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About Us
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Key Staff
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Gail Cozadd | KCSL CEO
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Gail Cozadd has been KCSL’s chief executive officer since January 2020. Before becoming CEO, Gail served as the children and family services director for 13 years. Throughout her career with the organization, Gail has played a major role in shaping KCSL’s growth strategy significantly through strengthening programs like post adoption support; foster family placement; youth interventions and intensive in-home support for substance-using parents. She recently served as board president of the Children’s Alliance of Kansas from 2017 to 2019.
Prior to joining KCSL, Gail worked for Social and Rehabilitation Services for nine years, where she investigated child abuse and neglect with an emphasis on cases of severe physical abuse and sexual abuse. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work in 1996 from the University of Kansas and completed her Master of Social Work Administration in 2002. This emphasized program development, continuous quality improvement, human resource management, social service budgeting and social policy.
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Margaret La Rue | KCSL Foundation President
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A long-time advocate for children and families, Margaret La Rue volunteered at KCSL for nearly 20 years before becoming president of the Kansas Children’s Service League Foundation (KCSL-F) in January 2020. She has held significant leadership roles and played a major part in shaping KCSL’s financial stability.
Margaret is a community volunteer, director of Heritage Bank and director of her family’s business, Salisbury Supply Co. Inc., a distributor of construction and industrial supplies. Previously, she was a vice president with Capitol Federal Savings in Topeka. During her tenure, she served in the areas of retail banking and residential mortgage lending.
“I am a believer in the old adage, it takes a village. This is what guides my community involvement. It is a privilege to work at a place like KCSL that has a strong board, foundation and staff paired with such an abundant history of children services that has truly made a difference to so many over the years. We each play a role in making our communities strong.”
Margaret is the founding president of the Topeka West High School Foundation, a CASA volunteer and formerly an Episcopal Diocese of Kansas Trustee and Finance committee chair. She is also a founding member of The Women’s Fund and a sustaining member of The Junior League of Topeka. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Kansas. Margaret and her husband, Tighe, are third generation owner/operators of their family business, Salisbury Supply Co. Inc., with offices in Topeka, Wichita and Manhattan. They have two children.
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Paula Wischnack | KCSL CFO
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As Chief Financial Officer, Paula Wischnack provides oversight for all KCSL assets. Her responsibilities include
all of the finance and accounting activities, which include budgeting, external audit, financial reporting both
internal and external, and analysis of opportunities. Additionally, Paula oversees KCSL’s IT department, HR
functions and facility procurement and management.
Paula has 40 years of experience in accounting and finance. Prior to working at KCSL, she spent 13 years at Adams
Business Forms, which later became Cardinal Brands, a private multi-national developer, manufacturer and distributor
of business forms and document-related products where she served as vice president/controller. In this role, she
worked directly with sales teams to create reporting tools, with manufacturing and distribution to analyze cost
structure and with management to provide analysis to facilitate decision-making. She also played an active role
in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and debt restructuring.
“I am excited to be with such a talented team here at KCSL. I believe that my years of experience working in a wide
variety of financial and accounting roles provides KCSL the ability to use a different perspective to view finance—as
a partner that provides information, assistance and support to make paperwork manageable and the job of direct client
service easier.”
Paula holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Emporia State University. She has three daughters, one of which
currently attends Oklahoma State University. Her other two daughters live in Topeka. One serves as a parole officer
and the other teaches and is married with two sons.
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