Board of Trustees Meet our team

Dr. Donna Balaski’s broad based career encompasses leadership roles in the areas of rehabilitative services for the blind, visually impaired and elderly, environmental services and dental medicine. Her passion for dental medicine has its roots originating early in her childhood. Her passion is complimented through her formal education, which includes the University of Connecticut for her B.S. and D.M.D. degrees with further training in the specialty of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Emory University and later Catholic Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

After a life transforming event, Dr. Balaski made her mark as the spokesman for the State of Connecticut Board of Education and Services for the Blind. She was a featured speaker for many organizations and delivered many inspirational messages of encouragement and actively promoted advocacy. Her engagements earned her the position of Executive Director for the agency. In 2004, she took on the position as the Healthcare Management Administrator for the Medicaid Program in Connecticut at the Department of Social Services. Dr. Balaski currently shares her passion and vision of improving access to oral healthcare and the balance of ethics in dental medicine with a wide variety of audiences ranging from delivering keynote speeches at public forums, to delivering presentations to the Connecticut legislature and various dental venues.

In her professional career, Dr. Balaski has served in various top management capacities. She is an energetic and progressive thinker, utilizing analytical processes to evaluate situations to produce effective solutions to problems. Many assignments in her managerial career have been to evaluate and salvage programs with known functional and fiscal issues and impart changes which produce measurable results that are acceptable to all interested stakeholders. Dr. Balaski has been able to accomplish these assignments through bringing diverse populations together and uniting them towards one goal.

Her greatest strength is her ability to navigate the political landscape while integrating clinical, regulatory, fiscal and bio-ethical considerations to ensure optimum standards of care are delivered to the constituency which she serves that is through the Connecticut Dental Health Partnership.

Maria A. Smith, DMD is a practicing general dentist in Shelton, CT. She has been actively involved in the dental community for more than 35 years including the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), an organization of over 39,000 dentists that exclusively serves the needs and represents the interests of general dentists, She served as AGD President from 2016-2017 and previously had served as its national Treasurer and Trustee from Region 1.

She has also been involved in many levels of the Connecticut State Dental Association (CSDA) and as chair of the American Dental Association’s Membership Council. She enjoys sharing her expertise while encouraging dentists through her mentoring to assume new leadership positions not only for advancement of dentistry but also for their own personal growth and development.

Dr. Ohlson has been practicing general dentistry for the past 45 years in Stamford CT. He is a long time member of the CE council And the House of Delegates of the CSDA. He earned a Fellowship from the A.G.D. and is a member of the Pierre Fauchard Academy.

Outside of dentistry he has a long time involvement with Kiwanis International and the Greenwich Council B.S.A.

Marcia Johnson is the Treasurer for the Foundation. Ms. Johnson graduated from Bentley College with a BS degree in Accounting, and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a MS degree in Management. She joined Trinity College in 1981 as Comptroller, and remained in that position for 25 years. She subsequently became the Budget Director at the College and continues in that position today. Ms. Johnson is also the President of the Board of Trustees of the Trinity College Community Child Center.

Dr. Mimi is a Pediatric Dentist with a practice in Southbury Ct. and specializes in treating children and special needs adults.She is currently on staff at St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, CT. She is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and the Connecticut Society of Pediatric Dentists. She served as officer on the Executive Board of the Dental Society of Greater Waterbury. She has served on the CSDA Access to Care Committee, the Council on Membership and the Give Kids a Smile Committee. She has been a member of the CSDA Board of Governors since 2016 where she was a delegate to the American Dental Association and appointed to the ADA Political Action Committee.  In 2021, she served as the President of the CSDA and is most proud of her efforts advocating for dentists and  the citizens of Connecticut during the pandemic. And she currently continues to advocate for oral health awareness locally and nationally.

Dr. Susan Berey is an orthodontist who grew up here in Connecticut. She received her DMD from the University of Pennsylvania and her orthodontics certificate from UCLA, and she also has a master’s degree in education. She began practicing orthodontics in 2003 and has practiced in both New York and Connecticut. She is currently a member of the American Dental Association, Connecticut State Dental Association, American Association of Orthodontists, Northeastern Society of Orthodontists, and the Connecticut State Society of Orthodontists. Promoting oral health and access to care are areas that are of great interest to Dr. Berey.

Dr. Berey lives in West Hartford with her husband and two teenage children, and she is an active volunteer in the community and school systems.

Dr. Joseph A. Picone graduated from the University of Connecticut Dental School in May 1988. He enjoys practicing General Dentistry with his son and brother-in law in his hometown of Southington. Dr. Picone has served the CSDA in several leadership roles throughout his career especially in the area Continuing Education and Governance. Dr. Picone has been a Trustee of the CSDF since 2009.

Dr. Picone is currently also serving as the Regional Director of Region One for the Academy of General Dentistry. Among his many responsibilities, he served as the Chair of the highly successful CSDA Continuing Education Council for 14 years. Dr. Picone continues to be a

strong supporter of treating the underserved as he participated in many

CT Missions of Mercy. He also accompanied the dental students from the University of CT Dental School on a Mission trip as a preceptor to Paraguay in 2011.

Dr. Picone and his lovely wife, Carmelina, live in Cheshire , CT.

Dr. Renate Saunders was born on the twin-island of Trinidad and Tobago and attended New York University’s College of Arts and Science in 2001. She then continued onto New York University’s College of Dentistry where she graduated with a degree in Dental Surgery in 2008. Afterward, she went on to complete a 1-year General Practice residency at Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, NY.

Dr.Saunders has been an active member of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) since 2009 and received her Fellowship in 2015. She is an active member of the Connecticut State Dental Association and has served as President of the Naugatuck Valley Dental Society from 2014 – 2019. She was also inducted in 2021 as a Fellow to the American College of Dentists.

Dr. Saunders loves being a mother to her four children and enjoys dancing the samba and capoeira when not chasing after them.