Lori Griswold, Ph.D., a member of the Germantown Academy Board of Trustees since 2012, has been appointed President of the Board, and began her three-year tenure last month. Griswold will oversee the 28-person Board and fifth-year Head of School Rich Schellhas. The Board of Trustees provides governance over the 260 year-old, coed, nonsectarian school with over 1,170 students in grades PreK-12 located in Fort Washington.

Griswold is the former Executive Vice President of Griswold Special Care and the Executive Director of the Special Care Foundation. While on the board at GA, Griswold has served as the Governance Committee Chair and the Committee on Trustees Chair. She was also a member of the Executive, Finance, Development & Communications, and Facilities Committees. She was a leader of the GA Parents’ Committee, serving in many executive committee roles between 2009-14, including as Chair, was a co-chair for the Art Alive Fundraiser in 2014, and a co-chair of GrandFriends Morning from 2012-18.

“I am grateful to Lori for her willingness to take on the significant task of GA Board leadership,” said Schellhas. “I am confident that the trustees and the school will thrive under her strategic, dedicated, and very personal leadership style. Lori and her family have been members of the GA community for decades, and we are extremely fortunate that she has chosen to apply her impressive professional and interpersonal skills to the benefit of GA.”

Griswold is a trained gerontologist, policy analyst, and aging issues coach, and serves as a consultant in long-term care, compliance, and advocacy. She is a past Board President of Upper Dublin Lutheran Church, board member and Governance Committee member of The Jean Griswold Foundation, and an advisory board and committee member of Philly Fights Cancer. She currently consults for families, state government entities, and national organizations dealing with issues from fraud and abuse to advocacy, compliance and navigating the U.S. systems of health care and long-term care.

Griswold was named an honorary member of the Germantown Academy Class of 1760 in 2015. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Griswold resides in Ambler with her husband, Kent, a 1976 Germantown Academy graduate. Their children, Kaela ’15 and Grant ’19, are both GA graduates.