The Songbird Sings Team

Songbird Sings’ leadership brings years of experience in trauma and music advocacy. In addition to Robin Lane, Creative Director and President, the staff includes:

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Susan Wagner
Acting Director

Susan D. Wagner is president of Susan Wagner PR, a public relations firm invested in meeting client’s goals with integrity, creativity and results. She is also executive managing partner in McLean & Company, a niche agency serving the mental health industry.

An award-winning public relations consultant, Susan brings over 25 years of results driven experience as a PR practitioner, writer and strategist for a variety of clients. She specializes in event promotion, placement of client commentary and products across all media and consulting to develop signature fundraising events and initiatives for social change.

Susan has also served as a non-profit administrator and educator, contributing editor and feature writer. She enjoys her work for non-profits and entrepreneurs and is able to utilize her personal expertise. She started Audio Journal as an idea into a successful radio reading service for the blind.

Susan has served as Events Promotion Manager for Children’s Hospital Boston, Director of Publicity for Chubby Checker Entertainment, Executive Director for Audio Journal, Outreach and Development Director for the Talking Information Center, consultant and co-founder of Walk to Cure Cancer for the UMass Medical School and The Walk for Hasbro Children’s Hospital and director of The Korean American Project.

She has been an active board member in a number of non-profits. Susan is currently the vice president of the board for the National Breast Cancer Prevention Project and a member of the board for SafeSourcing.

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Thomjon Borges
Marketing Director

Being creative begins with asking the right questions.

For the past 25 years, Thomjon Borges has been helping non-profits discover their creative direction and connect more deeply with their donors and constituents.  Thomjon currently makes a difference as Senior Art Director at SCA Direct in Fairfax, VA where he helps guide Environmental Defense Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Jewish Federation of North America, among others.

A seasoned creative director with experience in both the commercial and nonprofit sectors, Thomjon believes that developing a close partnership with clients is the only way to meet their marketing needs.

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Carla DeSantis
Honorary Board Member

Carla DeSantis is the nation’s leading advocate for women in rock. A former musician and music industry veteran, Carla rose to prominence as the founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the ground-breaking and award-winning ROCKRGRL Magazine (1994-2005), the only national publication for female musicians.

ROCKRGRL Music Conferences have included such musical luminaries as Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Courtney Love, Ronnie Spector (Ronettes), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Ann Wilson (Heart), Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde),  Kathy Valentine (The Go-Go’s), Wanda Jackson, Exene Cervenka (X) and hundreds more.

In 2006, Carla was named one of the “50 most influential people in Seattle music” by Seattle (Sound) Magazine and has twice been nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award by Seattle Weekly. She is also a three-time elected member of the governing board of the Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy (Grammy organization) and served on the advisory board for the capital campaign of the Vera Project, Seattle’s all-ages music/arts organization.

These days, Carla consults and mentors artists seeking career advice and lectures frequently on the topic of gender disparity in rock. She is a popular, entertaining and knowledgeable public speaker and is always interested in opportunities to educate young people about sexism in music, the music industry and independent publishing. Carla was instrumental in helping Robin to develop Songbird Sings.

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Maria Rodman
Treasurer

Maria Tarajano Rodman currently serves as the Associate Executive Director for Program and Community Development with the Western Massachusetts Training Consortium, a center for responsible innovation that creates conditions to enhance the lives and make possible the dreams of people living with disabilities and/or living with the impact of abuse. There, she provides agency-wide direction and oversight relative to the agency’s trauma-informed practice, new program development, existing program review and improvements, monitoring and evaluation strategies and techniques, and both short-term and long-term strategic planning.

Maria also serves as a consultant on the National Trauma Consortium’s Center on Women, Violence, and Trauma.

Previously, Maria served as Executive Director of the Montague Catholic Social Ministries’ Turners Falls Women’s Resource Center, which grew out of the Women and Co-occurring Disorder and Violence Study.

Prior to that, she was the Program Specialist for Save the Children’s Southeast Programs where Maria witnessed the profound discrimination that impacts the health, education, quality of life, and hope of children and families throughout the United States. As the Assistant to the Director of Global Missions for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Maria understood the importance of working side by side with those in need in more than 80 countries around the world. Serving as the National Program Administrator for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, she worked with health professionals, researchers, social workers, families, local providers, and business organizations to raise over four million dollars for basic, clinical, and translational research, seeking to find the cause and cure of childhood brain tumors.

Maria strongly believes in working for and with trauma survivors, promoting the need and importance of trauma-informed practice in all systems (health, social, educational, correctional and others).

Maria holds an M.A. in Service Leadership and Management from the School for International Training. She immigrated from Cuba in 1968 and is fluent in Spanish.

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Deb McGranaghan
Clerk

Deb McGranaghan spent 12 years working in the fast-paced world of New York City advertising. Deciding on a more fulfilling path, for the past seven years she has worked with female trauma survivors in community based, hospital, and correctional settings. She will receive her Masters in social work from Springfield College in May 2010. She is also the proud writer and singer of more than six A Woman’s Voice songs. She happily resides on her hill-top home in Conway, MA, with her three young sons.