Staff

Donna Walker James Executive Director

Donna brings over 30 years experience in nonprofits and management to the Executive Director position. She has deep Alexandria and Arlington roots and long-standing Fairfax County residency, coupled with a love of building connections and networking with volunteers, staff, board members, students, alumni, sponsors and donors. She provides leadership to the organization and will strategically position CORE for future growth, while ensuring that CORE clients receive the highest quality of services through effective and efficient program management. She is eager to increase enrollment, honor and increase volunteer participation, and expand business partnerships.

Previously, she served concurrent roles as Programs Coordinator with the Goodwin House Foundation, Executive Director, Agenda:Alexandria, and Program Manager, First Night Alexandria. Prior to that, Donna was Deputy Director of Senior Services of Alexandria and Acting Executive Director of Volunteer Alexandria.

Earlier in her career, Donna ran an after-school work experience and community service program in West Philadelphia, worked on School-to-Work at the U.S. Department of Labor, and wrote about effective workforce program evaluations at the American Youth Policy Forum. Donna is a graduate of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA, and earned both her BA in Urban Studies and Masters in Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Donna follows Computer CORE founder Deb Roepke and Lynn O’Connell who each served as Executive Director for ten years.

Rhonda Green-Smith joined Computer CORE as Deputy Director in September 2020. Her duties are focused on fundraising and volunteers. Before joining the organization, Rhonda provided grant writing, and strategic development services as a consultant for CORE.

As a non-profit professional, Rhonda is particularly dedicated to non-profit organizations focused on eliminating barriers to access, opportunity, and racial equity that further disadvantage minority groups and other marginalized communities of color. For a variety of organizations and clients, Rhonda has offered consulting services and supports in the areas of program and project development, community partnership, strategic funding development, volunteer management, and fundraising.

Prior to joining CORE, Rhonda worked with Covenant House Washington as a member of the External Affairs Department where she wrote numerous grant applications and was a key planner for major annual fundraising events. Rhonda also coordinated and helped streamline CHW’s volunteer service program where she managed the onboarding process, developed mission-oriented volunteer projects for corporate, community, and student volunteers and organized and led tours of the organization’s departments, programs, and facilities. Her proudest accomplishments include working with CHW leadership, staff, and youth in successful planning, execution, and evaluation of the organization’s annual “Sleep-Out” movement to end youth homelessness.

Other accomplishments include supporting Washington DC’s emergency “warming bus” weather initiative aimed at protecting homeless individuals and families from frigid hypothermic temperatures. The experience offered an opportunity to work collaboratively with other local non-profits and government offices, and other stakeholders to save the lives of the city’s most vulnerable populations. She also managed the organization’s most successful “Share the Holiday CHeer” annual donations initiative which coordinated and connected large and small donors to over 300 CHW youth and families. Every single CHW youth and any children they had, received holiday gift items sending a clear message that people care.

Rhonda’s early background extends to the education sector where, as assistant teacher and eventually lead teacher, she was responsible for creating and implementing engaging and rigorous lesson plans that ensure education inclusion for all students.

Rhonda’s life’s work is rooted in a commitment to showing up and doing the necessary work to address issues related to education, workforce development, and socioeconomic equity. Rhonda graduated from The George Washington University, where she completed a double major in English and Creative Writing.

Nagia Kurabi Student Recruitment & Classroom Operations Manager

A graduate of Computer CORE’s Flagship program, Nagia joined Computer CORE staff as the Student Recruiter and Classroom Manager in 2018 and advanced to Classroom Operations Manager in 2020. In her role at CORE, she is able to fulfill her long term commitment to helping others by working with volunteers to assist new immigrants & refugees settle in the United States and improve their lives.

She previously worked at BB&T Bank as an Assistant of Business Banker, and assisted the City Executive in Springfield. Nagia holds an associate’s degree in General Studies from the Northern Virginia Community College, a degree in Physical Therapy from college in Syria.

Wayne Hulehan manages Computer CORE’s social media strategy including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. He also leads online fundraising initiatives such as Giving Tuesday and Spring2ACTion. Wayne also helped in fundraising for laptop donations to roll out our Distance Learning Initiative.

Wayne has a long and extensive background in Information Technology, strategic planning, marketing, customer service and communications. Wayne created and managed the first centralized Information Center for the American Red Cross Headquarters, providing centralized hardware/software acquisition, installation, training and support for 1,600 Headquarters staff and 3,200 Red Cross chapters and blood centers across the nation.

As Director of Information and Systems Services at The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), Wayne developed strategic plans, transformed technology infrastructure and established international standards to enhance DMV operations and customer service across the United States and Canada.

As Director of Information Services, Wayne developed and implemented National 4-H Council’s Information Technology strategic plan as well as providing leading edge technology to staff to meet their business objectives.

As Marketing and Communications Chair at The Boy Scouts of America, Wayne created monthly newsletters, assisted in design of NCAC website and Colonial District content, provided scout leaders with resources to be effective and media contact information to promote scouting. In 2007, Wayne was presented Tommy Thompson Award for service to Scouting.

As Vice President and CIO of The Knowledge Management Professional Society (KM). Wayne co-founded the organization to provide strategic and tactical direction to 600 member professional society representing 30K knowledge management professionals in 28 countries. He served as business partner liaison to implement collaborative KM technologies on web site www.kmpro.org and addressed communication challenges within the organization . Wayne also managed Member Services Division, responded to questions and resolve problems, provided training on collaborative tools, and developed user groups and listservs.

Wayne created and manages a listserv for 2,700 residents of Beverley Hills neighborhood of Alexandria. He received the North Ridge Citizens Association “ Citizen of the Year” award in 2010 for his work on the listserv, service as Cub Scout Leader and Colonial District Boy Scout marketing and communications Chair.

Wayne is also a professional photographer and helps several small businesses and non-profit organizations with their social media platforms as well as marketing and communications.

Susan Townsend Impact Manager | Web content, digital, and data specialist

Susan’s tenure with Computer CORE dates back to 2003 when, searching for a volunteer opportunity that combined her passion for education with her digital skills, she embarked on what became a seven-year stint as a volunteer. She began as Volunteer Intake Coordinator, then extended her involvement to creating web and promotional materials, joined a web task team, and even helped one term in the classroom as a “Success Strategies” career development coach. She remains inspired by the organization’s mission to provide technology education as a means of improving lives, and today is responsible for CORE’s online presence, print materials and data visualization, and is involved with grant writing and reporting. Taking projects from concept planning, through implementation to results collection, gives her not only a 360-degree view of the organization, but beyond that—allows her the opportunity to see CORE’s impact on lives.

Previously Susan held positions at healthcare associations and community outreach organizations in both web content management and communications. At each, she worked to convey the organization’s message with visual clarity, collaborating across departments to provide creative solutions. She holds a bachelor of science degree from University of Arizona.

Adeel Awan is student from Thomas A. Edison High School, who has been with Computer CORE since his freshman year. He also has taken a number of courses in computer science and appreciates the opportunity at Computer CORE to work with a lot of hardware. In addition, Adeel has been asked to stretch himself by working with the staff and many students, alumni and volunteers of the organization. It is a powerful learning and workforce community, that is rich to experience in a lot of different ways and at a lot of different levels.

Waleed Ahmad is a student from Thomas A. Edison High School as well as the Edison Academy. Waleed has been with Computer Core since the start of his senior year in high school. He has undertaken many cyber related courses at his school, of which include Cyber: A+, Cyber: Net Admin, Oracle I, and Oracle II. These various courses have developed his understanding of both the infrastructure and data concepts of Information Technology. Once Waleed graduates from high school, he will embark on advancing himself academically by attending George Mason University and laying a focus on Computer Science. By joining Computer Core, Waleed made the decision to expand his skill set by collaborating with fellow staff as well as a wide range of volunteers and students, and he hopes to make many memories along the way.