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Expanded Board, New Officers

Entering its fourth year of consistent growth, the group has expanded its board from 7 to 15 directors to reflect the diversity of its membership. All members of the board live in Columbia or Greene counties.

Explaining why he decided to join the Friends board, Philmont resident Chris Reed said,"It's a great group of people, a very thoughtful group of people. For me, it's about reminding people what citizenship involves. We are supposed to think independently and assess information that pertains to our well-being-and not simply accept the opinions of the powers-that-be."

The expanded board has elected the following officers for 2002:

* President - James Cashen of Claverack, whose family has been operating dairy and vegetable farms in in Claverack since the 1950s, is a lawyer specializing in dispute resolution and arbitration. Cashen currently is a panel arbitrator under the contract for the State of New York and CSEA. Cashen has served on numerous boards in the area, including currently the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce, the Hawthorne Valley School and Bounty of the County food project. He is a former board member of Columbia Opportunites, Twin Counties Substance and Alchohol Abuse Services Inc., Catholic Charities of Columbia and Greene Counties, and Camphill Village Copake. In addition, he is a former Commissioner for the Taconic Region of the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

* Vice President - Peter Jung of Hudson, owner of Peter Jung Art & Antiques, a bluegrass performer, a veteran of the United States Army, and a member of the board of The Olana Partnership and The Hudson Opera House.

* Secretary/Treasurer - Ann Birckmayer, a native of Kinderhook, is a program associate with Furthermore, the publication program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and has served on the Allocation Committee of the United Way of Columbia Greene Counties, and is a member of the Columbia County Committee for Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood.

Birckmayer is one of 8 new members of the board, along with:

* Dr. Michael Brown of Livingston, a doctor in practice with Twin County Medical Associates who is also affiliated with Columbia Memorial Hospital;

* Cyndy Hall of Claverack, a music teacher at Hudson Middle School where she also serves as faculty advisor to the student Tolerance Committee, and a co-founder of Concerned Women of Claverack.

* Sven Huseby of Livingston, an educational consultant who is the former headmaster of The Putney School in Vermont, where he taught for 30 years, as well as the former head of a Native American school in Rowe, New Mexico;

* Chris Reed of Philmont, the director of education for the Regional Farm and Food Project of Albany which serves farmers and consumers in a 10-county area, and co-owner of High Falls Gardens, a Philmont-based research and educational project focusing on medicinal plants;

* Norma Ramos of Ancramdale, is an environmental lawyer and activist who serves on the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Environmental Justice Advisory Group. Ramos is also a founding board member of Justicia Ambiental Latina (JAL) and West Harlem Environmental Action (We Act), and a member of the steering committee for the North East Environmental Justice Network (NEJN);

* Samuel O.J. Spivy of Kinderhook, a management and marketing consultant who co-founded Interactive Bureau, a leading web design firm purchased by Snyder Communications in 1999. Spivy has also held numerous executive positions in publishing, including Rolling Stone and Time Magazine. Spivy is also a trustee of the Columbia County Historical Society.

* Mark Teague of Coxsackie, a best-selling children's book author and illustrator and member of the executive committee of STOPP, an Athens-based citizen's organization opposed to the Athens Generating project.

* Ellen Thurston of Hudson, an arts administrator who served as Director of Arts Resources for the New York State Council on the Arts and as the Northeast Regional Representative for the National Endowment for the Art, has held numerous and positions in the arts and tourism in New York Sate. She is currently a board member of the Friends of the First Presbyterian Church and the Hudson Opera House.

In addition to Cashen, Jung, and Pratt, returning board members include:

* Susan Falzon of Athens, a management consultant specializing in strategic implementation, organizational design and development, and communication who is vice-chair of the Athens Village Zoning Board of Appeals and founding director of STOPP.

* Judy Grunberg of Chatham, a design consultant who owns the Blue Plate Restaurant in Chatham and is on the boards of WAMC, Time and Space Limited, Close Encounters with Music, and the Chatham Business Alliance. Foremost among her current projects is to make PS/21, a 400 seat performance space for dance & music near Chatham Village, a reality.

* Dr. Jeffrey Monkash of Claverack, a gastroenterologist in practice in Greenport, Catskill and Chatham, and the former chief of medicine at Columbia Memorial Hospital from 1996-99, and head of the Columbia Medical Society from 1990-95, and currently serves as the regional director for Columbia and Greene County CDPHP.

* Sam Pratt of Hudson, a former columnist for Esquire Magazine and The New York Post who has written for two dozen national publications including New York Magazine, MediaWeek, Spin, and others. Pratt has served as an unpaid volunteer for Friends of Hudson since January 1999.

Lastly, the board has two emeritus directors, Greenport resident Deborah Novack, a realtor with the Anderson Agency in Kinderhook, and Claudia Bruce, co-director of Time & Space Limited in Hudson.

NEW STAFF

Friends of Hudson has also hired two full-time employees and one part-time staffer to keep a 9-to-5 presence in its new storefront offices at 362 1/2 Warren Street, just south of 4th Street in Hudson. All members of the staff live full-time in Hudson:

* Program Manager - Sue Bellinger owned and ran South Bay Leather in Hudson for 22 years, has served on the board of the Hudson Development Corporation (HDC) for six years, and is involved in many community groups.

* Network Administrator - Maiysha Kramer, a Greene County native now living in Hudson, is a computer sciences student at Columbia-Greene.

* Development Director - Colum Riley is a 1997 graduate of Berea College who ran a sales and marketing company out of college, co-founded a nonprofit organization, the House of Peace, in Ipswich, MA, and is a member of Hudson's Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan subcommittee.

* Executive Director - Sam Pratt (see above).

Pratt said that he is pleased to note that "While in 2001 SLC lost its original project manager, its environmental director, its public relations spokesman, and the president of its parent company, Friends of Hudson is still here in the community, going strong, and in better shape than ever to achieve the positive goals of our mission."

The group also intends to release the results of a comprehensive members survey within the next few weeks to give an even clearer picture of the members it serves.

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