Current FPA Board Members
Joseph Marcinkowski is the Vice President and a founding member of the Foreign Policy Alliance. He brought the idea of a left-right alliance on foreign policy, inspired by Ralph Nader’s 2014 book Unstoppable, to the planning group that organized the 2015 Houston Peace and Justice Center conference, “Peace or Wars Without End?” He earned a BA in Economics and History from City College NYC – CUNY, served in the U.S. Army, and worked in the fossil fuel industry for twenty six years, mostly outside the United States. As an activist, he is the Houston representative of the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), an Executive Committee Member of the Houston Peace and Justice Center, as well as a member of Pax Christi and Veterans for Peace. Joe has been married to Laura Marcinkowski for fifty-two years and has three wonderful daughters and five fantastic grandchildren.
Jeff Larson, Secretary, is an aerospace professional with 25 years in NASA’s Mission Control. Outside of the space industry, he is currently a Trustee on the Board of the Clear Creek Independent School District. He has also been a national convention delegate, an officer of a national Republican organization, a precinct chair, and a member of his county party’s candidates, vacancy, and training and development committees.
Allan Vogel, Treasurer has had a varied career which has run the gamut from paper boy to traveling museum attendant to journalism to longshore clerk to the printing industry to entrepreneur and small businessman. He has been active in many political campaigns as a petitioner, organizer, manager, and as a candidate in non-partisan as well as partisan elections with the Libertarian Party. His interest in foreign policy dates to the Vietnam War and has led him to the multi-partisan Foreign Policy Alliance as the best opportunity for long overdue reform.
Bill Crosier, Board member, is a retired biomedical engineer who worked for a NASA contractor for 20 years on ground and flight biomedical experiment hardware and software, before becoming a consultant, developing instrumentation and embedded software for projects for life sciences research. He is a long time peace and justice activist, and is currently President of the Houston Peace & Justice Center. He was active on the Local Station Board of KPFT Radio in Houston, and on the Pacifica National Board, plus he served as a volunteer interim Executive Director for Pacifica in 2017. He was one of the organizers of the 2015 HPJC conference, “Peace or Wars Without End?” and a founding member of the Foreign Policy Alliance. He has been an active progressive Democrat for over 50 years. He is currently President of the Houston Peace & Justice Center.
Jimmy Dunne, Board member, is a retired middle school math teacher with Houston Independent School District. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. After that, he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Quartermaster Corps at Fort Lee, VA. He also worked at Texas Employment Commission, the US Dept of Labor, and the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington DC. He was president of the West Houston Democrats Club for 4 years and the Humanists of Houston for 5 years. He is on the Board of Directors for Queensbury Theatre. He founded People Opposed to Paddling Students or POPS to abolish corporal punishment in schools. He was a guest on several TV shows to discuss this issue, and testified before state legislature committees in Austin. He has been active with Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death penalty and Amnesty International. Jimmy authored two books, “175 Ways to Beat Inflation” in 1980 and “Active Retirement” in 2005. Jimmy enjoys being active and volunteering for good causes.
Past Leadership
Bob Henschen, President Emeritus, is a retired public school teacher, with an M. Ed. in social studies education from the University of Houston. He taught modern U.S. History, psychology, and sociology at Westbury High School in Houston. In 2015, he helped organize the Houston Peace and Justice Center’s conference, “Peace or Wars Without End?,” at Texas Southern University and is a founding member and past President of the Foreign Policy Alliance. He is a long time peace and justice activist and was a Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 Texas Democratic Convention.
Eric Botts, Past President, is retired from the United States Department of State where he served as a foreign service officer in the Bahamas, Ireland, South Korea, and the Dominican Republic before becoming Assistant Director/Information Security Officer of the Houston Passport Agency. He is now adjunct professor at University of St. Thomas and University of Houston Downtown, where he teaches cyber security.