideas to the profession from several points of view, and is therefore key to the necessary evolution of professional education. Not only have I gotten an inside view of how practicing designers think and what they see as the issues confronting the profession, I’ve also gotten to know some amazing human beings.”

—Susan Szenasy
Metropolis magazine and
current Council board member

These five Directors collectively appoint one Director to represent each of the following interests: public, industry, accredited interior design programs, and the Accreditation Commission. The executive director is an ex-officio member of the Board. Directors serve for a maximum of two three-year terms.

 

Cary Johnson, FIIDA, Board Chair

Johnson is Regional Workplace Leader at Gensler Chicago, where he plays a key leadership role in Gensler’s North Central region, directing client relationships and interfacing with Gensler’s national and global accounts. He was previously a Principal and Senior Director of Project Services for The Environments Group, and is a Past President of the International Interior Design Association.

 

Heather Robertson Corrigan, FIDC, Secretary-Treasurer

Located in Nova Scotia, Canada, Corrigan is founder, President, and principal designer for Robertson MacLean Design Limited (RMDL), a firm that has provided design consulting to thousands of public and private sector projects over the past 26 years. She is a founding member of the Association of Interior Designers of Nova Scotia (IDNS, 1973) and has served in all executive positions, including President. She also served as a Director of the Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) from 2000-05. Perhaps her most important contribution to the profession in Nova Scotia was her lobby effort over many years to make the Nova Scotia Interior Design Practice Act and Regulations a reality in 2003. To date, Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to legislate public practice rights for interior designers. Corrigan serves as a member of the Nova Scotia Building Advisory Committee, representing the Interior Designers of Nova Scotia. The committee advises government on the National and Provincial building codes and regulations. Corrigan was part of the first graduating class (1975) at Ryerson to be awarded the degree Bachelor of Interior Design.

 

Betsy S. Gabb, Ed.D., IIDA, FIDEC

Gabb is Professor and Director of the Interior Design Program in the College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She teaches at all levels of the curriculum and has been formally recognized by her students for her outstanding teaching. Gabb has recently been instrumental in the development of a post professional Master of Architecture Program with a Specialization in Interior Design offered through distance learning. Her research and writings are focused on areas of interior design education and the design of senior living environments.

Kaye Gosline

Gosline was recently named as Creative Director for Milliken Floor Covering Division. Gosline has 30 years of experience that’s a unique mixture of chemistry, product development, marketing and sales. For much of her career she was with the Fibers Division of Monsanto which then became Solutia. In her years there as Commercial Development Manager, she honed a sense of market trends in both color and style to help mills utilize her company’s fiber. At Solutia, she helped establish the Ultron brand as the color authority for contract while acting as Director of Contract Fibers. She coordinated the annual Doc Awards program, hosted designer seminars and directed sales/marketing efforts. She has been active in the Color Marketing Group for many years and has held various leadership roles in that organization. Gosline holds a BS in Textile Chemistry from Auburn University and an MBA from Brenau University. She was honored by Auburn as one of the outstanding women graduates in the last 100 years.

John A. Lijewski, FIIDA

Lijewski is the Senior Vice President and Interior Design Executive at Bank of America Corporate Workplace in New York City and is a past President of the International Interior Design Association. A former Principal of Perkins + Will, Lijewski has over 30 years experience in his professional practice including design, project administration, and financial management. As the Interior Design Executive for the Bank of America, Lijewski’s primary focus is the Design leadership for the Bank’s Investment Properties, including One Bryant Park (the Bank’s fifty-one story office tower) in New York City and the renovation of the Corporate Headquarters; the newly announced Super Block Project that includes a thirty-eight story office tower, Ritz Carlton Hotel and Winter Garden all in Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

Joseph Pettipas, IDC, ASID, ISP, LEED AP

With well over two decades of experience, Pettipas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced today within the corporate, hospitality, retail and marketing areas of the built environment. As Director of Interior Design and Leader of the Hospitality and Retail Focus Group at HOK Canada, Pettipas is chiefly responsible for the ongoing relationship between the aesthetics of design and the requirements of producing successful projects on target, on time and on budget. His team has completed several large-scale projects in countries as diverse as the United Arab Emirates, Doha, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, mainland China, Indonesia, Mexico, Canada and the United States. He has also taught at the School of Interior Design, Ryerson University where his specialty was in courses in the study of color and color psychology.

 

Susan S. Szenasy Public Representative

Since 1986, Szenasy has served as Chief Editor of Metropolis, the New York City-based magazine of architecture, culture, and design, which focuses on reporting and analyzing design and architecture as a humanist activity. Her training in design journalism began with Interiors magazine, where she rose from editorial assistant to senior editor; followed by the role of chief editor of Residential Interiors. Szenasy also teaches design history and ethics at New York’s Parsons School of Design.

 

John Weigand, IDEC

Weigand is Professor and Interior Design Program Director in the Department of Architecture and Interior Design at Miami University (Ohio), where he also serves as Interim Department Chair. Weigand worked professionally for 10 years as a commercial designer/architect in Chicago prior to beginning his career in teaching. He is actively engaged in discussions about the future of design education through various professional organizations.

 

Robert Wright, FASID

Principal of Bast/Wright Interiors, Inc., in San Diego, Wright has served on the ASID Board of Directors and as the Society's president in 2005 - 2006. He has also served on the ASID National Examiners Committee, the ASID National Nominating Committee as a member and chair, among other positions at the Society and Chapter levels. An active volunteer, Wright has served as chair of the Interior Design Advisory Council at San Diego State University, where he was also an instructor, was active for years in DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS), and is currently on the board of the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation. He has received numerous awards and honors for his interior design work that has been widely published in design and lifestyles magazines.