Henry Buhl: Founder

Henry Buhl, the philanthropist, community activist and art collector was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. After graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1952, he worked as a stock analyst and institutional salesman on Wall Street for ten years. In 1961 he moved to Geneva, Switzerland to manage mutual funds for Investor’s Overseas Services, eventually becoming the IOS Executive Director. He returned to the United States of America in 1972 and continued his career in the investment banking business until 1980. Despite his background in the world of finance, Henry always had a great interest in photography and it was quite by chance that he was given the opportunity to pursue his passion as a professional photographer at this time. Soon he was photographing weddings, movie openings, charity events, private parties and sporting events such as polo. During those years Henry moved to the SoHo neighborhood of New York. It was in the summer of 1992 that an encounter with a homeless man asking for money inspired him to create The SoHo Partnership and later The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (A.C.E.) Both organizations’ objective is to enable homeless men and women to obtain full-time employment thereby gaining financial independence and permanent housing. Having previously collected an array of works as a photographer, in October of 1993 Henry acquired his first hand themed photograph. It was Georgia O’Keeffe’s Hands With Thimble taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1920 that would be the beginning of his vast and symbolic collection. Although he had no intention of collecting hands at the time, Henry now has one of the most comprehensive collections of photographs focused on the human hand. The collection provides a chronological outline of the history of photography from Henry Fox Talbot’s Ode to Napoleon in 1839 to the most modern day photographers. In addition to over 1,000 hand photographs, he also added numerous hand sculptures to his collection. The Buhl Collection was first exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum of New York in the summer of 2004 and has since been displayed in major museums around the world including those in Spain, Germany and Russia. Most recently The Buhl Collection was on display at the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum in Seoul, Korea and after Korea it will be exhibited throughout Asia.

Henry currently sits on the boards of: The Metropolitan College of NYC, RID- Reduce Infection Deaths, The Guardian Angels, FAIR- The Federation of American Immigration Reform, and CSDL- The Coalition for Secure Drivers Licenses.

James Martin: Executive Director and Director of Project Comeback

After graduating from SUNY New Paltz in upstate New York with a Bachelors Degree in Sociology, Jim worked with MICA (Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted) adults for Transitional Services of New York for Long Island, where he was ultimately promoted to Senior Case Manager. He then moved on to manage a group home for eight developmentally disabled youths at Pederson Krag of Long Island for three years. Afterwards, Jim joined A.C.E., where he extremely successful as the Job Developer for Project Comeback and in early 2005, he was offered the position of Program Director.In 2007, Jim was promoted to Executive Director of A.C.E.

Ashley Harrell: Director of Development

Ashley graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in vocal performance.  Her love of music and passion for outreach led to a volunteer teaching position at a local elementary school.  After college, she taught music and drama to students from Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Iraq, and Germany who were studying English as a second language at The Athenian School in California.  New York City was the next step along the way in pursuit of entertaining on a professional stage, while she balanced a career in financial media.  After leaving her editorial position at a financial trade journal in 2008, she volunteered with A.C.E. at the SoHo Holiday Stroll and started working with the development team full-time in 2009.  She is now delighted to serve as the Director of Development with a brilliant team of young professionals.  You can catch her performing regularly around the city with her musical improv group, Zamboni!

Jennifer Joyce: Executive Director of Retail Development

Jennifer worked at Morgan Stanley for nine years, where she ultimately became Senior Vice President. In 2004, she traveled to Sri Lanka to help rebuild homes after the tsunami and raise money for an orphanage. Jennifer left Morgan Stanley and stayed in Sri Lanka for a year, working closely with Save the Children and UNICEF (as well as other organizations) to remove the children from an abusive boys' home, get them medical attention, and send them to school. Jennifer then spent two years in Africa working with the organizations Imibala and Mapendo, an after-school arts program for impoverished children in Cape Town, South Africa, and a refugee resettlement program in Nairobi, Kenya that resettles refugees from the Darfur conflict, respectively.