After thirty-five years in finance, mostly at General Motors and GMAC, and culminating as executive vice president of GMAC’s North American Operations, Barbara Kiefer retired and pursed a M.A. in Historic Preservation at Savannah College of Art and Design. She graduated in 2013 and lives in West Hartford with her husband, Paul

Mark Kohler was appointed as the 74th Secretary of the State of Connecticut by Governor Ned Lamont and was sworn in on July 1, 2022. He served in this capacity until the current Secretary of the State of Connecticut was sworn into office in January 2023. After his term as Secretary of State, Secretary Kohler retired. He previously served for three decades in the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, finishing as an Associate Attorney General and Chief of the Division of Government Administration.From 2011-21, Secretary Kohler worked in several departments, including as head of the Special Litigation Department, which is responsible for representing all state constitutional officers, the legislature, and the judiciary, with responsibilities over election matters, charities, gaming, and federal Indian tribal issues. He supervised all department litigation and agency counseling and provided formal and informal opinions to state officials and agencies.Secretary Kohler served as the head of the office’s public utilities unit from 2009-11 and the finance department from 2003 to 2009. He served in its special litigation department from 1999-2003 and within its finance and public utilities department from 1992 to 1999. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Secretary Kohler was an associate attorney at Shipman & Goodwin (1990-92) and served as a law clerk to Hon. Thomas J. Meskill of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1989-90) and to Hon. T.F. Gilroy Daly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut (1987-89).Secretary Kohler earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul Minnesota, in 1982, a Master of Arts degree in political science from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in 1984, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1987. Secretary Kohler lives in North Haven. He has three daughters, who reside in California.

Jay Malcynsky is the co-founder and managing partner of Gaffney, Bennett and Associates, Inc. Jay is also a practicing attorney licensed in Connecticut and Washington, D.C., and is the founder and managing partner of The Law Offices of Jay F. Malcynsky, P.C. In these capacities, Jay has distinguished himself as one of the most knowledgeable, highly respected, and capable professionals in the fields of government relations and political consulting, as well as administrative law. At the state Capitol, clients and legislators frequently call upon Jay’s skills in negotiating agreements, forging alliances, and coordinating crisis management. Under his leadership, Gaffney, Bennett and Associates has mounted a record of success unsurpassed in Connecticut.Mr. Malcynsky has been an active and longtime political strategist. Prior to establishing the firm, Jay managed U.S. Congressman Stewart B. McKinney’s political campaigns in 1980 and 1982. He also managed the re-election bids of U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Johnson and U.S. Senator Lowell P. Weicker, in 1984 and 1988, respectively. In 2000, Mr. Malcynsky served as campaign manager for Bush for President in Connecticut and was among the lead attorneys representing the Bush campaign during the Florida recount effort.He serves as President and a member of the Nutmeg State Games, as well as being a member of the board of directors of Connecticut Legal Services, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.After graduating from law school, Mr. Malcynsky served as a trial attorney in the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. He also served as an attorney for the U.S. House of Representatives.Jay and Jonie Malcynsky live in Chester, CT.

David McCary graduated from Middlebury College with a BA in Economics and Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School with an MBA in Finance. Over the last 40 years he has gone on to be an institutional investment advisor for clients including Aetna Realty Investors, JP Morgan, Citi Group Alternative Assets, Greenwich Capital and Allied Capital. He is also an entrepreneur starting four businesses in finance including his current company McCary Anheuser Wealth Management, LLC serving ultra-high net worth families nationwide. He also currently sits on four other Boards of Directors and their Investment Committees helping them oversee $100+ million in investments: The University of Hartford Art School Endowment, The Connecticut Episcopal Bishops Fund, The Colt Family Bequest, and St. John’s Episcopal Church.Mr. McCary is married with three adult children and two grandsons. He is also a part-time professional ski instructor and fine art nature photographer.

Justice Andrew J. McDonald (b. March 11, 1966) is a native of Stamford, CT. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Cornell University. In 1991, he completed a Juris Doctor degree at the University of Connecticut Law School where he served as the Managing Editor of the Connecticut Journal of International Law. He also holds honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Quinnipiac University School of Law and the Western New England University School of Law.In 2013, Justice McDonald was nominated to be an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, and he was confirmed by the Connecticut General Assembly later that month. In 2021, he was re-nominated Justice McDonald to the Supreme Court, and later that month he was again confirmed by the General Assembly. Justice McDonald is the senior associate justice of the Supreme Court.Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice McDonald served as the General Counsel to the Office of the Governor for the State of Connecticut from 2011 to 2013. In this role, he served as chief legal advisor to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and senior staff of the Executive Branch of government.From 1991 to 2011, Justice McDonald worked in private practice commercial litigation with the firm of Pullman & Comley, LLC. From 1999 to 2002, Justice McDonald additionally served as the Director of Legal Affairs and Corporation Counsel for the City of Stamford.Justice McDonald was a State Senator from 2003 to 2011. He served as the Senate Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for all eight years he was in the General Assembly. During periods of his legislative career he also served as the Senate Vice Chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee and as a member of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, the Transportation Committee, the Education Committee and the Regulations Review Committee. From 2005 to 2011, he served as Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate.Earlier in his career, Justice McDonald served on the Stamford Board of Finance from 1995 to 1999, including serving as the board's Chairman from 1997 to 1999, and as Co-Chair of the Audit Committee from 1995 to 1997. He began his public service career in 1993 as a member of the Stamford Board of Representatives, where he served until 1995.Justice McDonald and his husband, Charles, live in Hartford.

Bichop Nawrot is currently a Partner at Farmington-based Connecticut Wealth Management LLC, an investment advisory company offering comprehensive financial planning and ongoing wealth management services to individuals. He was previously co-founder of Capital Strategies (1987) in Bloomfield. He is an original member of the Registry of Financial Planning Practitioners and is a Chartered Life Underwriter, Chartered Financial Consultant, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Professional, Certified Insurance Consultant, and a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. Mr. Nawrot is currently Chairman on the Board of Trustees for Old Sturbridge Village and on the Board of Directors of LobsterGraft LLC.

JoAnn Price came to Farmington, CT in 1994 for the express purpose of founding what has become Fairview Capital Partners. Encouraged by members of the National Association of Investment Companies, Ms. Price became the catalyst for significant change in the way institutional investors approached diversity through investment. Today, the entire industry’s lexicon and initiatives around emerging managers and diversity in private equity investment can be traced to Fairview’s pioneering efforts.Ms. Price served as a director of the Vantagepoint Funds, as a member of the CT Board of Regents for Higher Education, as board chair of the Amistad Center for Art and Culture, and most recently as the Board Chair of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Currently, she is a member of 4-CT Board of Directors, the Howard University School of Business Board of Visitors, board member of the Apollo Theater Foundation in New York City, board member of Trinity Health of New England, board member of the Blue Hills Civic Association, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Wilson Gray YMCA. She is also an active member of the Union Baptist church in Hartford.Ms. Price has been the recipient of numerous awards in the community, most recently as the recipient of the 2019 Hartford Business Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018 she was presented with the Women’s Venture Fund’s Highest Leaf Award, and in 2017 was the honoree of New York’s nonprofit LIFT. In 2015, Ms. Price was the recipient of the Greater Hartford Torch of Liberty award presented by the Anti-Defamation League, and in 2014 was awarded the title of the Village for Families & Children’s Woman of the Year.Ms. Price leads by example and is not shy about encouraging her colleagues at Fairview to get involved in the community. At this point, Fairview professionals, largely through her direct encouragement, are involved in Hartford community organizations including the Mark Twain House, the Greater Hartford YMCA, the Bushnell, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the CT Children’s Hospital, the Urban League of Greater Hartford, Camp Courant, the UConn Research and Development Foundation, Hartford Habitat for Humanity, and the CT Science Center.Additionally, Ms. Price continues to be generous with her time, her resources, and her prodigious talents in the office and out, helping individuals who come to her for skills counseling, career strategies, educational aid, personal crisis management, and general advice. Through all of this, she enjoys the quiet but strong support of her husband of many years, James Price, now a retired Tax attorney.Ms. Price is a graduate of Howard University.

Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut and recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship in 2022. She received her Ph.D from Columbia University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft prize. She taught at the University of Massachusetts for over twenty years where she was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed on faculty. She is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina which was named one of the ten best books on slavery in Politico and featured in The New York Times 1619 Project. Her recent book The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition, which won the Frederick Douglass, Avery Craven, James Rawley, and SHEAR Best Book prizes, was also long listed for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction. It was widely reviewed in the mainstream press and was named editor’s choice in The New York Times Book Review and the book of the week by Times Higher Education to coincide with its UK publication. She is the author and editor of several other books and articles. In 2018, she was a visiting Professor at the University of Paris, Diderot and in 2021, she received the James W.C. Pennington award, from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She is on the Historians Advisory Committee of the American Civil War Museum and the Council of Advisors of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg, New York Public Library. She is a co-editor of the “Race and the Atlantic World, 1700-1900,” series of the University of Georgia Press and is on the editorial board of Slavery and Abolition. A historian of the long nineteenth century, her research interests lie in the transnational histories of slavery, abolition, and feminism and the history and legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Her latest book, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 is forthcoming from Liveright. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Karsten R. Stueber, a philosophy professor at the College of the Holy Cross, their two sons, Sheel and Shiv Stueber, and dog, Wylie.

Fiona Vernal is Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, with extensive teaching and research interests in pre-colonial and colonial Africa, the history of South Africa and the African Diaspora. She holds a B.A. from Princeton, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale. Dr. Vernal has consulted with CHS on two oral history projects (September 11, Connecticut Responds and Reflects; and Finding a Place, Maintaining Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians) and is currently engaged in a photo-documentation project on Caribbean migration to Greater Hartford. She and her three children live in Manchester.

Mr. Zachs is an entrepreneur in the classic sense, and he truly made his mark in the wireless industry. In 1960, he was one of the first applicants for mobile telephone spectrum from the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) in Hartford, CT. He was Chairman and Founder of Message Center Beepers, which was sold to Vodaphone/Air Touch. Mr. Zachs has been in several areas of communications, including paging, cellular, wireless, and the internet (Ziplink Inc.). Mr. Zachs is the founder of Endow Hartford 21 endowment matching program, which has helped over 60 local non-profits in the Greater Hartford area build endowments for the long-term health of their organizations. His philanthropy doesn’t stop there: he has been involved as a Trustee, Advisor and/or Board Member with numerous organizations, including Williston-Northampton School, Trinity College, Watkinson Library, Trinity Hillel, UConn Hillel, CT College Hillel, University of Hartford Hillel, Greenberg Center, United Way, Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish Federation, Wadsworth Atheneum, the Bushnell, Oak Hill, Schechter School, and many others. Mr. Zachs has a B.A. from Trinity, and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.