Executive Team

The Board of Directors of R’Club Child Care, Inc. and the Louise Graham Regeneration Center, Inc. are pleased to announce the appointment of Debra Ballinger as Executive Director of both agencies, effective immediately. The Board has the fullest confidence that Deb will use her years of experience as Program Services Director of R’Club Child Care to lead both agencies in the years to come. Deb has served as Acting Executive Director for the past nine months following the passing of former Executive Director, Art O’Hara, in June 2019.
Deb has been with R’Club Child Care for 38 years after moving to Florida from Michigan following her graduation from Western Michigan University. For the past 21 years, Deb oversaw the Program Services Department and provided leadership and direction to a program that has grown to serve over 4000 children and their families a day in thirty-one (31) elementary before and after school programs, two (2) Pinellas County Schools exceptional student programs, seven (7) middle school before and after school programs and ten (10) preschools in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties. Deb also previously served as Program Services Director for Louise Graham Regeneration Center, an organization that provides high quality adult day training for adults with disabilities in our community.
Please join us in congratulating Deb on her new position as R’Club Child Care, Inc. and Louise Graham Regeneration Center, Inc.’s Executive Director! She will continue to uphold the mission of both agencies to serve the children, families and adults with disabilities in our community.

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Maria Climes, the current Human Resources Director for R’Club Child Care, Inc., has been with the agency since graduating from Florida A&M University in 1995. New to the St. Petersburg area, she was referred by a friend who worked for the agency. Little did she know R’Club would become more than a job, it would become family. She started her career with R’Club in the Fiscal Services Department as a Billing Specialist. At that time, the agency was going through a transitional period to move their billing system to a more automated structure. Wanting to follow her passion to work with people, Maria joined the Human Resources team in 1997 as the Administrative Assistant. Over the past twenty-four years, she we presented the opportunity to continuously grow in the department. These advancements further enhanced her love for human resources prompting her to obtain a MS in Organizational Management with a concentration in H.R. And, she is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management.

Outside of R’Club, she enjoys spending family time with her husband and two young adult children. She is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the local chapter of the FAMU Alumni Association. She also serves as the secretary of the St. Petersburg Association for Community Empowerment and Service, Inc. (S.P.A.C.E.S.), a philanthropic organization that exists to promote programs that educate the community about economic development, educational development, physical and mental health, international awareness and the arts.