Staff
Sharon Charnell Gherman, President/CEO
Sharon Charnell Gherman is President and CEO of The Funding Exchange, Inc. /Alaska Funding Exchange, and has been nationally recognized for her innovations in program development and implementation. She has more than 30 years of professional experience with strengths in program planning and evaluation, strategic planning, and individual and organizational capacity building.
As Executive Director of the Alaska Challenger Learning Center, Sharon developed several innovative corporate training programs using the Challenger space simulator and established residential, day and custom camp programs and a residential Teacher’s Institute.
As Outreach Coordinator of the Alaska Science & Technology Foundation she administered ASTF's K-12 educational programs, including the popular Direct Grants to Teachers program -- competitive $5,000 grants to Alaska K-12 teachers for innovative math, science & technology classroom projects.
Sharon worked with rural Alaska communities beginning in 1992 as an economic development consultant, and as a grant writer helped to tie portions of Alaska’s Interior together through successful telecommunications grants in the 1990’s. She traveled throughout the rural Interior of Alaska teaching interviewing and work readiness skills to village high school students, and served as the state’s Rural Specialist in the Alaska School to Work program. In the early 1990’s she worked as an informal educator and contract specialist with the Alaska 4-H program.
When she’s not working on AFE business from her office in Fairbanks, you can find Sharon out in the garden and greenhouse. She’s a Master Gardener and loves the smell of dirt and anything green. She also loves to fish and read and spoil the kids and grandkids she shares with her husband Ron.
Ron Gherman, Vice President 
Ron Gherman, AFE’s Vice President, IT and Educational Specialist, is one of those educational creatures no one understands but every parent appreciates – a middle school teacher and administrator. With more than 35 years as an educator and administrator in both Ohio and Alaska, Ron brings particular expertise in both the educational field and computers.
Ron’s innovative “Marriage Project” has taught thousands of middle schoolers to use Microsoft Office programs while learning adult living and career skills. One of his favorite semester activities is reading the evaluation forms from his students on this program, where they declare they’re NEVER getting married and who would want kids, anyway??!
Ron holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Education from the Ohio State University, a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Bowling Green University, and completed the coursework for a Master’s degree in Computer Curriculum and Supervision from Ashland University.
Ron and Sharon love to build and remodel houses (usually theirs, but not always), and if he has any say about the matter, you’ll find him at the nearest lake or river fishing. Thank goodness for summer vacations!
Deborah Johnson, Project Coordinator
Deborah Johnson, AFE Project Coordinator, began writing professionally in Kodiak, Alaska as the lead reporter for the Kodiak Daily Mirror. After moving to Juneau, Alaska, she worked for a private communications firm writing and designing informational packets for the U.S. Congressional Delegation for Earth Day and as a researcher, writer and organizer investigating the effect of factory trawlers on the fisheries in the North Pacific. After being told she could never have children, she promptly had three boys, which put a stop to the writing and investigations for awhile. The studies in D.H. Lawrence and French Language from Portland State University weren't put to much use, either. She has been back in the workforce for about eight years, with a paralegal degree from the University of Alaska Southeast. Deborah is a Master Gardener who loves to garden on the few acres she shares with her family near Fritz Cove in Juneau. She enjoys experimenting with vegan cuisine and loves to design and make rugs.
Cynthia M. Adams, Senior Consultant
Cindy founded the Alaska Funding Exchange in 1992, and then went on to launch GrantStation in 2001, an internet web site and online database of funding sources. She continues her close association with AFE as Senior Consultant.
Cindy is President/CEO of GrantStation, and has more than 35 years of fundraising experience in Alaska. She served as Director for Development for the Economic Development Center at the Fairbanks North Star Borough for five years, has served on numerous State Boards and Commissions, as well as served on the board of several foundations in Alaska and nationally. Cindy has taught hundreds of grant writing workshops, written several grant writing/research workbooks, and continues to assist organizations both in-state and nationally identify and secure funding.
Morgan Thomas, IT Technician and Administrative Assistant
Morgan Thomas, the youngest member of the AFE team, is currently a Junior at Juneau-Douglas High School. This is his first venture into the workforce and he has been enjoying it. Morgan developed AFE's current website and spends most of his time managing it and our online collaboration software, Basecamp. His future plans include obtaining a college education in computer engineering and an early retirement.