The College is proud to announce the election of SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board directors Michele Di Palo-Williams ’77 (Sociology), Jo Ann Golden ’69 (Secondary Education: Mathematics) and Dennis McShane ’77 (Russian Studies). Directors serve three-year terms.
Elected to the Board FY2021
Michele Di Palo-Williams ’77 has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare research. After graduating magna cum laude from SUNY New Paltz, she earned a master’s degree from Harvard University, where she began her work in policy study at the Kennedy School of Government. She then moved to advocacy research for the Massachusetts Hospital Association. She served as the assistant director of health services evaluation and director of medical policy administration at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. In 2020, Di Palo-Williams and her spouse, Graeme Williams, donated funds to support the acquisition of 30 new laptops for students in the Scholar’s Mentorship Program (SMP) at New Paltz.
Jo Ann Golden ’69 is a certified public accountant, licensed in New York. From 2000 through 2012, she was the managing partner of the New Hartford, New York, office of Dermody Burke and Brown, CPAs (DB&B), a regional accounting firm headquartered in Syracuse. Prior to her partnership, she operated her own firm, which was merged into DB&B. Golden is currently serving as a consultant to the publisher Commerce Clearing House (CCH) and as the author of the annual update of its Audit Guide for the Financial Institutions. She is a past president of the New York State Society of CPAs, current chair of the Society’s Professional Ethics Committee, a member of the State Society’s Financial Accounting Standards Committee, and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Golden has been a member of the Foundation’s Audit Committee for the past 11 years.
Dennis McShane ‘77 has more than 40 years of experience in banking, corporate finance and board advisory service to the natural resource sectors in the United States, Europe, Africa and Australia. He was the executive director of strategy for Ophir Energy, an oil and gas exploration company, having previously served as senior independent director during its IPO. McShane was the executive director of finance and strategy leading the IPO of Ferrexpo, a Ukrainian Iron Ore producer. He currently serves as a non-executive chairman of Jadestone, plc, a Southeast Asia/Australia-focused oil and gas company, and as a director of the Advertising Checking Bureau, a private U.S.-based channel marketing service company. McShane graduated magna cum laude from SUNY New Paltz and later completed the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School.
About the SUNY New Paltz Foundation
Founded in 1976, the SUNY New Paltz Foundation works to enrich the quality of academic life at New Paltz by raising private contributions. Gifts to the Foundation enhance the teaching, learning and discovery that takes place on campus, and allow New Paltz to enrich the cultural, economic and social fabric of the Mid-Hudson region. Visit the SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board online for more information.
