Meet the Board of Directors
Susan Epstein, President
William Wakeling, Vice President
Susan McCarthy, Treasurer
Sherry Alpert
James Barron
Barbara Kaplan
Paul Milner
Brian Welsh
Marie McIlwrath
Education: Wheaton College (MA) B.A Chemistry
Director: United States Sailing Association (US SAILING) 1999-present, National Women's Sailing
Association (NWSA) 2001-present, Sail Nantasket 2005-present
Chairman: Council of Sailing Associations, US SAILING 2004-2005, United States Women's Match Racing Championship 2001-2005
President: Opera New England (ONE) 1995-1996, Massachusetts Bay Sailing Association 1996-1998, International 210 Class Association 1996-1997
Commodore: Hull Yacht Club (first woman) 1982-83
After a 30-year teaching career in Chemistry at Wheaton College (MA), retirement has allowed Susan the opportunity to put her time and energy into those activities, which she describes as life shaping. From early childhood through to the present, music and athletics have dominated Susan's free time and extra-curricular activity, and today characterize her volunteer commitments.
Change and growth seem to coincide with Susan's volunteer roles. Her involvement with Opera New England originally a branch of Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston...began in 1988 just as ONE had reorganized and become independent of the Opera Company of Boston. She served as a few years as Vice-President, becoming President in 1995 on the untimely death of then president, Estah Yens. As president of Opera New England she saw it merge with Boston Lyric Opera to become part of their education and community outreach program, an important addition to the Boston music scene, especially, for young audiences.
While serving as Chairman of US SAILING'S Council of Sailing Associations (first woman Chair) and Member of the Board of Directors she was active in the re-structuring of the organization which saw a constituency-oriented Board of 49 members reduced to a skilled-based Board of 15 whose decision making is now directed at what's best for the sport and the forty-thousand-member organization as a whole.
At Wheaton College she was witness to and part of Wheaton's successful transition from a fine liberal arts college for women to an outstanding co-ed liberal arts college.
Volunteering locally as well as at the national level, Susan is a founding member of Sail Nantasket, a 501(c)(3) sailing foundation that has recently developed both a composite (3 schools) high-school team and a learn-to-sail community program.
Today, she takes great joy in having several musicians in her family, a few professionals who teach in the academic world and several young amateurs: her teenaged grandsons play in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO) and one also plays in the Empire State Youth Orchestra of Albany, NY. A fourteen-year-old granddaughter is a talented guitarist who writes unusually mature music and lyrics, and her singer songwriter mother gigs with a few well know Boston area bands.
As a child, taking weekly piano and voice lessons, and moving on to glee club and choir through high school and college, and then to the community chorus and local choirs in the town of Sharon, music has always brought pleasure, learning, and privilege to Susan's life, and NVPO adds to the bounty for her and for others.
Dean Wakeling holds master's degrees from the University of Sheffield and University of Leeds, and had a long career working in British library systems before joining Northeastern. He has served as Northeastern libraries' collection development officer and as associate dean for collections and technical services before agreeing to serve as acting dean in July 2007.
Susan J. McCarthy is an experienced tax professional and senior tax manager. She has over 23 years of experience in various areas of accounting and tax, including over 19 years in public accounting firms and 4 years in the probate department of a major Boston law firm. She is a graduate of Bridgewater State College with a bachelor's degree in accounting. She is also a graduate of Suffolk University with a Master of Science in Taxation. She was licensed as a certified public accountant in 1988. She earned her certification as a Certified Estate Planning Specialist (CSEP) in 2005.
Susan provides a wide range of services, including business consulting, accounting, and income tax research, planning and compliance for a wide variety of small businesses and high net worth individuals. Her specialty is in the trust, nonprofit, gift and estate area, including planning, consulting, compliance, administration, taxation and accounting. Susan is a member of the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and a member of the Norfolk and Plymouth Estate and Business Planning Council.
With her 23+ years of for-profit and not-for-profit experience, Susan decided it was time to give back, and after having thoroughly enjoyed the inaugural season of the NVPO, approached the NVPO for a role on our Board. In her role as NVPO Treasurer, she will oversee all fiduciary responsibilities for the Board and the Orchestra’s bookkeeper and accounting systems. As a resident of the Neponset Valley area, Susan is looking forward to working with the NVPO to serve the area.
Sherry Alpert, Principal of Sherry Alpert Corporate Communications in Canton, Massachusetts, has been working in public relations since 1979,following five years as a journalist.
Having directed public relations departments for institutional nonprofit organizations and a government agency, managed accounts at a public relations agency, and served as the public relations arm for a broad range of corporations, Sherry has secured client placement in such media as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, Associated Press, CNN, CNBC's "Power Lunch", National Public Radio, and all of Boston's TV news stations. She also creates corporate marketing materials; writes web copy; writes, ghostwrites, edited and places bylined articles; and books clients for speaking engagements.
Sherry will put her writing and editing skills to work in writing, ghostwriting and/or editing articles under your byline, ensuring placement for them in appropriate business and trade magazines. She also engages in fiction and playwriting, with several published short stories and op-ed columns. She serves on the Advisory Board of the 128 Innovation Capital Group and the Board of Directors of the Southern New England Entrepreneurs Forum. Sherry has guest lectured in public relations and journalism at Stonehill College, Easton, MA, Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, MA, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, and Kent State University in Kent, OH.
A 1974 magna cum laude graduate of Connecticut College, she earned a Certificate in Graphic Design from Massachusetts College of Art and credits toward a Masters in advanced creative writing from Emerson College.
James Barron holds degrees from Northeastern University with a B.S. with Honor in Music (Classical Guitar), and from Fitchburg State College with a B.S. in Industrial Science (Electrical Engineering). He is presently retired from Raytheon Company where he worked for over 20 years as an electronic troubleshooter and repairman, Field Engineer and Technical Writer.
Jim is pursuing a rebirth of his classical guitar career as a teacher and performer, and, hopefully, a composer on a small scale. His love of classical music has never left him, and he has attended live concerts many times and shall continue to do so. Jim feels that the NVPO is a wonderful stepping stone into the donation of his time and efforts to a worthy cause.
Barbara Kaplan received her M.ED from Lesley University and a B.S degree from Boston University, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. After graduation from Sargent College, Barbara was awarded a Kennedy Foundation Fellowship.
She has over 25 years of experience working in the Rehabilitation field, with a specialty in traumatic brain injury. At New England Sinai Hospital, she served in several departments, Rehabilitation; where she managed a state of the art outcome based department with a focus on community reintegration. Marketing and Development; she managed a grant program, initiated and developed relationships with potential funding sources and managed an endowment portfolio. She served as a member of the community relations committee, interfacing with various community groups, associations and businesses.
She launched Sinai Healthfest, a community Health fair that encompassed 15 local communities and served all age groups, with specific health and wellness needs of local residents. Support for Sinai Healthfest came from local businesses.
She was on the faculty at Lesley University, a lecturer at Northeastern University and Fisher College.
Barbara presented at regional state, and national conferences including the Brain Injury Association of America.
Currently Barbara operates under BSK Consulting. She consults primarily to The Statewide Head Injury Program. SHIP is part of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission’s Division of Community Services.
Barbara is very pleased to serve on the Board of the NVPO, not only because she has always enjoyed classical music, but she is excited about having a professional orchestra of the highest quality available to people of all ages in this region.
Dr. Paul Milner received the PhD degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the City University of New York Graduate School after completing studies in Engineering and Communications at MIT and Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York. He has over 40 years of experience in teaching, in scientific and clinical research and in applications relating to acoustics, sound, broadcasting and recording technologies, hearing and hearing disorders.
As an acoustics engineer with CBS Laboratories, the former research division of CBS, Inc., he was involved extensively with understanding human response to sounds, ranging from speech communications in commercial aviation, satellite transmissions, to the loudness of broadcast commercials and sound perception of music reproduction systems.
At MIT, Dr. Milner investigated speech understanding by the hard of hearing, and at Yale University, in association with the Veterans Administration, he worked with people who were profoundly deaf and receiving cochlear implants.
Prior to opening Hearing Care Center in 1989, Dr. Milner was a clinical and research audiologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. For 17 years, he was audiological and technical consultant to the audiology program in the Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Disorders at Children's Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Milner has been on the part-time faculty of Bridgewater State College, University of Rhode Island, Emerson College, Northeastern University, and Worcester State College where he has taught courses in audiology and speech and hearing sciences to both undergraduate and graduate students and provided clinical supervision. He is a “Technical Expert” trainer for Frye Electronics, a manufacturer of hearing aid test systems and was an Advanced Technology Consultant to Siemens Hearing Instruments.
Dr. Milner is a Fellow and Founding President of the Massachusetts Academy of Audiology, a Fellow of the American Academy of Audiology, member of American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Auditory Society, Acoustical Society of America, and Massachusetts Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Milner is Board Certified in Audiology® by the American Board of Audiology. He also holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC–A) and is licensed as an Audiologist by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Brian Welsh received an MBA from Norwich University and his B.S. in Business from the University of Rhode Island. He is currently the Marketing Manger at the United States Sailing Association in Portsmouth, RI.
Brian is pleased to serve on the Board of NVPO, because it fosters his appreciation for music stemming from his time performing in orchestras and groups growing up in Washington, DC. He is also eager to apply his experience of sponsorship and marketing work to the success of Symphony Nova. Brian lives in Newport, RI with his wife, Siobhan.
Marie holds a PhD in Higher Education Administration Leadership. A graduate of University of Kentucky, Harvard and UMass. She has over 20 years experience of combining creative and critical thinking with an intuitive process to assess personalities for the purpose of strategically matching individuals to their educational, career, professional and
personal goals.
Marie has many years of experience teaching teachers curriculum design for secondary schools. She has not only taught in several graduate schools of education, she has also consulted and designed curriculum with communities of education domestically as well as in Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong. Furthermore, as Director of Developmental Education for Roxbury Community College she pioneered stages of innovative curriculum design for under-prepared students to successfully complete their gateway college courses. As a Boston Public School teacher she was a demonstration classroom instructor, teacher mentor, and coordinator of transitional education.