John McLaughlin, Director

John is a graduate of Gonzaga College High School (Washington, DC), the University of Virginia, and the University of Iowa. He lived in the Dominican Republic from 1997-1999, where he was assistant director of Creighton University's Semestre Dominicano program, as well as working as a writer and teacher. In 1999, he created The Pentecost Project, and has led over 30 group immersion programs since, for colleges, schools, and parishes nationwide. In the US, he has worked with homeless and ex-offender populations for both secular and Catholic non-profit organizations. He has completed spiritual formation programs at Seattle University and the Center for Action & Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM. John's articles about the DR have appeared in various periodicals; his novel, Run in the Fam'ly (University of Tennessee Press, 2007) won the 2006 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel.

Regina Boland, Administrator

Regina is EAB's longest serving staff and board member, having administered EAB's partnership program since 2002.  She is a graduate of Creighton University and the University of Arizona.  As a Creighton student, Regina spent a semester abroad in the Dominican Republic in 1998.  She later volunteered for a year and a half in Bluefields, Nicaragua, where she taught English, worked with the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging scholarship program, and served as Youth Group Advisor.  Regina currently works as a school psychologist in Omaha, Nebraska.

Charles Bergman, Media Coordinator & Community Liaison

Charles, a native of Omaha, NE, is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, having studied film production and theology and co-directed the university's Alternative Breaks service-immersion trip program. His Creighton faculty parents let him and his sisters tag along to Semestre Dominicano in 1998, when he was twelve years old. Since then, he has spent time in El Salvador with Santa Clara University's Casa de la Solidaridad semester program and at the Omaha Catholic Worker House of Hospitality. This current stint as Community Liaison is Charles's fifth and longest tenure in the D.R. He has been with the EAB Board since fall 2005.

Alexi Motta, Community Liaison

Alexi currently lives and works in Santiago, the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic, as an EAB Liaison to the communities of Batey Libertad and Franco Bido. She graduated in 2007 from the University of San Francisco with a degree in Sociology. In spring 2006, she was a participant in the Casa de la Solidaridad semester program in El Salvador. Before beginning work for EAB, she lived as a community member in the Omaha Catholic Worker House of Hospitality. Alexi hails from Princeton, New Jersey.