OHIO

Angela Laman, MA, LSW
Ohio Program Director

FLORIDA

Annyse Gross
Director of Outreach and Marketing

Karen Myers Baldwin, L.C.S.W., R.P.T.
Florida Program Director

NEW YORK

Flory G. Herman, Esq.
General Counsel

Michael Hill, MS
IAATP Project Lead

Sue Kolock, BSW
Adoptive Parent Department Supervisor / Family Advocate

Lisa Geiger, MS
Adoption Counselor and Family Advocate

Melissa (Missy) Spatari, MSW
Adoption Social Worker and Family Advocate

Sue Shaw, BS
Birth Parent Specialist

EXECUTIVE STAFF

Michele Fried
Founder & CEO

Lori Craig, BS
Executive Assistant

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Naomi Wiseman
Administrative Assistant

Zack Fried
Intake Specialist
Adult Adoptee Support Group Leader

INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION SUPPORT STAFF

Susan Thomas
Nepal Adoption Specialist

CONTRACT STAFF

Flory G. Herman, Esq.  is the agency’s General Counsel. Flory is a former pharmacist (B.S. Pharmacy, Albany College of pharmacy 1979) with a doctorate degree in pharmacy from the University of Kentucky (Pharm.D.1982). She received her law degree (juris doctor) from the New York Law School (1988 cum laude) and was admitted to the New York State bar in January 1989. Her prior experience includes medical malpractice litigation and one of the most successful private adoption law practices in western New York. She is a proud adoptive mother and has been a fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Adoption Attorneys since 1995, whose membership is by invitation only.

Flory was instrumental in developing Adoption STAR’s Agency Assisted Private Adoption Track. Flory works hard to implement and maintain up-to-date Agency practices that provide adoptive parents with effective networking and advertising guidance, enabling them to make that special connection with prospective birth parents.

Flory also executive produced and directed the documentary-style film "I Have Roots and Branches"...Personal Reflections on Adoption, which received a 2004 Film Advisory Board award of excellence, recognized world-wide for quality family/children’s entertainment.

Independent of her role at Adoption STAR, Flory is also a partner in Littlelamb Productions, a video production company she co founded with her brother Alan Wishnoff. Littlelamb Productions creates custom DVD profiles; beautiful and compelling video version of adoptive parents’ printed profile or resumes that can be shared with birthmother’s they have made a "connection" with.

Flory is always awed by the miracle of adoption, having experienced it both personally professionally, for so many years. Flory’s focus is often on the "faces of adoption" i.e. the children, adoptive parents and birth families of adoption, promoting adoption reform and educating society to share her "celebration of adoption". As she passionately maintains, "We want children to know that if they were adopted, it is a wonderful lifelong journey. Let us all celebrate the roots from which they come and the branches that mold them into who they are and where they will go."

Flory loves in E. Amherst, NY with her husband Steven, her two children Rachel and Adam, and two Italian Greyhounds. She loves to cook, watch movies with subtitles and others exercise.