Ken Boudreau, Chairman

Ken Boudreau is a private investor. He has served as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps. Founder, President, and CEO of CGS Staffing Services, Inc, he sold the corporation to an NYSE-listed company. Mr. Boudreau has been affiliated with a wide range of charitable organizations, including serving as past Chairman of the Board of Trustees, CT Chapter of the National Association of Staffing Services; Past Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Wheeler Clinic, Plainville CT; Past President of the Board of Trustees, The Mark Twain House, Hartford, CT; Past Director, CT Business and Industry Association; Past Trustee, Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Hartford, Hartford, CT; Past Trustee, Hillstead Museum, Farmington, CT; Past Trustee, Northwest Catholic High School, West Hartford, CT; Past Trustee, Archdiocese Board of Education, Archdiocese of Hartford, CT. Currently, Mr. Boudreau serves as a Trustee of the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT. and as a member of the Board of the Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation.

Gerald Gunderson

Gerald Gunderson, working with Rich Sweetzer of Norfolk, founded  Yankee Institute almost 40 years ago. Early on, he wrote and promoted educational choice, which has developed into one of Yankee’s signature issues. He served on the Governor’s panel on public school equity and funding, commonly called the Sheff panel. Professor Gunderson holds a Ph.D. in economics earned under the supervision of Douglas North, Nobel laureate in economic history. He has written on entrepreneurship and economic growth and published two books on the history of the American economy. He recently retired as the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of American Business and Economic Enterprise at Trinity College.

J. David Kelsey

J. David Kelsey is a co-founder and Manager of Hamilton Point Investments LLC, founded in 2009 in Old Lyme, Connecticut with his partner Matthew Sharp.  Hamilton Point Investments is a real estate private equity group currently investing in apartments and hotels with over $2.1 billion in acquisitions and 270 employees across the country.  Previously, David was a Principal with Trinity Hotel Investors L.L.C., a New York-based real estate and hotel investment partnership formed in late 2002, which acquired 22 properties in the U.S. and Europe with total costs of $560 million.  Prior to joining Trinity, Mr. Kelsey was with Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.’s Real Estate & Lodging Investment Banking Group from 1996 to 2003 as a senior Vice President acting for domestic and European public and private real estate clients in securities placement, capital structuring, mergers and acquisitions, and dispositions.  He also served as loan officer for M&T Bank in New York City, underwriting $75 million of loans for commercial real estate borrowers.  David received a B.A. in History modified with Geography from Dartmouth College in 1990 and an M.B.A. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in 1995, focused on accounting and finance. 

David has lived in Old Lyme since 2001, moving permanently from New York City in 2008.  He has actively served in his community, serving on such boards as officer for the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library in Old Lyme, MacCurdy Salisbury Educational Foundation and Lyme Academy of Fine Arts.  He has also served on both elected and appointed town boards and commissions, including currently serving as the chair of the Board of Finance.  David has two daughters, Alexandra and Amanda.

Tom Lasersohn

Carol Platt Liebau

Carol has worked as an attorney, author, political and policy advisor, and media commentator. In addition to practicing law, she has served as legislative assistant to Senator Christopher S. “Kit” Bond of Missouri; as a consultant to the U.S. Senate campaigns of John D. Ashcroft of Missouri (1994) and Congressman Tom Campbell of California (2000 and 2010); and as law clerk to Reagan appointee Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. 

She has been a guest radio talk show host for programs including the nationally-syndicated “Hugh Hewitt Show” and for KABC radio in Los Angeles. Carol is also the author of Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!), published by Hachette Book Group (formerly Time Warner) in 2007, and has contributed to the editorial pages of papers including The Hartford Courant, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Times, The Orange County Register, The Sacramento Bee, and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She has appeared on PBS, the Fox News Channel, CNN, and MSNBC. 

Carol is a graduate of Harvard Law School — where she served as the first female managing editor of The Harvard Law Review — and Princeton University, where she was editorial chairman of The Daily Princetonian. 

Betsy McCaughey

Betsy McCaughey is a patient advocate and former Lt. Governor of New York State. In 2004, she founded and is now Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID), a nationwide educational campaign to stop infections in nursing homes and hospitals. Ms. McCaughey is also a syndicated columnist, weekly columnist for the New York Post, and author of The Next Pandemic, from Encounter Books. In 2016 McCaughey was named to President-elect Trump’s transition Economic Advisory Committee. From 1995 to 1998, she served as Lt. Governor of New York State.

Ms. McCaughey earned a Ph.D. in constitutional history from Columbia University.

David Tohir

David Tohir is a co-founder and Chairman of Hecate Energy LLC, one of the largest private renewable power development companies in the U.S.  Prior to founding Hecate in 2012, Mr. Tohir co-founded, built and sold several other independent power development companies, and has held various management positions in the power industry starting in 1990. Prior thereto, Mr. Tohir was employed as an investment banker.

Mr. Tohir has lived with his family in Connecticut since 1994, and has previously served on the New Canaan Utilities Commission.  He earned two Bachelor of Science degrees – Electrical Engineering and Economics – and a Master of Science degree in Management, all from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Penny Young

Penny Young has been actively involved in and held leadership positions in community organizations and issues at local, regional and state-wide arenas. 

Mrs. Young has served as an elected member of the New Canaan Town Council since 1997. She co-founded the Elder Care Council and chaired the effort to develop and expand the Lapham Community Center to provide support, recreational and educational programs for adults. She serves as an advisor to the Getabout (transportation system) and Staying Put (reside at home) as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Waveny LifeCare Network. Statewide, Penny serves as President of the CT Area Agencies on Aging and on the CT Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity. She has long served as Secretary of New Canaan’s non-partisan League of Women Voters. She also serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Stamford Symphony.