Board of Trustees
Ronald S. Cohen
Ronald Cohen has been the Chief Executive Officer of United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara Counties since 1987.
Cohen has been with United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) for 25 years. Prior to the CEO position, Cohen was the Clinical Director of UCP. He established the first community-based group homes for non-ambulatory children with behavioral disorders in the state of California and is responsible for developing the wide continuum of services the agency provides today. Under his leadership, UCP has developed thirty fully accessible rent subsidized community homes and apartments.
Cohen is widely regarded as an expert on developing housing for special needs populations. He has testified before the California State Legislature and the United States Congress on alternatives to institutional living.
Prior to joining UCP, he co-founded Intermountain Youth Center in Tucson, Arizona where he helped pioneer the use of Applied Behavioral Analysis in home like settings for the treatment of adjudicated Native American youth and individuals with mental retardation.