Loomis Communities
Board of Directors
The Loomis Communities is a nonprofit organization that draws its volunteer Directors from communities within the Pioneer Valley, including Amherst, Holyoke, South Hadley and the Springfield area. Our directors bring to Loomis a wide range of professional, financial and human services skills. They are committed to furthering our mission of providing high-quality services and health care to older adults.
Deborah Buckley, Chair
Deborah serves on the Board of the Center Redevelopment Corporation (The Village Commons) and the Holyoke Taxpayers Association. She is a member of the Holyoke Rotary Club and a past Board member of Holyoke Medical Center/Valley Health System, Holyoke Visiting Nurse Association, Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Pioneer Valley, Pioneer Valley Red Cross, and the Granby School Committee. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Education from Mt. Holyoke College. Deb resides in Easthampton, MA.
Deborah Snow, Vice Chair
Owner, Blue Heron Restaurant and Catering; Teacher of Culinary Arts, Windham Regional Career Center; Member, Women’s Presidents Organization; Development Committee, Food Bank of Western Mass.; Advisory Board, Culinary Program, Franklin County Technical School and Holyoke Community College; Featured in BON APPETIT Magazine, of the top 108 Restaurants in the country and Best Dish ever tasted; Best Chef of Western Mass, Mass Restaurant Association; Former Official Photographer, United Nations Assembly on Aging; Ohio State University/Cambridge College, (BFA/Masters in Management).
Sanford Belden
Sanford Belden retired in 2006 as the CEO of Community Bank System, a large scale regional financial institution headquartered in Syracuse, New York, with 225 bank branches and a variety of other financial service businesses in four states. He previously served as a senior executive in New York City at a very large international bank, a major national bank headquartered in Minneapolis and with the Farm Credit Banks, one of the Government Sponsored Entities. He holds Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees from Purdue University in economics, held a faculty position at Cornell and earned a mid-career certification from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Belden has also served on over 30 governance boards for both for profit and not for profit entities around the country including the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross in Washington D.C. Regional not for profits include service as a board member of Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Smith College, Kestrel Land Trust, Center for Eco-Technology and Road Scholar and Chair of The Community Foundation of Western Mass, Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity. Sanford and his wife Betsy are residents of Loomis Village.
Paul Breen
Paul, now retired, was for many years the Executive Director of Facilities Management & Planning at Mount Holyoke College. Prior to that, he worked in Project Management and was a Field Engineer with Holyoke based Construction Manager Daniel O’Connell’s Sons. Work experience also included time with the Design & Construction team of the Connecticut Water Company based in Clinton, CT. Paul served our country for 28 years as a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard concluding his service having attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He commanded the 104th Civil Engineering Squadron, a unit which was a component of the 104th Fighter Wing based in Westfield, MA. Mr. Breen is a graduate of Merrimack College (B.S. Civil Engineering) and Western New England College (MBA). Paul and his wife Liz reside in Amherst where they enjoy planning and anticipating their RV adventures, almost as much as the trips themselves.
Seunghee Cha
Partner, Buckley, Richardson and Gelinas, LLP; Former Private Practice Attorney; Board Member: Center for Human Development and the Estate Planning Council of Hampden County, Former Board Member: The United Arc, Inc. and NAMI Western Mass; Graduate of Western New England University School of Law (LL.M.); Fordham University School of Law (J.D.); University of California, San Diego (B.A. in Women’s Studies in Literature).
Stephen Corrigan
President and Founder of Mountain View Landscapes and Lawncare, Chicopee, MA; Board Member, Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, Holyoke YMCA; Finance Committee Chairperson, MNLA (Massachusetts Nursery and Landscape Assn.); Past President, MNLA, Volleyball Hall of Fame, Holyoke Rotary Club, Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce; Certified Horticulturist (MNLA); Certified Landscape Professional; Recipient of the Louis Oldershaw Community Service Award, Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce – Business Person of the Year, Fifield Community Service Award. Attended STCC, HCC and Western New England University.
Patricia Crutchfield
Served as human resources director for a number of organizations, including the University of Massachusetts. She has also developed and facilitated educational and training programs for organizational and individual development. Patricia was a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education and several local boards; she now serves on the Board of the Kestrel Land Trust, and is a member of the Distribution Committee of the Western Massachusetts Community Foundation. She is a happily retired soul, and creates photography exhibits that support non-profit organizations and social justice activism.
Jeffrey P. Hayden
Jeff is the Vice President of Business and Community Services, Holyoke Community College; formerly the Director of Planning and Development, City of Holyoke; Board Member, Career Point; Board Member, Valley Health Systems; Board Member, Springfield Works; Graduate of Assumption College (B.A. History).
Erik Kjeldsen
Erik Kjeldsen is a retired Professor of Sport Management at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree from Springfield College, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts. Erik is a resident of Loomis Lakeside at Reeds Landing in Springfield, MA.
Paul Lambert
President and CEO of the Springfield Symphony. Former, Vice President Enshrinement Services & Community, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; Former Director, Event Production, National Basketball Association; Former President, New England Public Radio Foundation, Inc. Board Member, Cape Cod Center for the Arts; Board Member, South Hadley Chorale; Springfield Rotary Member; Graduate of Boston College. (A.B. English / Theater Arts).
Sara Lawrence
Sara Lawrence is the Former Executive Director of the South Hadley Granby Chamber of Commerce. She is the former Development & Planned Giving Officer at NEPR. She has over 35 years experience working as a Philanthropy professional. She is a graduate of University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (BA History).
Tom Pratt
Tom is Principle Emeritus of Burkhart, Pizzanelli, P.C. Tom has over 40 years in public accounting. Tom received his B.A. in Accounting from American International College and his Juris Doctor from Western New England University. Tom is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Massachusetts Society of CPAs, the American bar Association, and the Massachusetts Bar Association and Estate Planning Council of Hampden County.
Ruth Purtillo, Ph.D.
Ruth Purtilo moved to APPLEWOOD with her husband Vard Johnson in the fall of 2022. A native of Minnesota, she began her career as a physical therapy clinician (University of Minnesota, BS ’64), holding positions in rural North Dakota, Chicago, and Boston with short stints in Swaziland (now Swahele), Africa and Cartagena, Colombia. Her experience in these diverse clinical, societal and cultural settings awakened a desire to help prepare health professions students for the larger human and cultural challenges they would face. Seeing the emergence of medical ethics as one path to such a goal she applied for and was accepted into Harvard Divinity School to complete a Master’s Degree in Theological Ethics (‘MTS ’75) and transferred to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to complete her studies (PhD ’79), the combination preparing her with solid grounding in religious and philosophical ethics along with key legal and social sciences studies. Ruth’s career as a medical ethics educator, consultant, author and member of several national and international ethics policy initiatives has spanned 40+ years. Two major positions included serving as the Henry Knox Sherrill Professor of ethics at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Institute of Health Professions where she created a core ethics curriculum, while also working as Ethicist- in- Residence at MGH providing ethics consults and collaborating with medical personnel and hospital administration to develop and implement ethics policy; and at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska she served as Director of the Center for Health Policy and Ethics. She also has benefited from visiting positions at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Yale University, and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Ruth has served as a trustee on several boards including Toms of Maine Kennebunkport, Husson University Bangor, Maine, Old South Church, Boston, and Anatolia College, Salonika Greece. She also served on the National AIDs Foundation board in the 1970’s.
Max Winters
Max has spent a decade focused exclusively on how the built environment can improve the experience of aging for older adults around the world. He has spoken to audiences on regional and national stages about placemaking for older adults beyond traditional senior living settings, cutting edge environments for people living with dementia and the transformative role of technology in the aging journey. His perspectives and design work have been featured in a variety of industry publications, as well as the New York Times. Max currently is an Advisory Committee member for Dementia Friendly Pennsylvania. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, daughter, cat, and dog; and splits his remaining time between his church community, live theater, and playing complicated board games.
Heather Zoeller
Heather Zoeller is the Director of Advisory Services at OnePoint Partners in West Hartford, Connecticut. Heather leads her team in strategic planning and development as well as advisory services to not-for-profit senior living providers. She works closely with senior living clients’ management teams and Boards of Directors to develop and test strategic plans and to make those plans a reality. Heather received a Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Community and Clinical Services from University of New Haven and she graduated with “Distinction in Management” honors Bachelor of Science in Management from University of North Carolina at Asheville.