Gwen H. Haas Haas

Johanna received her Master's degree from Harvard University and was married in 2008. She is was an invited professor at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. Jo and her husband Rob survived the New Zealand earthquake (February 2011) (where they were vacationing). For four years, Jo had been teaching in Doha, Qatar at a Canadian University and currently, she and her husband, Rob Gordon, are teaching in Mistissini, Quebec in a Cree Native community 8 hours north of Montreal! So proud of her and her husband!

Ben graduated West Point in 2009 and concurrently received his commission as an officer in the United States Army and his Bachelor of Science degree in International Relations. He was posted to Fort Drum with the 10th Mountain Division as a Military Intelligence officer and deployed twice to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; finally with the 75 Ranger Regiment as an augmentee. He graduated Stanford Law School in June of 2018 and worked in National Security Law with Eric Holder's law firm, Covington and Burling for his first year. Ben competed against 70 highly qualified applicants and was given the job as Advocacy Counsel for a non profit called Human Rights First where he continues to work in National Security Law. He is prolific in writing pieces that are recognized nationally as expert opinions on matters of National Security and the policy of politics. More recently, he worked on the Biden transition team and was sworn in in at the State Department as the Senior Advisor to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor! So proud of him (and his fiancé)!

My academic trajectory since CHHS took me to Boston for a year and then to Toronto, Ontario, Canada where I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology. Subsequently, I married a Canadian, and together, we went to The University of Chicago for graduate school, where I completed my Master's in the Committee on Human Development. We returned to Canada for his business interests in 1977 and I continued in a Ph.D. program for four years. All but dissertation, I applied to, and was accepted into the McMaster University School of Medicine. The chance of a lifetime to meet my true calling! I have enjoyed a stellar career in Family Medicine since then--spanning two countries and several hospital systems here in the Cleveland area. In 2012-2014 I was honored to be elected as Chairperson for the Department of Family Medicine at Lake Health Hospital System as well as the Founding Medical Director of the Patient Centered Medical Home transition of care. Currently, I am a full time Family Physician with Lake Health and totally enjoying my career; especially the opportunity to save a few lives along the way!

FAVORITE SCHOOL STORY from CHHS would be leading the effort to abolish the dress code to obtain the right for all of us to dress as we choose; then, making a commitment to never break the original dress code requirements myself, for the duration of high school!

Also, eloping directly from gym class and marching down to the Principal/VP office in protest of, and to report, the abusive behavior I witnessed as one of our women's gymnastic instructors berated a new student from the Middle East.

Also, working on the development of MORP (the open community courtyard celebration) which was the 'backwards' Prom!