WHO WE ARE: STAFF

Staff

Adam Pertman
Executive Director
apertman@adoptioninstitute.org

Adam Pertman was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his writing about adoption in The Boston Globe, where he was a senior reporter and editor for 22 years before turning his career toward adoption. His book, "Adoption Nation" (Basic Books) was named Book of the Year by the National Adoption Foundation, and has been reviewed as "the most important book ever written on the subject."

Pertman's other honors include: the Angel in Adoption Award from the U.S. Congress; the Special Friend of Children Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists; the Friend of Adoption Award from the ODS Adoption Community of New England; the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law's first award for "the nation's greatest contributor to public understanding about adoption and permanency placement issues"; the American Adoption Congress' first award to the journalist who has done most to inform our nation about adoption and "for his eloquent witnessing of contemporary adoption"; the Year 2000 Journalism Award from Holt International Children's Services; and the Century Foundation's prestigious Leonard Silk Journalism Award.

Pertman's commentaries have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald and on National Public Radio, among others. Articles about him and about "Adoption Nation" have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines nationwide, including "People." He has been a guest on many radio and television programs, including Oprah and the Today Show.

As a leading expert on adoption and family issues, Pertman is often quoted in electronic and print media outlets. He has delivered scores of keynote speeches and other presentations for organizations including the Child Welfare League of America, the American Adoption Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Joint Council on International Children's Services, and the National Association of Child Advocates.

Before embarking on his current career, Pertman, 49, was a journalist with The Boston Globe for more than two decades. His jobs included foreign editor, Washington news editor, West Coast bureau chief, diplomatic correspondent, national political correspondent, family and children's issues reporter, and restaurant reviewer. His assignments included the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Philippine revolution, the Gulf War, the Clinton impeachment, the Middle East peace process, the O.J. Simpson trials, and several presidential elections.

Pertman is a member of the Council on Contemporary Families and of the editorial advisory board of Adoptive Families magazine. The website for his book is www.adoptionnation.com. He and his wife, Judy Baumwoll, live in Massachusetts with their two children (both adopted): Zachary, 9 and Emilia, 6.

Hollee McGinnis
Policy Director
hmcginnis@adoptioninstitute.org

Hollee McGinnis has been a prominent educator, speaker and activist in the adoption community for the past 10 years. She brings unique skills, experience and insight to her role as Policy Director, derived from a combination of her research, her work in the adult adoptee community, and her graduate study in policy and clinical social work.

In 1996, McGinnis founded Also-Known-As, Inc., a non-profit adult intercountry adoptee organization. Its activities have included developing post-adoption services and resources for internationally adopted people and their families, a mentoring program for adopted youth, and motherland tour to Korea for adopted adults. The organization was one of the sponsors of the First Gathering of the First Generation of Korean Adoptees, a groundbreaking conference where McGinnis presented a speech on international search and reunion, “Search: 10 Questions to Ask", that has that has been widely disseminated through the internet and printed in Hi Families and The Korean Quarterly.

McGinnis speaks regularly to adoption agencies, adoptive parent support groups, and at conferences, addressing issues of racial and ethnic identity, birth search and reunion, history of Korean intercountry adoptions, and parenting adopted children. She was the editor of Transcultured Magazine, a quarterly magazine chronicling the adoption life journey, and has written for KoreAM Journal. She has been widely interviewed by the media, including by the New York Times, the national weekly PBS program Asian American Voice, Jade Magazine, Radio Korea 1480am and Bloomberg Radio.

Her published pieces are included in two adoption anthologies, Parents at Last: Celebrating Adoption and the New Pathways to Parenthood, and Voices from Another Place. She has submitted oral and written testimony on behalf of Asian intercountry adoptees for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and she received the Korean World Leaders of Tomorrow award in recognition of her leadership in the area of social services.

Most recently, McGinnis completed the Post-Masters Clinical Social Work Fellowship program at the Yale Child Study Center, where she provided therapeutic services for children and families, many of whom were in foster care, and helped to develop and facilitate an adoptive parent psycho-educational group at the Yale International Adoption Clinic. Prior to her current work in the field of adoption, she was employed as a website developer and technology consultant.

McGinnis graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke College, where she completed an independent study on ethnic and racial identity of college-aged Korean adoptees, and a paper on the history of Vietnamese intercountry adoptions. She received her masters of science at Columbia University School of Social Work, where she concentrated in social welfare policy practice and international social welfare. At the Council on Accreditation, she authored a white paper on the implications of the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 on US adoption practice and provided analysis of various foster care services.

McGinnis, also-known-as Lee Hwa Yong, was born in South Korea and was adopted by her American family at the age of 3.

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