Office of Community Partnerships

Bruce Adams has served as the Director of County Executive Ike Leggett's Office of Community Partnerships since March of 2007. Bruce served with Ike Leggett as an elected member of the Montgomery County Council for two terms from 1986 to 1994.

Bruce has served as a Senior Fellow at The James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland (1995-97), a Fellow of the Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University (1979), an Associate of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation (1982-86), and as National Research Director for Common Cause (1977-82).

Bruce was named a 1998 Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian magazine and received the 1993 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Scull Metropolitan Public Service Award as the elected official who has contributed most significantly to the enhancement of intergovernmental cooperation in the Washington Metropolitan Region.

Bruce, 60, grew up in Montgomery County and now lives in Bethesda with his wife, Peggy Engel, a journalist, and their children, Emily and Hugh. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the Georgetown University Law Center.

For a complete biography for Bruce, click here.

Austin Heyman founded and served as the Director of Interages and the Montgomery County Intergenerational Resource Center from 1986-1997. Austin was a member of the Leggett Administration Transition Team and was appointed in 2007 as a Senior Fellow in the Office of the County Executive, Office of Community Partnerships.

Austin has been deeply involved with other community groups, working on educational and youth issues. Austin has received the Montgomery County Paths of Achievement Award, and was inducted into the Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2009, Austin was inducted into the Maryland Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.

Austin served as an attorney with a Wall Street law firm in New York City. During part of his 25-year career with the United States Agency for International Development, he represented the United States on the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. He has undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University, a Master of International Public Policy from John Hopkins and a Certificate from the Academy of International Law at The Hague.

For a complete biography for Austin, click here.

Karla Silverstre most recently worked as a consultant in the Washington metropolitan area researching and making recommendations on evidence-based youth development programs.

From 2002 to 2007, Silvestre worked for Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a nationally recognized community-based non-profit in Philadelphia. She created a high performing division defined by high school graduation, post-secondary enrollment and competitive employment for youth in an urban Latino community. Prior to that time, she worked as a language planning consultant for Guatemala's Ministry of Education in the development of a national language policy regarding bilingual education for the 25 Mayan language groups in the country. She also worked at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn-Merck Collaborative for the Enhancement of Science Education.

Silvestre holds a Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors degree in Biology from Florida State University. Additionally, she is a 2007 graduate of the Bryn Mawr College's Non-Profit Executive Leadership Institute and a 2006 participant of the United Way of South Eastern Pennsylvania's Hispanic Leadership Development Program.

Silvestre, 35, resides in Silver Spring with her family.

For a complete biography for Karla, click here.

Reverend Tim Warner comes to the work of the County Executive's Office of Community Partnerships Liaison for Faith Communities and African Americans as he continues to serve as Sr. Pastor of Community of Faith Methodist Church of Boyds, MD. Tim served for seven prior years as the Associate Council Director for Community and Economic Development in the Baltimore Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, and led ministries of community and economic development, such as Shalom Zones, while managing the Conferences relationship with the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area.

He is trained as a bacterial geneticist, and enjoyed a productive career in pharmaceutical research and development, having held various scientific and executive leadership positions for over 18 years before committing to full-time ministry.

For additional background for Tim, please click here.

Mier Wolf, an attorney, worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for 32 years. He served a legal advisor to the New Communities and the Urban Development Action Grant Programs. He later became a trial attorney in U.S. Federal District Courts.

Mier has served on the Town Of Chevy Chase Council for 24 years, 9 years of which he was Mayor. He is also on the county Advisory Board of National Alliance For The Mentally Ill (NAMI), Roundhouse Theatre, the Writers Center and the Greater Bethesda Chevy Chase Coalition (to support the Capital Crescent Trail). He sat on the Foundation at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. He was on the board of the Bethesda Urban Partnership and the Western County Recreation Advisory Board.

Miers wife Cathy is a Victim Advocate in the County's Abused Persons Program. They have two grown children, one of whom is an English teacher at Einstein High School.

For additional background Mier, please click here.