Addiction Education Society board leadership consists of executives, educators, scientists, doctors, authors, and people affected by substance use disorders. We are committed to educating our adolescents about the disease of addiction.

Greg Johnson

Board President

Executive Chairman of the Board Director Franklin Resources, Inc. San Mateo, California, United States Greg Johnson is Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Franklin Resources, Inc.

Mr. Johnson was elected Co-CEO of Franklin Resources in 2004 and served as the company’s CEO beginning in 2005 until February 2020. Under his tenure as CEO, Franklin Templeton became one of the most globally recognized firms in the asset management industry. In 2020, Mr. Johnson became Executive Chairman. Mr. Johnson earned a B.S. in accounting and business administration in 1983 from Washington and Lee University, and his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) certificate in 1985. He is a board member and past chairman of the Investment Company Institute’s Board of Governors.

Additionally, he is a board member of Zand, the first digital bank to provide both retail and corporate services. Mr. Johnson is a past Vice Chairman of the Mutual Fund Forum and a past Chairman of the Western district of the Securities Industry Association. He is a current board member of Jumpstart, an early literacy and education organization. He served as a Life Governor for the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Johnson serves as the Chairman and designated control person for the San Francisco Giants and serves on Major League Baseball’s audit and competition committees.

William Ward Carey

Founder & Board of Directors Vice President

Ward is a native New Yorker living in California for the past 25 years. Ward has spent his working career helping growth companies succeed and investors profit at the same time. Married with three boys in high school Ward got sober in his early twenties and attributes everything he has in his life today to sober living. Helping people recover from addiction is one of the most important aspects of recovery and something Ward enjoys the most about his life.

Ward received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia College in New York. Ward volunteers number of hours to the Today’s Youth Matter non-profit organization which serves vulnerable children in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, Ward volunteers to Project Ninety Social Services, serving individuals, families and the Bay Area community through its residential alcohol and substance abuse treatment services.

Bucky Isaacson

Founder and Board Advisor

Bucky is a partner and co-founder of CTAExpo LLC. As President and Founder of Future Funding Consultants and Commodity Investment Consultants, he has been actively engaged in the Financial and Alternative Industry since 1975.

Bucky has testified before the United States House of Representative, The United States Senate, The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and State Regulators. He has also served on Advisory Committees at various exchanges. He was one of the original of the National Futures Association Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He was founder and President of the Managed Futures Trade Association, predecessor to the Managed funds Association.

He was the first recipient of The Donchian Award for his contributions to the Managed Futures Industry. He has published articles or been written up in numerous publications. These include the Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, Barrons, Emerging Markets and Who’s Who In The World.

In his role as a consultant or advisor, Bucky has worked with several international companies. These include Beechtree Capital Management, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Attalus Capital, Brim Investment Management, Mitsubishi Futures, Sunclear Energy, HRJ Capital, ICD, Interalliance USA, AC Private Equity Partners and Woori Investment and Securities.

Marcelle Costello

Board Secretary

Marcelle Costello is interested in the risk factors for the disease of Addiction, the language used around Addiction, and how the public discourse on Addiction compares with that of other diseases including Cancer, Heart Disease, Asthma, and Type 2 Diabetes. She is researching a theory about how communication of Addiction risk factors might be approached through Actuarial Science and synthesized into a private, informational app.

Marcelle is also interested in how the risk factors for the disease of Addiction can help parents of teens by providing a framework for navigating the “onset years” of substance experimentation and use. Drawing from her own experience with her boy-girl twins, Marcelle has incorporated teaching her own children about their personal risk factors for Addiction as “as matter-of-fact and as age-appropriate as teaching them life skills such as nutrition, study habits, money management, and manners.”

Marcelle believes understanding her family’s risk factors for Addiction greatly informed her decisions about how hard to fight the disease when its symptoms showed up in her home. Like some forms of Cancer, early detection can be a gift of time and she “did not take a wait and see attitude but instead chose and all-out assault, seeking every doctor, expert and resource I could – just like we’d received a diagnosis of an aggressive Cancer. Understanding Addiction is a disease with risk factors — and not some sort of moral failing — is the imperative first step.”

Marcelle is working with AES Scientific Advisory Board Member, Dr. Carlton Erickson on the second edition of his book The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment, to be published in March 2018. Marcelle has a B.A. in English and a B.A. in Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bert Bower

Board Treasurer

Bert Bower is the founder and CEO of Teachers’ Curriculum Institute (TCI), a K-12 publishing company created by teachers, for teachers. TCI creates classroom experiences that allow students of all abilities and learning styles to succeed. Bert has experienced the classroom from all angles. Beginning as a classroom aide, he then taught social studies for eight years, and finally earned a PhD in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University.

For the past 32 years he’s been crafting innovative K–12 social studies and science programs by collaborating with teachers and trying out new ideas in the classroom. His goal is to defeat the “silent violence” of stand-and-deliver teaching that leaves youth passive and bored by creating programs that teach students to ponder and participate. Combining proven teaching strategies with cutting-edge technology to successfully reach all learners in the diverse classroom, Bert even wants to reach those students who sit in the back of the classroom and rarely speak. He knows his goals are lofty, but he has witnessed the success of TCI programs around the country.

David Sheff

Board Member

David Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, Clean, The Buddhist on Death Row and other books. David is the founder of the Beautiful Boy Fund, devoted to supporting quality, evidence-based treatment for substance-use disorders and research to further the field of addiction medicine. Beautiful Boy, a number-one New York Times bestseller, was based on his article, “My Addicted Son,” which appeared in the New York Times Magazine and won a special award from the American Psychological Association for “outstanding contribution to the understanding of addiction.” In 2009, David was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Influential People. A feature film adaptation of “Beautiful Boy” was produced by Amazon Studios and Plan B Entertainment and starred Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet.

David followed Beautiful Boy with Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, also a New York Times bestseller. The book was the result of the years David spent investigating the disease of addiction and America’s drug problem, which he sees as one of the greatest public health challenges of our time. The Partnership for Drug-free Kids honored him with a Special Tribute Award “in recognition of his voice and leadership for families who are struggling with addiction.” For his work educating about substance-use disorders and advocating for sufferers of addiction and their families, David received awards from the College of Problems on Drug Dependence, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and American Society of Addiction Medicine. He was the first recipient of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Arts and Literature Award.

David has been a featured speaker about substance-use disorders and mental illness at the United Nations and many high schools and colleges, addiction and mental-health conferences and community events throughout the United States and Canada. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives with his family in Northern California.

Charles R. Johnson

Board Member

Charles R. Johnson, Wealth Director, is responsible for developing investment and trust relationships with families and organizations. He works closely with the Trust and Tax planning group to help clients determine optimal asset allocation and transfer strategies. Before joining Fiduciary Trust, he worked for Rockefeller Capital Management, an independent financial services firm offering global family office, asset management, and strategic advisory services to ultra high net worth families, institutions, and corporations.

Charles received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. He works closely with the Addiction Education Society non-profit to continue his father’s legacy in educating adolescents about substance abuse.

Elena Chartoff, PH.D.

Board Member

Elena H. Chartoff, PhD, is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Laboratory at McLean Hospital. She is interested in the neurobiological mechanisms that connect depression and anxiety with drug addiction. The work in her laboratory has broad implications for understanding basic brain mechanisms that control mood and motivated behavior.

Within her wider interest, Dr. Chartoff’s laboratory focuses on sex differences in molecular and genetic contributions to addictive behaviors, the role of glutamatergic transmission in affective states and the role of kappa opioid receptors in drug withdrawal-induced depressive-like states.

Dr. Chartoff’s Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Laboratory, founded in 2009, investigates the molecular, biochemical, and cellular mechanisms underlying drug dependence and withdrawal using animal behavioral models with high relevance to the human condition. The lab includes both females and males in their studies because there is striking evidence, both clinically and preclinically, for sex differences in every facet of the addiction cycle.

Dr. Chartoff is interested in how chronic exposure to drugs of abuse changes the brain at molecular and cellular levels such that drug withdrawal elicits a protracted constellation of negative affective signs. These include depressive- and anxiety-like signs as well as an increased sensitivity to stress and drug-associated cues, all of which work in concert to increase the likelihood of relapse. The lab concentrates on specific brain systems because their neural circuits are essential for affect and motivated behavior and become “hijacked” by repeated drug exposure.

The research focuses on the molecular and behavioral correlates of stress-like and depressive-like states that contribute to the acquisition and maintenance of addictive behavior as well as to craving and relapse during periods of withdrawal. The mesolimbic dopamine system and the extended amygdala play important roles in both the rewarding and aversive effects of drugs of abuse. Within this context, there are two primary lines of research in the lab, sex differences in addiction and the role of kappa-opioid receptors in cocaine withdrawal.

Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Carlton K. Erickson

Director of the Addiction Science Research and Education Center in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Book author of The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment

Dr. Erickson is the associate dean for research and Graduate Studies, distinguished professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and director of the Addiction Science Research and Education Center in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. His many publications include The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment.

Dr. Kevin McCauley

Director of Program Services at New Roads Treatment Center and Writer/Director at Pleasure Unwoven (DVD)

Kevin McCauley is a graduate of the Medical College of Pennsylvania. After completion of medical school, he joined the Navy and became a Naval Flight Surgeon. After earning his wings at Pensacola, Florida he was assigned to a Marine helicopter squadron (The Red Lions). Later he was transferred to Marine F/A-18 Hornet squadron (Sharpshooters). While working as a flight surgeon he treated pilots with alcohol and drug problems. As a physician, he advocates strongly for the rights of addicts as patients.

Dr. Laura Roberts

Serves as Chairman and the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Roberts is an internationally recognized scholar in bioethics, psychiatry, medicine, and medical education, and is identified as a foremost psychiatric ethicist in the United States.
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In Loving Memory of

Our Founders

Charles E. Johnson

Addiction Education Society Founder

Addiction Education Society was founded by Chuck Johnson in 2014. He envisioned a non-profit organization that would advance the knowledge that addiction is a disease and provide information and resources on issues relating to substance addiction to adolescences.

“Knowing what I know now about the disease, I really wish I could reach back in time 45 long years ago and talk to myself in a way I could than understand and internalize, because when I was young, I though I knew everything, I thought I was invisible. “

Chuck’s passion for a future free from addiction led AES to develop two very popular prevention curricula. As of today, AES has educated over 16,000 students throughout the peninsula, in 21 schools, and over 125 teachers trained. Addiction Education Society is proud to be a part of Chuck Johnson’s profound legacy to this world.

𐠒 Charles passed away on September 21, 2021.

Dr. Alexander Stalcup

Neuroscience of Addiction Program Founder

Dr. Alexander Stalcup, a graduate of UCSF Medical School & Whittier College, was the key contributor to the Neuroscience of Addiction program, the first and flagship curriculum of the Addiction Education Society. He was a national expert on drug abuse & addiction, board certified in pediatrics and addiction medicine, a pioneer in the medical model of addiction, and helped thousands of people and their families overcome addiction. We owe a great deal to the knowledge and expertise that Dr. Stalcup brought to AES, but it was his kind-heartedness and willingness to work with the students that made him such a fine example of human nature.

𐠒 Dr. Stalcup passed away in summer of 2022.

All of us at Addiction Education Society mourn the passing of our beloved founders; we unite in hopes of building a better world by honoring their work and legacy.

Click here ⧉ to view AES’s complete organizational staff.