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Board of Directors

Gregory P. Bialecki, Chair

Secretary, Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development

Gregory P. Bialecki is Massachusetts’ Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. Prior to serving in this capacity, Mr. Bialecki had been Undersecretary for Business Development. He has more than 20 years’ experience as a real estate development and environmental lawyer at the law firms of Hill & Barlow and DLA Piper LLP, where he focused on major urban redevelopment projects in the Greater Boston area. He also worked extensively with public agencies, non-profit organizations and private landowners on land conservation and open space protection in the Commonwealth. Mr. Bialecki is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Gerald D. Cohen, Vice Chair

Founder and Principal, SF Properties, Inc.

Gerald D. Cohen (“Jerry”) is a founding partner of SSG Development, LLC, and founder and manager of SF Properties, LLC, SF Properties, Inc., (“SF Properties”) and CGI Companies with expertise in financing, leasing, developing and managing real estate.

Mr. Cohen is in charge of financing and strategic planning for SSG Development. SSG has developed 7 self storage facilities, totaling approximately 900,000 sq ft, along the east coast. Currently, SSG is constructing two additional stores totaling 250,000 sq. ft. In addition, Mr. Cohen operates over 25 properties consisting of shopping centers, downtown store blocks and office buildings. SF Properties, Inc. has extensive experience in the renovation and restoration of properties throughout Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Mr. Cohen currently serves as a member of Kellogg Alumni Council; member of Brown University’s Corporation Committee on Facilities and Design and its Strategic Long Range Committee and Chairman of the Real Estate Sub-Committee; Overseer of the Museum of Science; and member of the Finance Committee at Hebrew Senior Life.

Mr. Cohen was appointed (11/07) by the Governor of Massachusetts to serve as a Director of MassDevelopment and elected its Vice Chairman (2/10). Mr. Cohen also serves as Chairman of MassDevelopment’s Origination and Credit Committee.

Mr. Cohen was a founder and organizer of Commonwealth National Bank (2001), a nationally chartered bank in Worcester, Massachusetts. The bank was acquired by United Bank in late 2009. He had served as a member of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and Chairman of the Nominating and Governance Committee.

A graduate of Brown University (1975) and received his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management (1979). Mr. Cohen was the recipient of the 2011 Kellogg Alumni Service Award. Mr. Cohen is a licensed Massachusetts real estate broker.

David M. Abromowitz

Director, Goulston & Storrs, P.C.

David M. Abromowitz is a director of the law firm Goulston & Storrs, P.C., where he has worked on a variety of economic development and community revitalization initiatives, particularly involving housing and historic tax credit investment, HUD-assisted housing, public housing revitalization, assisted living, community land trusts, shared-equity homeownership, multifamily rental housing development, planned homeownership communities, and other multi-layered public/private projects.

A Senior Fellow at American Progress, where he focuses on housing policy and related issues, Mr. Abromowitz is a past chair and founding member of both the Lawyers’ Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness and of the American Bar Association’s Forum Committee on Affordable Housing and Community Development. He is a board member of the National Housing and Rehabilitation Association and a member of the Multifamily Leadership Board of the National Association of Home Builders. Mr. Abromowitz co-chaired the Housing Policy Working Group of then Governor-elect Deval Patrick and has served on other housing advisory groups for public officials including Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino. He serves on a number of charitable boards, including YouthBuild USA, The Equity Trust, Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly, and B’nai B’rith New England. Mr. Abromowitz also served as a board member of the National Economic Development and Law Center based in Oakland, CA.

A former adjunct professor at Northeastern Law School, Mr. Abromowitz received his B.A. from Princeton University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Mr. Abromowitz was appointed to the MassDevelopment Board of Directors in May 2009.

Keon T. Holmes

Managing Director, Cambridge Associates

Keon T. Holmes is the Managing Director of Cambridge Associates where he has worked since 2005. Prior to joining Cambridge Associates, Mr. Holmes worked as an Investment Manager at JPMorgan Chase.

Mr. Holmes is a graduate of Howard University and Harvard Business School.

John F. (Jay) Hurley

President, Iron Workers District Council of New England

John F. (Jay) Hurley is 6th General Vice President of the Iron Workers International Union in Washington, DC and President of the Iron Workers District Council of New England. He also serves as a commissioner on the City of Boston Zoning Commission. He possesses 19 years of hands-on field experience in all aspects of the construction industry.

His executive duties include fiduciary responsibility as a trustee of the Iron Workers District Council of New England Health and Welfare Fund and Iron Clad Insurance. He is a Vice President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and Co-chairman of the Ironworkers/Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust (IMPACT) for Region 1 (New England) and a member of IMPACT’s national board of directors.

Mr. Hurley is active in numerous philanthropic endeavors with nonprofit entities around New England. He was appointed to the MassDevelopment Board of Directors in November 2008.

Scott Jordan

Assistant Secretary, Executive Office for Administration and Finance, Designee for Secretary Glen Shor

Scott Jordan is Assistant Secretary at the Executive Office for Administration and Finance. He serves on the MassDevelopment Board of Directors as the designee of Secretary Glen Shor.

Mr. Jordan formerly served as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Water Pollution Abatement Trust, Director of Finance for the City of Lawrence, as Director of Debt Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and as Deputy Director of the Office of Tax Policy Analysis for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mr. Jordan is a graduate of The University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

Dennis R. Kanin

Co-Founder and Principal, New Boston Ventures LLC

Dennis Kanin is co-founder and principal of New Boston Ventures LLC, a Boston-based residential real estate development firm that has been active since 1985 in both new construction of market-rate and affordable housing and in the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic structures.

From 1985 to 2009, Mr. Kanin was also a partner and later of counsel in the Boston law firm Foley Hoag LLP. There, Mr. Kanin was a member of the government and legislative practice area and was coordinator of the firm’s Public/Private Strategies Group.

Mr. Kanin has been actively involved in both government and politics over the last few decades. He was campaign manager for the 1992 Presidential campaign of former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. From 1975 to 1985, he served as Mr. Tsongas’s chief of staff in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. Kanin has also been active in community and civic organizations. He is currently president of the Board of Trustees of The Roxbury Latin School, where he has served as a trustee since 2000. He has also served as New England chair and National Washington Affairs chair of the Anti-Defamation League, vice president of the Board of the Epiphany School, co-chair of the Children’s Hospital’s Advocacy Campaign Advisory Group and member of its Board Committee on Community Service, director of the New England Council, Advisory Board member of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and member of the Investor Advisory Board of Energy Clean Solutions.

Mr. Kanin is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was appointed to the MassDevelopment Board of Directors in March 2010.

Richard Kronish

University of Massachusetts Boston (retired)

Richard Kronish served for many years as an associate professor at UMass-Boston as well as Chairman of the Board of the First Trade Union Bank. He is founder and president of the Research Foundation for the Treatment of Ovarian Cancer and a special assistant to the New England Carpenters Labor-Management Program. He also serves as a board member of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance and of the Newton Housing Authority. A board member of the Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency and MassDevelopment from 1992-1999, Mr. Kronish has a B.A. from the University of California, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Kronish was appointed to the MassDevelopment Board of Directors in March 2010.

Meghan T. Lynch

Senior Analyst, Abt Associates, Inc.

Meghan T. Lynch is a Senior Analyst at Abt Associates, Inc. She specializes in human health risk assessment, including quantifying human variability in response to toxicants and incorporating this information into the current risk assessment framework. Dr. Lynch also has expertise in reviewing and utilizing the toxicological and epidemiologic literature for environmental policy and benefit-cost analysis. She also has several years of professional experience in brownfields redevelopment field work and analysis.

She is the former Project Manager for the Worcester Business Development Corporation, a partner in the Gateway Park Brownfields Redevelopment project. This project received the 2007 EPA Region I Phoenix Award. The co-author of seven published journal articles and a patent holder, Dr. Lynch has also worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Lynch has a B.A. in chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross, and an M.P.H. and a D.Sc. from the Boston University School of Public Health.

Dr. Lynch was appointed to the MassDevelopment Board in November 2008.

Patricia McGovern

Senior Vice President for Corporate and Community Affairs, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Patricia McGovern is Senior Vice President for Corporate and Community Affairs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Prior to that, Ms. McGovern was Executive Vice President for External Affairs at CareGroup Healthcare System. Before joining CareGroup in May 1999, Ms. McGovern practiced law at Goulston & Storrs, P.C., concentrating in the fields of public law and health care law. Ms. McGovern brought a unique knowledge and understanding of the major economic and political trends affecting the New England and national business environments to all areas of the firm’s practice.

Prior to joining Goulston & Storrs in 1993, Ms. McGovern served with distinction in the Massachusetts Senate for twelve years. From 1984 to 1992, she chaired the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, authoring groundbreaking and innovative budget and policy decisions while crafting a multi-billion dollar operating and capital budget for the Commonwealth. Ms. McGovern worked with diverse constituencies, including many of the Commonwealth’s public authorities, to build consensus and to forge new public policy with lasting implications. In addition to implementing pension reforms, Medicaid financing reform, and equitable MBTA funding, Ms. McGovern concentrated her efforts in the Senate on the improvement of public education and the court system for the benefit of all Massachusetts residents.

Ms. McGovern holds a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Suffolk University. She holds numerous honorary degrees and, after graduation from law school, studied at the Academy of International Law. Ms. McGovern is a founder of the Women’s Bar Association. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe College Public Policy Institute during the 1994-1995 academic year, and in 1992 was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She is a guest lecturer at a number of colleges, universities, law schools and institutes throughout the Northeast.

Warren E. Tolman

Of Counsel, Holland & Knight

Warren E. Tolman practices in the Government and Real Estate Departments of the firm. He is also experienced in handling a wide range of litigation matters and has substantial experience working with businesses.

Prior to entering private practice with Holland & Knight, Mr. Tolman served as a State Senator and State Representative in the Massachusetts legislature from 1991-1999. Mr. Tolman chaired the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Committee on State Administration during his tenure in the legislature. He also served on the Banks and Banking Committee, among other committees. Mr. Tolman also has extensive experience in serving on and working with local boards and commissions.

In 1998, Mr. Tolman was the Democratic nominee for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor in the closest governor’s race in the country. Mr. Tolman left Holland & Knight in 2001 to run for the Democratic Nomination for Governor. He made Massachusetts history by running as the first “clean elections” candidate under public financing in Massachusetts, and returned to Holland & Knight in 2002.

Mr. Tolman speaks regularly on a wide variety of state and governmental issues and has published numerous articles and commentary. Mr. Tolman was chief sponsor and author of the landmark Tolman Tobacco Disclosure law requiring tobacco companies to disclose their additives and ingredients and the Mutual Fund Jobs Growth bill which enabled the mutual fund industry to grow and expand in Massachusetts.

Mr. Tolman has taught at Boston College Law School and Northeastern University School of Law. In the community, Mr. Tolman is active in a number of different civic and charitable organizations.