The Grabhorn Institute

Nancy Abbey received her BA in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. She worked for Arthur Andersen in the audit and tax departments after graduate school and prior to devoting her time to raising three children. She has served on the boards of the Edgewood Center for Children and Families, the Katherine Delmar Burke School, and the Grabhorn Institute—all in San Francisco where she and her husband live when they are not in Nantucket. In Nantucket, she serves on the board of the Nantucket Historic Association. She is a current member of the Advisory Board of Nest, a non-profit supporting the responsible growth and creative engagement of the artisan and maker economy to build a world of greater gender equity and economic inclusion. Nancy cares deeply about the wellbeing of others. She is a keen listener and is intensely curious by nature. Nancy loves math, finds beauty in all things and embraces the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi.

Philip Bowles is a semi-retired senior executive and San Francisco native whose career spanned a range of industries from film production, marine transportation, ocean salvage, and oil exploration; though his main occupation has been agriculture. Raised in a household of bibliophiles and collectors, at five Philip instinctively began collecting. Starting with matchbooks, he began collecting and cataloging books in elementary school. Aside from books, he collects antiques, fishing equipment, and whatever else seems interesting. For nearly forty years, Philip and his wife Jamie served on a number of local and national nonprofit boards. Philip was elected Chair of the Grabhorn Institute shortly after its founding and continued in that position until 2017, delighted that Kevin King would succeed him. Only Kevin’s tragic passing caused Philip to accept re-appointment as interim Chair in 2021. Today, Philip writes both fiction and non-fiction, makes sure he spends at least fifty days a year standing in a trout stream, plays with his grandchildren, and travels. He is also a member of The Grolier Club and The Book Club of California.

Stephanie Kimbro Dolin, MA, JD, is a printer, bookbinder, and fine press book collector living in Portola Valley. Before leaving the legal profession in 2016, she was a Research Fellow at Stanford Law School Center on the Legal Profession and Co-Director of the Center for Law Practice Technology. She authored four books for the American Bar Association and lectured and taught courses for many state bars and law schools on legal technology. She practiced law for ten years delivering online legal services to clients through a virtual law firm. In that time, she also founded a legal technology startup which was acquired by a larger tech company in 2009. Stephanie switched gears in 2017 to set up her own fine press book studio where she operates a Chandler & Price and bookbindery. She has taken many courses at the California Rare Book School and the SF Center for the Book to build a knowledge base around fine press books. She looks forward to continuing to make connections with others who believe in supporting the production and preservation of fine-press books.

V. R. Ferose heads the SAP Academy for Engineering in San Ramon, which aims to create the next generation of engineers to solve the most complex problems in the world. His previous roles at SAP include the head of Globalization Services and the Managing Director of SAP Labs India. Ferose is the founder of the India Inclusion Foundation, a Bengaluru nonprofit that aims to bring the topic of inclusion to the forefront in India, and he has also served on the boards of Going to School, Seat of the Soul Institute, and joined the board of Heyday Books in 2023. As a writer, Ferose co-authored the bestsellers The Invisible Majority: India’s Abled Disabled (which has a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama) and GIFTED: Inspiring Stories of People with Disabilities. His accolades include being listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, a lifetime achievement award for Global Philanthropy by Transperfect, and an AUCD award by Senator Tom Harkin for his “Autism at Work” initiative at SAP. A bibliophile, Ferose has over 3000 rare books in his collection, produced the short documentary The Bookman of Bengaluru, and is a member of the Grolier Club.

Stanlee Gatti is an event designer based in San Francisco. He is known for his innovative and unique style in decoration and design. Stanlee served as President of the San Francisco Arts Commission from 1996 to 2004 and was the founder of the FOG Design+Art Fair, where he featured Arion Press in the Fair’s final 21POP installation in 2022. Stanlee is also a trustee on a few boards in San Francisco including Art Bay Area, CCA, FAMSF, Grabhorn Capital Campaign, San Francisco Art Institute, and SF War Memorial.

Melinda (“Mel”) Hightower is the Head of the Multicultural Strategic Client Segment at UBS, where she is responsible for the firm’s forward-looking strategy to cultivate an inclusive investor experience and support the growth of multicultural financial advisors. Mel joined UBS from J.P. Morgan Private Bank, where she managed large client relationships and served as a trusted wealth management advisor to technology and health care entrepreneurs, executives, and investors. Previously, Mel was a Vice President with ICONIQ Capital and was a member of the Tax Group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where her practice included counseling family offices and private foundations. Mel has a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a Bachelor of Science from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. A Detroit native, Mel lives in San Francisco.

Taylor Kirkpatrick is President & CEO of Babson Farms, a single-family office overseeing businesses in agriculture, manufacturing, diverse real estate, energy interests, and public and private equity investments. He is an award-winning author and avid book collector who established Colorado’s first book collecting prize for collectors under thirty. In addition, he underwrote the “Know Your ABCs: Alternative Books for Children Diversity Collection” at the University of Denver, a physical collection of books and online materials that moves beyond the mainstream to represent families across a diverse spectrum of identities and backgrounds. Taylor is the former President of the Denver Public Library Commission and was instrumental in enlisting the Friends Foundation at the Denver Public Library to support the Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair.

Edmund B. MacDonald, Jr., MBA, “Ned”, a native San Franciscan, now lives with his wife on a ranch in Bennett Valley near Santa Rosa. Before entering the ranching business, he practiced as a commercial real estate developer in the Bay Area representing Chevron Land and Development and Grosvenor International California Ltd. He started his own commercial real estate management company in 1995 for which he operates a portfolio of multi-use properties. Ned was introduced to the press in 2000 by his childhood friend Philip Bowles and joined the board in 2018 when he was asked to form a committee to hire Grabhorn’s Executive Director. He enjoys fine art, has a small but treasured collection of illustrated children’s books, and collects historical photographs from the 1940s of diverse people and places in San Francisco. He looks forward to helping the employees of Arion Press continue to exercise their craft and is proud to support the last hot type foundry, letterpress printer, and book bindery of its kind in his hometown.

Wilhelm Oehl is a partner and CXO of Eight Inc., a design firm in San Francisco. He started his career apprenticing as a cabinetmaker at Emanuel Hook Furniture Design in Germany, and then attended ArtCenter in Europe in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland before transferring to Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design where he graduated with a honors degree in Industrial Design. Wilhelm oversees a wide portfolio of design projects focusing on the human experience for a range of notable clients including Apple, Citi, Coach, Dolby, GAP, Nike, Swatch, Virgin, among others. His projects have received numerous international design awards and were published in Asia, Europe, and the United States. An active supporter of the arts, Wilhelm is a member of the Accessions Committee for Media Arts at SFMOMA and is a frequent speaker at international design events.

Ms. Swig is founder and president of ComCon International and founder of Roselyne C. Swig Artsource (1978-94). She has devoted decades to philanthropic and community service efforts at the local, national, and global level with a focus on women’s empowerment, social welfare, fine arts, political advocacy, and education. She is a strong advocate of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Ms. Swig was appointed Director of the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies Program under President Clinton from 1994-97 and currently appointed U.S. Commission Member of the Preservation for America’s Heritage Abroad under President Joseph Biden. Ms. Swig is founder of advocacy groups Partners Ending Domestic Abuse and The Bayview Alliance. Various Board Memberships include: The Swig Company, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, past chair; Greenlight Clinic, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Jewish Community Relations Council; Jewish Vocational Services; KQED; NPR Foundation; Shalom Hartman Institute, Lifetime Trustee; United Religions Initiative, Senior Advisory Council; and Vital Voices Global Partnership.  Past Board Memberships include AIPAC, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, past president; National Gallery of Art, Collector’s Committee; American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Jewish Community Federation of SF, Peninsula, Marin & Sonoma Counties, past president and former member of the SF Arts Commission and the SF Library Commission. Ms. Swig attended University of California, Berkeley and has been awarded Honorary Degrees from the University of San Francisco, Mills College, Santa Clara University and San Francisco Art Institute. She is the widow of Richard Lewis Swig, has four children, twelve grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

A California native known for creating interiors formed around connection and experience, Kendall Wilkinson has emerged as one of the nation’s most celebrated interior designers. She is a graduate of the University of California San Diego, the Academy of Art University San Francisco, and studied in Paris in her early years of artistic education. Her eponymous interior design studio, founded in San Francisco in 1992, has grown to international recognition with an award-winning portfolio and successful textile collections with Fabricut. Professionally, Kendall is a member of the Design Leadership Network and the Design Council of the San Francisco Fall Show. She currently serves on the Northwest Board of UNICEF USA and previously served on the boards of Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, Raphael House, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. A mother to a blended family, Kendall raised her two sons in San Francisco and recently welcomed the addition of three daughters with her husband Brooks Doggett. Kendall is passionate about preserving the legacy of handcrafted books and promoting the artistry of Arion Press.

Paul Wattis III is president of Wattis & Company, a general contracting firm based in San Francisco. In 2003, he was named a director of the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Among his other non-profit services, he has served on the boards of the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation, San Francisco Ballet, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and the Katherine Delmar Burke School. Paul is a graduate of the University of San Francisco, majoring in history, and served in the U.S. Armed Forces for four years. He currently resides in San Francisco with his wife, Anne Maria, and their four children.