In a planned transition, NESS names Jane Leipold as its new Board Chair, Steve Hazard as Vice-Chair.

Stonington, CT — The New England Science & Sailing Foundation is pleased to announce new board leadership changes effective April 1, 2020. Jane Leipold will succeed Bill Follett as Chair of the Board of Directors in a planned change of leadership. The current Board Treasurer, Steve Hazard, will be assuming a newly created role as the Vice Chairperson. “I am confident that this will be a smooth transition as we all continue to take advantages of the significant opportunities that lie ahead,” said NESS President and CEO, Spike Lobdell, announcing the change.

Jane Leipold has been a member of the Board for 3-years and brings significant business experience in engineering, operations, and over 20-years in human resource management to the position. Prior to her current consulting work, she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for TE Connectivity (TE)—a $13 billion global technology company. She serves as a Board member and past treasurer for the Pennsylvania State University (Harrisburg) Board of Advisors and has endowed a scholarship specifically focused on supporting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) students. At NESS, Leipold is head of both the Human Resources and Nominations & Governance Committees. She has also participated on the Strategic Planning Committee and the Education Committee— playing a critical role in the recent search and selection of NESS’s first Executive Director of Education.

Hazard was a founder of the Pepe & Hazard law firm in Hartford which merged with McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, a 300 plus attorney law firm headquartered in Morristown, NJ. He is a tax attorney who primarily served as outside general counsel to mid-sized companies and non-profit organizations. Hazard has a keen interest in the improvement of K-12 education and serves as a trustee emeritus of Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford. He currently serves as NESS’s Treasurer and Chair of the Finance and Strategic Planning Committees and serves on the Education Committee.

Outgoing Chairperson Bill Follett was NESS’s first Board Chair and held the post for almost five years. He helped guide NESS as it greatly expanded the number of students that NESS’s programs reached across the region. Follett will remain on the Board of Directors and will continue to support the NESS mission. Lobdell says of Follett, “His passion and commitment to NESS is outstanding and as Chair he was a great partner to management. We are delighted that he is staying on the Board after a very successful tenure as Board Chair.”