Essex County Community Foundation is pleased to announce that five Essex County residents have recently been elected to the organization’s Board of Trustees.
Allan Huntley of Danvers is founder and CEO of Human Centered Apps, a software development firm, and 501Partners, a consulting firm that builds capacity in the nonprofit sector using Salesforce. Allan has 23 years of nonprofit board experience and also currently serves on the board of Beverly Bootstraps.
Derek Reed of Wenham is a managing partner of Beauport Financial Services in Gloucester, where he specializes in risk protection; income, estate and retirement planning; and asset management. Derek currently serves on the planned gift committee at Pathways for Children and is on the endowment committee at the Gloucester Education Fund. He is also a member of ECCF’s NextGen committee.
Pamela Carrington Scott of Salem is founder, president and CEO of LVCC, Inc., a business consulting practice that advises investment management firms, nonprofits and entrepreneurs. She has four decades of volunteer and nonprofit board experience and has been involved with many local nonprofits including Girls, Inc. and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. She currently serves on the Trustee Advisory Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Jean Verbridge of Marblehead is a founding principal of SV design, a commercial and residential architectural, interior design and landscape firm based in Beverly and Chatham. A former faculty member at Endicott College, Jean currently serves as a trustee of Goldthwait Reservation in Marblehead, on the Board of Directors for the North Shore Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Corporate Committee at Peabody Essex Museum.
Anita Rajan Worden of North Andover, an entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in the renewable energy and electric vehicle technology fields, is co-founder of Lightspeed Energy, LLC, where they are developing technology for renewable energy and transportation solutions. Anita currently serves on the boards of trustees of Northern Essex Community College and the Youth Development Organization in Lawrence, and is involved with local nonprofits, the Lawrence Partnership and EforAll.
“As ECCF continues to build our role as a convener and community leader, we are so fortunate to be joined by this distinguished group of people who are passionate about collaborating and innovating to find ways to improve lives in Essex County,” said Jon Payson, ECCF’s board chair. “Their combined skills, experience and diversity of perspectives will contribute materially to the Foundation’s capacity to take on our region’s greatest challenges.”
Huntley, Reed, Scott, Verbridge and Worden are joining ECCF at a critical time, as the Foundation delves deeper into two of its largest community leadership initiatives.
ECCF and its partners are currently focused on launching the four projects of the Impact Essex County Alpha Project – Empowering Economic Opportunity – an initiative that will help strengthen the financial stability of the 38 percent of Essex County residents living below the living wage.
Local and regional cultural planning and countywide creative placemaking and public art projects are in full swing thanks to ECCF’s Creative County Initiative, a partnership with the Barr Foundation focused on increasing the visibility and impact of the transformative power of arts and culture. On March 21, the Foundation also held the official digital launch of EssexCountyCreates.org, the first arts and cultural calendar focused on Essex County.
“There are so many great things happening at ECCF that require hard work, dedication and collective action to be successful,” said ECCF President and CEO Beth Francis. “I am so excited about the insight and value this newly elected group of talented individuals will add to the Foundation’s work. I feel very fortunate that they are all willing to roll up their sleeves and jump right in.”
