Laura’s entire career has focused on creating sustainable solutions to pressing social issues through sound strategic thinking and business planning. As a Trustee of the Mimi Washington Starrett Foundation, she is very excited to bring her experience and expertise to the community that has been her home for the last 35 years and to support the efforts of the Foundation to advance the health and prosperity of the Morris County community for all its residents.

Her early work included funding of federally financed employment and poverty programs in Alameda County, CA. She also worked with the US Department of Labor, the Ford Foundation, and Interface (a NYC education and economic development policy organization). As President of Applied Concepts, a consulting firm she established in 1983 and ran for 25 years, she helped address changing dynamics in healthcare, public health, higher education, urban finance, economic development, social services, and culture. Applied Concepts clients included The Fund for New Jersey, Bank One, Citibank, Pfizer, the state of New Jersey, the 92nd Street Y, Adelphi University, Tribeca Film Institute, AT&T, Rockland Family Shelter, and many others.

For the last 17 years, Laura served as President and CEO at The Rippel Foundation and now serves as President Emeritus.  The Rippel Foundation is a nationally focused operating foundation located in New Jersey. The foundation is dedicated to advancing equitable systems for health and well-being throughout America, primarily through ReThink Health, the Foundation’s flagship initiative. ReThink Health works with national and regional stewards to discover what it takes to design and execute transformative change, producing better health and well-being for all by shifting the conditions that hold the problems in place.

She created and led the Institute for Nonprofit Entrepreneurship at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where she also taught and served as Associate Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. She has been a member of the adjunct faculty of Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon, the New School, and Fairleigh Dickinson, where she also served as interim director of the Rothman Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Laura received her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis and received her MBA from New York University. She is the author of Something Ventured, Something Gained: A Business Development Guide for Nonprofit Organizations. Laura brings her academic background and expertise in entrepreneurship and corporate venturing to all her leadership roles.

In addition to being a Trustee of the Mimi Washington Starrett Foundation, Laura also served for nine years as a member of Dartmouth Hitchcock Health Board of Directors. She also served as a Rippel Trustee since 1998 and is currently a member of the Mt. Kemble Lake Board and a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. Laura resides in Morristown with her husband, Robert Corman, and their puppy, Scout. Their two grown children, Juliane and Dan, are on their own and doing well.