Robin Britt and Karen Martinez, “Children in Peril” (July 11)

Robin Britt and Karen Martinez, Guilford Child Development

Executive Director and Director, Community Partnerships

Children in Peril

Robin Britt grew up in Asheville, North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar.  After college, he served as a Naval Officer off the coast of Vietnam continuing in the Naval Reserve for over 20 years until his retirement as a Captain. He received a law degree from UNC-CH in 1973, a graduate law degree from New York University, and became a partner in the Smith Moore law firm in Greensboro.

In 1983-85, Robin was elected to Congress serving on the House Armed Services Committee, the Small Business Committee and the Select Committee on Hunger.  He served in the cabinet of Governor Jim Hunt from 1983-1987 as Secretary of what is now the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.  For the past 20 years he has served as the Executive Director of Guilford Child Development.

Karen Hill Martinez joined Guilford Child Development in June 2005 to establish Learning Together (LT) Family Literacy program, a two-generation literacy approach that helps parents improve both their parenting and literacy skills while providing their young children with early childhood education. LT currently serves an average of 100 immigrant and refugee families per program year in Guilford County. In addition to supervising LT, Karen manages the agency’s volunteer/intern process, supervises the GCD Food Pantry, and leads agency efforts to generate and maintain meaningful partnerships and resources for GCD programs and families.

Prior to joining GCD, Karen created and implemented family literacy programs and community gardens in three North Carolina counties as well as a non-profit in Western North Carolina to assist the Spanish-speaking community.