There”™s an open secret circulating among a number of prominent Westchester County boards: Lianne Hales-Shaw is a gem.
Those who have corralled her talents include the Iona College Alumni board (she”™s an alumna; her father is an alumnus; and one son, Robert, is about to graduate); the board of the Elizabeth Mascia Child Care Center in Tarrytown; the marketing and development committee at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow; and the board of the Hales Family Foundation, which recently endowed a professorship at the University of Maryland Medical Center where her father Thomas E. Hales received transplanted lungs in 2007. She also supports the efforts of her brother Terence Hales, who for three years has organized a New York City run to fight pulmonary fibrosis, the disease that afflicted their father; this year”™s target is 150 harriers.
Hales-Shaw is a year-round, competitive tennis player, but her smile and bearing indicate her best skills could well be in the interpersonal arena. “I could yak the bark off a tree,” she said laughing.
An hour with the Yorktown mother of two ”“ her younger son Michael is a student at Westchester Community College ”“ reveals the sort of big-heartedness that is supposed to have gone extinct decades ago.
As director of development for the Ossining-based Dominican Sisters Home Health Care Services, she occasionally travels with nurses “so I can better understand what they do.” But the situation in which she found herself on her first such trip several years ago was too rife with sadness and she welled up: “The patient was septic. I started to cry and the nurse looked up at me and said, ”˜You can”™t cry; this is not helpful.”™”
It is telling that Hales-Shaw does not focus on herself when she speaks, but ticks off a handful of people who have made her work and life better.
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There are, first of all, her parents, county residents and now part-time Floridians Thomas and Alice Marie Hales. They are well known in the county; he was feted with the Westchester County Association”™s Apex Award in 2007, an award Lianne collected for him as he was recovering from surgery. Two plaques at the Dominican Sisters”™ Ossining headquarters attest to Hales”™ generosity. Thomas Hales retired from heading Union State Bank (now part of KeyBank) and has recovered ”“ “He”™s golfing!” ”“ from his transplant. Others Hales-Shaw mentions include:
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- Sister Jo-Anne Faillace, head of pastoral care for the home health service: “She is very popular. I think the spiritual side of patients is probably underserved. It”™s a very important part of what we do.”
- Sister Margaret Flood, the center”™s chief operating officer.
- Jane Henderson, who manages grants ”“ critical toward employing 450 employees in Westchester, Suffolk and Bronx counties who saw 13,000 patients during 210,000 visits last year.
- Sister Virginia Hanrahan, the service”™s CEO and president for more than 35 years.
- Mary Zagajeski, who will take over as CEO, leaving Hanrahan as president.
Together, they pursue a mission simply to be “a healing presence.”
“Oh, and could I mention the Clarks? They have been so supportive.”
? Authors Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Clark who for 11 years have helped with a fundraising event at Abigail Kirsch at Tappan Hill. The event raises “about $100,000” per year.
By treating patients in their homes, the service alleviates expensive hospital stays. “And for many patients, the home is a better environment in which to heal.” Among those who benefit are AIDS patients and seniors who, because of the Dominican Sisters”™ efforts, can remain in their own homes.
“I love to work here and I have a great respect for the work we do,” Hales-Shaw said. “I go out periodically and I see patients who are grateful for how compassionate our staff is. We do a lot of work with newborns ”“ many are the children of immigrants ”“ and it is such a warm-and-fuzzy feeling to help them. It is such a gift to be a nurse.”
At 49, Hales-Shaw previously was a banker, first with Bank of New York and then with CitiBank. It was a world that left her familiar with money and, as she puts it, “I am always looking for new donors and seeking new ways to raise money.”
After work, “I love tennis,” she said. She plays through the winter at Club Fit in Jefferson Valley and on Club Fit”™s U.S. Tennis Association traveling squad in the summer, playing doubles throughout the region.
“I used to say I did not care if I won,” she said. “But now that I am winning, I do care. My tennis instructor would be so proud.”
