Board of Advisors

JOHN ABRAMS, West Tisbury, Massachusetts. John s cofounder and CEO of South Mountain Company, a 32-year-old employee owned design/build and renewable energy company on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. His book THE COMPANY WE KEEP: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place was published by Chelsea Green Publishing in 2005. Business Ethics magazine awarded South Mountain its 2005 National Award for Workplace Democracy. He roams far and near to speak, write, and teach about Good Business. Close to home, he concentrates on re-localizing the economy and solving the island’s affordable housing crisis. John and his family live in a cohousing neighborhood developed by his company.

 

WILLIAM F. CASEY, JR. services on the loan committee and is the President and Treasurer of BIF Services, LLC in Atkinson, New Hampshire. He is a Certified Public Accountant with nine years of public accounting experience. He was a partner in a regional public accounting firm specializing in bank auditing for five of those years. He is a member of the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He completed a twenty eight year career with the Co-Operative Central Bank, the central bank and excess deposit insurer for Massachusetts Co-Operative Banks. He served as its’ President for the last eight years before his retirement in April 2008.He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Suffolk University in Boston, MA.  
 

 

LINDA GALLAGHER, Halifax, Canada. Linda is a Community Development consultant working in the areas of finance and development. Linda has over 25 years of experience in the fields of development banking and commercial banking in both Canada and the US. Linda holds a BA in Russian and History from McGill University and a MBA from Southern New Hampshire University (“SNHU”). She was on the adjunct faculty at SNHU in the School of Community Economic Development Linda is particularly interested in multi-culturalism, and has done two international development assignments with NGO’s.

MARC REICH, West Hartford, Connecticut. Marc is President of Ironwood Capital Ltd., an investment-banking firm serving middle market and larger firms throughout the US. He is a principal in IronBridge Mezzanine Fund, L.P; an investment fund that invests principally in businesses owned by women, people of color located in low and moderate income communities. Prior to founding Ironwood in 1990 he headed Aetna’s investment banking unit and was an institutional private placement lender. He was a bank examiner with the FDIC as well as a long time food co-op member. He holds a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

 

DON SCHRAMM, Burlington, Vermont. Don is co-owner of a worker owned software development firm. He was an organizer and president of a retail food co-op, instructor at various universities and is currently the project leader of a 32 unit cohousing project.

 

TIM WINGATE,  Montpelier, Vermont. Tim i served as CFNE's Board Treasurer for three years and is the finance manager at Hunger Mountain Food Co-operative and has served as the co-op's general manager. He is a CPA who has his MBA from Plymouth State College and a BS from the University of Maine at Machias. .