The Board of Directors endorses the appointment of Interim Chief Executive Officer/President to continue the work and legacy of Founder and long-term CEO, Vincent O. Leggett, "Admiral of the Chesapeake"
December 4, 2024, ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Following a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation, Inc. (BOCF) we announce today that M. DeLois (Dee) Strum, BoCF’s Chief Administrative Officer, and accomplished business and nonprofit
executive will assume the role of interim Chief Executive Officer with all authority and duties as prescribed in the bylaws (as amended).
Effective immediately, she leads an enthusiastic and committed team of staff, volunteers, and consultants to realize the clear vision of elevating the voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color in climate resiliency planning, preservation of BIPOC communities and cultural sites located at the water’s edge, facilitating community environmental education, and growing the next generation of environmental justice champions, through strategic alliances and partnerships with local youth-serving organizations, and area/regional/national/international environmental conservation and cultural preservation organizations.
“Dee Dee is a well-respected community leader in central Maryland who can continue the work inspired and launched by the organization’s internationally renowned founder, Admiral Vincent Omar Leggett, in 1984. She understands that climate change, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise pose a threat to the entirety of the Chesapeake watershed, with an ever-present and imminent threat to the life and livelihood of the most vulnerable water’s edge communities founded by enslaved Africans and their descendants who struggle to maintain their generational legacies and continue to rely on the Chesapeake waterways for their economic success,” said
Reverend Samuel T. Williams, BOCF Board Chairman, and Chairman Economic Empowerment Committee Maryland Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“Dee Dee’s academic training at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park in community development and her undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded by the UMD School of Public Health prepared her for this role. Her background and accomplishments as a 35+ year entrepreneur underscore her value to the BoCF in this transition period. She assumes this role with deep nonprofit and public sector development and management experiences, having led her firm with land use planners, community engagement/financial management, and other specialists, providing planning and consulting services to more than 20 start-up community-based organizations nationwide and hundreds of public local and state agencies across the continental U.S. and Caribbean. These experiences, along with her tenure as the 7th