Board of Directors

Alex Beauchner, Vice President

Alex lives in Dover, NH but grew up in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the NH Leadership Series in 2018 and is now excited to be using his new skills in the Seacoast ABLE chapter. Alex works at Wentworth Douglas Hospital. When not working or leading the Seacoast chapter, Alex enjoys playing sports-related video games. He strives to be the best leader he can be to make sure the Seacoast is a warm, welcoming, inclusive community.

Wendy Chase, Governance Chair

Wendy Grew up in Hampton Beach, NH, and attended Winnacunnet High School and Northeastern University. She is also a 2018 graduate of the UNH IOD Leadership Series. Wendy now resides in and is running for her third term as State Representative.

In 2021, she was awarded Outstanding Legislator of the Year by the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities. Wendy is a member of the Disability Rights Center Supported Decision Making Taskforce and Cohost of the Portsmouth Public Media show Living and Learning with Disabilities, which has wrapped up its 17th year.

In addition to ABLE NH’s Board of Directors, Wendy is a member of the Lakes Region Mental Health Board of Directors and Development Committee. She is also a Civics and Policy facilitator for The National Parent Leader Institute Program at Manchester Community College and a volunteer for the Young Athletes program sponsored by the Laconia Knights of Columbus and NH Special Olympics.

Wendy and her husband, Glenn, are owners of Avalon Promotions, a Service-Disabled Veteran owned Small Business located in Rollinsford and Laconia. Her parents started the company in Portsmouth in 1981; she took ownership in 2001. Wendy is the mother of two. Her oldest, a daughter, died in 2018 after a long battle with complications from childhood cancer. Her son and daughter-in-law have two children, the loves of Wendy’s life.

Derek Connary

Colby Dudal

Colby lives in Atkinson, NH. He experiences a rare disability known as CHARGE syndrome. Throughout his life, he’s had experience advocating for himself and others who experience a disability.

After graduating from Keene State College in 2019, he worked at Community Crossroads writing blog posts, managing the organization’s social media pages, and planning fundraising events. In 2022, he graduated from the New Hampshire Leadership Series and currently is a homegroup leader for the series.

Colby has worked at New Hampshire Public Radio since the fall of 2022 in the development department.

Outside of work, Colby enjoys traveling, spending time with family and friends, trying new restaurants, and playing Alexa’s Question of the Day every night.

Nicole Henry

Nicole lives in Manchester, NH, and grew up in central Massachusetts. In addition to ABLE NH’s Board of Directors, Nicole currently works as a Communications Specialist for an organization that focuses on mental health. Her experience is in advocating to increase employment rates for disabled individuals, event planning, marketing, and graphic design. Nicole holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Worcester State University.

Sophie Kellam

Sophie Kellam is a Board Member at large for ABLE NH. She is a 2022 Graduate and currently a Mentee for the NH Advanced Leadership Series which is a program presented by the Institute on Disability. Sophie has lived in Exeter, New Hampshire since she was around 5 years old. She is a person with ADHD, Social Anxiety, NVLD, and is on the Autism Spectrum. The Advanced Leadership Series is a nonpartisan series dedicated to teaching community members about issues experienced by individuals with disabilities and their families and how to advocate for the disability community on multiple levels. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2020 with a magna cum laude bachelor’s degree in Communication. In January through to August of 2021 she wrote for the Disability Rights Center with a blog called Communication Corner with Sophie Kellam. The blog joined her as she explored her experience with disabilities through the lens of Communication. An article she wrote was featured in the Disability Advocacy Policy and Practice Research Newsletter in Spring of 2021 and on the Stay Work Play New Hampshire blog. She was also featured in the Leadership’ Annual Letter Appeal. Through her recent experiences at Leadership as well as years of being a self-advocate with the help of her family and community, she has gained great advocacy skills that she wants to use to change current societal structures to form based on inclusion and diversity.

Paula Margenau, Secretary

Ashley Martin, Engagement Chair

Ashley lives in Barnstead, NH, she graduated with her bachelors from Southern New Hampshire University. Ashley has worked at The Moore Center for many years where she has had many roles, currently she is the Director of Community Based Services and Kinship Care. She has a strong interest in helping people with a special interest in the disability community. Ashley also has run a self-advocacy group of 50 individuals over the past two years.

As a board member Ashley is eager to leverage her skills and connections to assist ABLE NH in continuing to advocate for individuals across the state.

In her spare time Ashley enjoys spending time with her golden retriever, Millie, spending time outside, baking, exploring new cuisine and traveling.

Katie Phillips

Katie is a longtime member of ABLE NH who is interested in creating more inclusive housing options. Her primary project has been to make buildings in downtown Dover more accessible to people with disabilities. Katie has been a featured speaker at events such as the Disability Justice Parade and a housing-related press conference. In addition, Katie has volunteered with other organizations such as Special Olympics – Dover Mighty Seals, Dover Basketball, UNH Friends in Action, and Wildcat Friends and has provided training to other volunteers. Katie lives in Somersworth and enjoys watching movies, working in the yard, and planting flowers.

Philip Read, Treasurer

Lisa Steadman, President

Lisa Steadman lives in Troy, NH with her husband Mikel and 3 children Noah (13), Maxwell (12) and Adalie (5).  Max has Down Syndrome and was Lisa’s inspiration to become involved in the world of Developmental Disabilities.

She has served on the Monadnock Regional School District Board since 2009, is President of the Board for one of Region V’s Family Centered Early Supports and Services providers- Rise for Baby and Family, is a 2016 graduate of the NH Leadership Series, is Chair of the Region V Monadnock Family Council and Statewide Family Support Council, and co-facilitator of See the Able, Not the Label.

Lisa has served as a founding member of our DDD taskforce and has served on our Inclusive Education taskforce. She was very excited to increase her involvement with ABLE by joining the Board in 2022.  Here, she hopes to leverage her experience (as a licensed insurance agent and former nonprofit Director), and her education (B.S. in Business Administration; Certificates in Grant Writing and Nonprofit Finance; Training as PIC Volunteer Advocate, and Graduate of Policy Partners) to help further our organizational goals.

For fun, she loves cooking, planning travel and events, doing puzzles, and spending time with her church family and disabilities peeps.

Thomas Wood

Tom Wood, “Woody” is a Senior Citizen with Cerebral Palsy and autism.  A Graduate of Wentworth Institute with a BS in Electronics Engineering Technology, Tom has worked off and on in industry, last working in the field of Industrial Robotics.  He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Asperger Works, Inc., a small non-profit organization based in Lawrence, MA.  Tom has been a Disability Civil Rights Activist for many years and also belongs to the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and ADAPT.  His leadership includes testifying before committees both in Concord, NH and on Beacon Hill in Boston, MA on legislation affecting the disability community.

Board Advisors

Kelly Nye-Lengerman, UNH Institute on Disability

 Dr. Kelly Nye-Lengerman is the Director of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. Her work is focused on making public policies and systems work for people through research, training, technical assistance, and advocacy. Her work supports the full inclusion of individuals living with disability in all aspects of community life. Dr. Nye-Lengerman’s portfolio includes research, policy, and service work focused on inclusive employment practices and policy, social security, Medicaid long term services and supports, organizational transformation, person-centered practices, and poverty remediation.  Dr. Nye-Lengerman serves on the national board of the Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) and is actively involved with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD).  She has also served on numerous national and state advisory groups focused on home and community-based services (HCBS), and vocational rehabilitation, and social security.

 Dr. Nye-Lengerman has a broad range of professional experiences working for disability provider organizations in both community and facility-based employment programs, as a social worker, and as a direct support professional.  She previously spent 11 years at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration.  Dr. Nye-Lengerman authored Community Living and Participation for People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a number of book chapters, and more than thirty journal articles an technical reports on employment services, vocational rehabilitation, community living, retirement, and other topics. Dr. Nye-Lengerman is passionate and committed to connecting research, training, and direct practice work across disability policy and service topics. 

Stephanie Patrick, Disability Rights Center – NH

Stephanie Patrick joined the Board of ABLE NH when she joined the Disability Rights Center as Executive Director in 2017. Stephanie was formerly the Director of Policy and Planning at the Advocacy Center, DRC’s sister agency in Louisiana, where she worked on legislative advocacy, coalition building and programmatic compliance. She graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2003 with a Master’s of Social Work and also holds an undergraduate degree in social work from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Isadora Rodriguez-Legendre, NH Council on Developmental Disabilities

Isadora Rodriguez Legendre is the Executive Director at the NH Council on Developmental Disabilities. She has been in this position since 2016, when she moved to New Hampshire from New York City. Isadora has a Master’s of Social Work (MSW) and believes in providing holistic, person-centered services and advocacy for individuals and their families to reach their full potential. As the Director of the NH Council on Developmental Disabilities, Isadora has embraced the mission of the Council and is committed to eliminating barriers and creating opportunities for individuals of all abilities to have integrated and meaningful lives in NH communities.