Wendy Revel

President & Executive Director

Before founding The backStorygroup, Wendy Revel, a lawyer, was the Executive Director of CINE, Washington, DC- based film and television competitions non-profit group. At CINE, she conceived and implemented a film scoring competition, and obtained as guest judges well-known film composers and producers, including two Oscar™ winners.  She was previously a Congressional staff director, and has written articles for the Jerusalem Post and The New Republic, as well as a script for National Geographic Television's Explorer series.  Prior to her stint in politics, Wendy was a trial lawyer in Atlanta.  She has two sons, the older a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, who plays guitar with Whatever Whatever and Turtle Recall.  The younger is a recent graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music and is the drummer with Lazy Bones. Wendy and the boys have 2 cats and a dog, only one of whom is musically inclined. 

Johanna Chanin

Chairman

Johanna Chanin recently retired as Senior Vice President and Government Affairs Counsel for a global financial services company; earlier in her career, she was a litigator in private practice with a Washington, DC law firm.  Johanna has been involved in several nonprofit organizations, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, the Financial Services Roundtable, Camp Judaea, and Adas Israel Congregation, where she is a past President. A native of Macon, Georgia, Johanna holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College and a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University. She and her husband, Randall Levitt, live in the Washington, DC area.

Tamara Dunietz

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Tamara Dunietz runs her family's real estate business in Germany and Israel. She earned a BA, MA in economics/statistics from Hebrew University, Jerusalem. After working at the World Bank, Washington, DC, pursued her MBA at The Wharton Business School. She takes part in the family philanthropic efforts in Israel such as in education focusing on Ethiopian Jewry, need-based scholarships to immigrants at higher learning institutions, as well as hospitals and other causes. 

Alexander (Sasha) Mark 

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Sasha is a Washington, DC area radiologist. Sasha is on the board of the American Jewish Committee and is active as a supporter of several chamber music groups.

Howard Milchberg

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Howard Milchberg received his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario. He held a National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada Fellowship at Princeton University, where he completed his Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences in 1985, followed by a postdoc at Bell Labs. In 1988 Milchberg joined the University of Maryland, where he was a recipient of a NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award.

Harriet Tritell

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Harriet Tritell is an ESOL teacher at the Washington English Center in Washington, DC. She is also a hospice volunteer and serves on the board of Temple Micah, where she chairs the communications committee and the community caring committee. Previously she served on the board of the Jewish Social Services Agency of Greater Washington. Harriet holds an MBA from Pace University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. She resides in Bethesda, MD with her husband, Randy Tritell and has 2 adult sons.