About Us
Liz Serivs
Executive Director
Liz Servis is a 3rd generation native New Mexican. She has been actively involved in workforce and training, as well as education, for most of her career. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from the University of New Mexico.
As a teacher with Albuquerque Public Schools, she created and implemented a work experience program within her classroom. During her time at the Department of Workforce Solutions, she worked as a Business Consultant in the Workforce Investment Act Program and Wagner Peyser. Her primary focus was in aiding employers with recruitment, training, and business needs. She has many years experience as a Life and Business Coach, and holds certification from the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, CA
Liz approaches her work with great pride and commitment. Her personal philosophy is to remain dedicated in the face of adversity, to live each day to its fullest, and to constantly remain open to the myriad lessons life has to offer. She applies this philosophy to her work each day. To build multifaceted connections between the film industry, educational institutions, community organizations, and the citizens of the community, enhances and strengthens the neighborhoods and workforce within New Mexico. She offers her dedication and commitment to the achievement of this end.
Liz is a member of the New Mexico Task Force for Apprenticeship Education, and the Women’s Entrepreneurial Business Bureau.
Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker
President of Board
Award winning writer and filmmaker, Elizabeth Gaylynn Baker worked on eleven independent films in Los Angeles before writing and directing her first documentary, "When Buffalo Roam". The film won Best Social Documentary Short of 1999 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
Elizabeth’s next project was a feature-length documentary, "The Trail of Painted Ponies", narrated by Ali MacGraw and judged by Sony Classics in New York. The film won Best Documentary at the White Sands Film Festival of 2005, while Baker won Best Woman Director. It also aired in New York on PBS and was included in an exhibition of The Best of New Mexico Independent Films in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In 2002, Baker worked closely with New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and also recruited Shirley MacLaine, Val Kilmer, Marsha Mason and members of the New Mexico House and Senate, to pass groundbreaking film legislation. It was the historical beginning of New Mexico’s vital film industry.
David Carlson Smith
Board of Directors
David Carlson Smith is a member of the Film Apprenticeship Program Board of Directors and an entertainment lawyer. Smith was instrumental in the formation of FAPI, guiding the nonprofit application with the U.S. government and helping to ensure the approval of the FAPI curriculum with the New Mexico Apprenticeship Council.
His professional practice includes representation of film producers, screenwriters and other film industry professionals.
He is a member of the New Mexico Bar, Pennsylvania Bar, the U.S. District Court, as well as the New Mexico Indian Bar Association.
Smith also is a member of the American Bar Association with membership in the areas of Intellectual Property Law, Entertainment & Sports Law and Litigation. Smith resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Pamela Stovall
Pamela Stovall is an award-winning screenwriter, writer and author of three books. Stovall, a FAPI consultant, has been the Principal Investigator for numerous grants. She created, organized and directed Film Boot Camp Gallup, a two-week film camp for high school students at The University of New Mexico Gallup. The camp was made possible by a grant from the State of New Mexico.
Stovall also taught writing at the Girls Film School at the College of Santa Fe. Girls Film School brought female high school students from around the country to Santa Fe to study filmmaking in a two-week intensive.
Stovall created and directed the Native American Healthwriters Institute, a program that brought Native Americans from diverse tribes and pueblos to UNM Gallup to learn how to write and create culturally sensitive health promotional materials. Healthwriters was funded in part by a Center for Disease Control grant.
A final project Stovall created and directed was the Right to Write—a writing contest for McKinley County (New Mexico) schools. Students from grades 5-12 wrote essays and were awarded prizes. The writing contest occurred for two years and was supported by several grants and awards from the Southwest Center for Service Learning and the University of New Mexico Gallup.
Stovall has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science/International Relations from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Communication and Journalism from the University of Texas. Stovall also performed post graduate work in Mexico City, Mexico.
Bill Rogers
Bill Rogers is an investor, head of the nonprofit foundation Serendipity, and a member of the FAPI Board of Directors.
Rogers has worked with formulating public policy within a presidential body and has been an active participant in conferences addressing environmental concerns and opportunities associated with Intelligent Transportation Systems.
He worked in the ’90s to promote high speed rail in the Midwest and in California. He has been a Senior Policy Analyst for the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago and Transportation Planner for the California Department of Transportation in San Bernardino, California.
Rogers has a Master’s of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from George Washington University.
Chuck Smallwood
Charles Smallwood, a key grip and a member of the FAPI Board of Directors, has worked in the motion picture industry for 23 years. Some of the many feature films Smallwood has worked on are “Dumb & Dumber,” “Godzilla,” “Starship Troopers,” “National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers,” and “D2: The Mighty Ducks.”
Based in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico, some of Smallwood’s recent work includes “Georgia O’Keeffe,” “Night and Day,” “Easy Money,” “Barry Munday” and “Greek.” Smallwood lived in Hawaii during the first two seasons of “Lost,” and while there he built a Grip Crew from the ground up, as well as built the grip trucks. Smallwood not only survived but thrived while shooting more than 400 days during tropical depression rains, incredible mud and some of the most inaccessible locations possible.
Through his association with Leonard Chapman and Chapman Studio Equipment, Smallwood has helped design and develop the CS line of mobile camera crane bases, the Chapman Camera Slider, the Rotating Offset Low Mode for Pee Wee Dollies, the Nose Seat for Dollies, and Enterprise Low Mode for the Hustler IV Dolly, to name a few.