Two Purchase College alumni honored at commencement
Jodi Long and Peter Powchi received a President”™s Award for Distinguished Alumni at the recent Purchase College Commencement at the Westchester County Center, when more than 1,000 graduates received their degrees.
College President Thomas J. Schwarz said Long and Powchi “demonstrate how a Purchase College education gives our alumni the foundation for outstanding achievement in a broad range of sectors, including the performing arts and biomedical science.”
Long, class of ”™76, had her stage debut on Broadway at age 7 and continued developing her talent as a classical dramatic actor while pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting at Purchase. Throughout the 1980s and ”™90s, she performed in a number of productions on and off-Broadway, including “Flower Drum Song,” for which she received a Los Angeles Ovation Award. In film and TV, she has acted in a wide range of roles from “Patty Hearst” to “All-American Girl” and the current TBS series, “Sullivan & Son.” Also a writer and producer, Long has written the award-winning movie “Long Story Short” about her parents”™ careers as entertainers. Among the boards she serves on are Visual Communications and the Screen Actors Guild.
Powchik, class of ”™79, graduated from Purchase with a degree in chemistry, after which he received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine. He has had a successful career in clinical development at leading pharmaceutical companies. In 2006, Powchik joined Regeneron, where he is senior vice president for clinical development and regulatory affairs. At Regeneron, he has played a key role in successfully guiding important products for cancer, eye disease and inflammatory conditions through clinical and regulatory processes.
Tax partner joins firm
Peter Baum has joined O”™Connor Davies L.L.P., a certified public accounting and consulting firm with offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, as a tax partner.
Baum brings more than 30 years of industry experience working with multinational firms, high-net-worth individuals and privately held companies and will lead the firm”™s international tax and tax accounting practices. He specializes in tax planning, consulting and compliance for foreign and domestic corporations, handles residency issues and tax planning for high-net-worth individuals.
Baum has spent his career working with closely held corporations, large S corporations, nonprofits, family offices, partnerships and private equity funds. On the international side, Baum is involved with expatriate planning, entry/exit strategies and related compliance. He has developed inbound/outbound tax structures utilizing tax-favored holding companies, blocker entities and transparent entities, including check-the-box elections. He is very knowledgeable with transfer pricing, earnings stripping, foreign tax credits, treaties and withholding issues.
A frequent speaker at the New York State Society of CPAs International Taxation conference, Baum holds a bachelor”™s degree in accounting from Syracuse University and is a certified public accountant in New York and Connecticut and he is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
White Plains Hospital honors volunteers
Volunteers, important members of the White Plains Hospital family who work directly with patients or assist the professional staff, were honored May 15 by the hospital administration for their dedication at a cocktail reception at the Woman”™s Club of White Plains.
Last year nearly 500 volunteers contributed 58,000 hours of service to the hospital. Several volunteers were recognized for reaching milestones of service at the event.
Special recognitions included:
Ӣ 5,000 Hours of Service plaque, Yvette Weiss of New Rochelle;
Ӣ 30 Years of Service pin, Hazel Bigelow of West Harrison and Cindy Frenchman of White Plains; and
Ӣ 25 Years of Service pin, Jill Haskel of Hartsdale.
For information on volunteering at White Plains Hospital, call the Volunteer Services Department at 914-681-1225 or visit the hospital website wphospital.org.
Coldwell Banker names branch manager
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Connecticut and Westchester County named Briarcliff Manor resident Suzan Zeolla branch office manager of the company”™s Bedford office at 30 Village Green.
Zeolla will be responsible for the oversight of approximately 30 real estate salespeople serving Bedford, Armonk, Chappaqua, Mount Kisco, North Salem and South Salem.
Prior to her appointment, Zeolla was a top-producing associate real estate broker affiliated with the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage office in Briarcliff/Pleasantville for more than 15 years.
“I am very pleased that Suzan has accepted this new role with the company. Suzan is an accomplished real estate professional who has a wealth of knowledge about the real estate market in Westchester County. Her expertise in sales and marketing will be a tremendous asset to the Bedford office,” said Cathleen F. Smith, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.
Zeolla has consistently ranked among Coldwell Banker”™s top real estate professionals. She was recently recognized with the Coldwell Banker International President”™s Elite award, a distinguished honor presented to the top 3 percent of approximately 85,000 sales associates worldwide in the Coldwell Banker system.
Prior to her real estate career, Zeolla was a human resources professional for international corporations. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in management from Lehman College.
New appointments at Cellar 49
Cellar 49 announced two new appointments to management at the restaurant, which is on the property of Tarrytown House Estate on the Hudson, by Destination Hotels & Resorts. John McGuirk has been named Cellar 49 manager and Chris Hettinger has been appointed the chef de cuisine.
Previous to their new roles, McGuirk and Hettinger worked at the estate for several years. Their new responsibilities focus on continuing the growth of the historic restaurant in the lower Hudson Valley.
“Both John and Chris have made great contributions while working for the estate, so we are pleased that they are continuing to provide their expertise here at Cellar 49,” said Richard Porteus, director of food and beverage. “Our restaurant is a special place for our diners, who come from all over the region and we look forward to the new perspective John and Chris will bring to enhance the success we”™ve already experienced at the restaurant.”
In his new role, McGuirk will run the day-to-day operations of the restaurant and be interactive with guests as they dine. During his 20-year career at the estate, McGuirk, a Peekskill resident, has held positions in the purchasing, night operations and food and beverage departments. Most recently, he was banquet manager, wait staff captain and mątre dӪ. Over the years, he has helped manage more than 200 weddings. Previously, he worked in the food and beverage department at the Westchester Marriott.
As the chef de cuisine for Cellar 49, Hettinger is responsible for creating the menu concept and is in charge of food direction for the restaurant. He has spent 17 years at the estate beginning as a breakfast cook and worked his way up through the ranks to executive sous chef. During that time, he took a brief hiatus from cooking and served as property operations manager from 2003 to 2004. He was hired to be the estate”™s executive chef in 2009 and was responsible for overseeing the entire culinary team and menu creation for everything, from conferences to weddings.
Hettinger, a resident of Mahopac, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, where he received an Associate Degree in 1996.
New White Plains leadership team for the YWCA
YMCA of Central and Northern Westchester CEO Cindy Rubino has announced its new leadership team, which includes Tom Hay as executive director, Heather Bell Pellegrino as associate executive director, Zachery Swierat as membership director, Eric Hammermeister as aquatics director, Devin Johnson as residence director, Anita Vaswani Martell as director of childcare services and Francisco Arizmendi as director of buildings and properties.
Held joins White Plains firm
Jeffrey S. Held, a real estate transactional lawyer with more than 30 years of experience at major New York City law firms, has joined Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever L.L.P. as a partner in its real estate practice.
“Jeff will further enhance our ability to help our real estate clients achieve their business goals,” said Joel S. Lever, founding partner. “He has a track record of getting deals done, no matter how complex or how many obstacles faced. We are very pleased to welcome him to our firm.”
Held previously served as a partner in the real estate group at Day Pitney L.L.P., as well as at O”™Melveny & Myers L.L.P., where he headed the New York office”™s real estate practice. He began his career at O”™Sullivan Graev & Karabell, where he rose through the ranks to partner.
Held earned a bachelor”™s degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis, and his Doctor of Law degree from The George Washington University Law School. A member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association, Held resides in Rye Brook.
White Plains Hospital adds to its new office
Orthopedic surgeons Michael Schwartz and Daniel Markowicz of White Plains Hospital Physician Associates Orthopaedic Specialists, recently began seeing patients in the White Plains Hospital Physician Associates and Imaging Center”™s new office at 1296 North Ave., in the Wykagyl Shopping Center of New Rochelle.
Schwartz, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine, received his medical degree from the University of Health Sciences Chicago Medical School and completed his orthopedic surgery residency at The University Medical Center at SUNY Stony Brook. He completed his fellowship in sports medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Rothman Institute and has served as an instructor to other orthopedic surgeons for the Arthroscopy Association of North American.
Markowicz, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in joint replacement, earned his medical degree from Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health and completed his orthopedic surgery residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He received his fellowship training in adult reconstruction and joint replacement at The Hospital for Special Surgery and has served as clinical assistant professor of surgery at SUNY Downstate and as adjunct clinical assistant professor at the New York University Department of Physical Therapy.
For more information, call (914) 946-1010.
Burke doctor awarded research grant
The Travis Roy Foundation has awarded a research grant of $374,266 to Jason Carmel, M.D., director of the Motor Recovery Laboratory at The Burke Medical Research Institute. The three-year grant will support research in Carmel”™s lab to investigate the effects of combined brain and spinal cord stimulation on recovery of arm and hand function.
Previous research in Carmel”™s lab, also supported by the Travis Roy Foundation, has found that electrical brain stimulation can strengthen residual brain-spinal cord connections after injury. In rats, brain stimulation was shown to help restore movement after both acute and chronic injury.
In the new study, researchers will characterize the physiological, behavioral, and anatomical effects of cervical spinal cord stimulation alone and in combination with brain stimulation. They believe that the two treatments will act synergistically by strengthening brain signals reaching the spinal cord and increasing the responsiveness of the spinal cord to these signals. According to Carmel, this will be the first study to 1) combine brain and spinal cord stimulation and 2) use spinal stimulation to target recovery of arm and hand function, a top priority of people with quadriplegia.
The Travis Roy Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the life of individuals with spinal cord injuries and to finding a cure for paralysis through increased funding of research. The foundation offers individual grants for adaptive equipment to help recipients regain independence, and research grants to fund cutting-edge research.
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