Leadership

Our CEO
Michael Piraino has served as chief executive officer of the National CASA Association since 1994, overseeing such projects as a nationwide grants program providing millions of dollars in funding for volunteer advocacy programs, a new 30-hour comprehensive volunteer training curriculum, a national quality assurance program, a major multi-site outcome evaluation project and national public relations efforts.

Piraino has law degrees from Cornell Law School and Oxford University. While practicing law, he represented children as a guardian ad litem and served as a consultant to international social service and child advocacy organizations in Europe and Southeast Asia. Piraino has also worked as a juvenile probation officer and was an associate research scientist for the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University.

Among Michael Piraino's professional achievements, he has authored and co-authored several publications including "Discrimination in Employment" in the Cornell Law Review, A Guide for Children's Advocates and The Children's Databook . He has also been a frequent speaker and presenter at symposia on children, including the United Nations NGO Experts' Meeting on Adoption and Foster Care, the Rockefeller Archives Institute Symposium on Children at Risk and the Amnesty International Forum on Children.

As a result of his service to children, Piraino received the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges' President's Award in 1998 and the New York Decade of the Child Award in 1992.

Our Board President
Mimi Feller has experience in corporate and foundation management as well as in federal executive branch and congressional positions. She retired as the senior vice president of public affairs and government relations and a member of the 10-person management committee at Gannett, a $6.2 billion media company (99 US daily newspapers, including USA Today, 22 television stations in the US and nearly 300 titles, including 15 daily newspapers in the United Kingdom). Feller's responsibilities included corporate communications, media relations, Gannett Foundation, government relations and corporate advertising. Gannett Foundation, through its local grants program, has supported several local CASA programs as well as National CASA.

Before joining Gannett in 1986, Feller was deputy assistant secretary of Treasury (1983-85) and chief of staff for US Senator John Chafee (1981-83). She holds a JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA in history from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Feller serves on the board of trustees for Creighton University in Arlington, Virginia and has been on the National CASA board since 1998.