Ellen Shindelman Kowitt is President of the JGS of Colorado. She is responsible for representing the group and conducting meetings of the Society. Ellen also serves as webmaster and teaches the Jewish Family Tree Initiative: Workshop and Mentoring Series. Ellen was editor of the Society newsletter, Chai From Colorado, and she has participated in Society indexing projects.
Barry Levene is Treasurer of JGS of Colorado. A member since 2006, Barry first served a one-year term on the board as Secretary. In addition to fiscal matters pertaining to the Society, Barry maintains the directory of active members.
Barry’s genealogical research interests focus on his grandparents who immigrated to the United States from Latvia, Belarus and Lithuania. To help with Latvian research, he is member of the Latvian Special Interest Group (SIG) of JewishGen. With an unusual history of grandparents living and working in small towns in Mississippi and North Carolina, he has developed an interest in Jewish history in the South, particularly along the Mississippi River delta. He is also helping his mother-in-law trace her family tree.
Now retired, Barry worked for over 30 years as an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, starting in air pollution control programs and completing his career as a supervisor of Superfund toxic waste site cleanup programs across six Rocky Mountain States. Barry and his wife have two sons and a granddaughter. He enjoys reading, hiking, biking, gardening and outdoor activities, volunteers at the Denver Botanic Gardens and the Bluff Lake Nature Center, and is a member of the Aurora Open Space Advisory Board.