Biographical Profiles of Trustees of Donations and Bequests for Church Purposes, Inc.
Kathleen A. Corbet is the founder of Cross Ridge Capital, LLC, a firm specializing in private investing and strategic consulting in the financial technology industry. During her career in financial services, she served as the President of Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and in senior leadership positions at AllianceBernstein LP in the US, UK and Australia/New Zealand. In corporate and non-profit board governance, Kathleen is a member of the board of directors for MassMutual Life Insurance Company, BlackRock TCP Capital Inc, AxiomSL, The Jackson Laboratory and Waveny LifeCare Network. In her board experience, she has served in the positions as Chairman, Lead Director, Audit Committee Chair, Investment, Compensation and Governance committees. As a parishioner of Saint Mark’s Church in New Canaan, Kathleen has served as Treasurer, member of the Vestry and the Finance Committee and currently serves on the parish’s Endowment Committee. In public service, she has served as an elected member of the Town Council and an appointed member of the Board of Finance in New Canaan. She has also served on the board of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority. Kathleen graduated from Boston College with a B.S. in Marketing and Computer Science and received her M.B.A. in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Patricia Walsh Chadwick is the President of Ravengate Partners LLC, a consulting firm engaged in pro-bono strategic planning as well as expert witness work. She sits on the board of directors of WEC Energy Group, a Wisconsin Utility, Amica Mutual Insurance Company, and two mutual fund families – VOYA and The Royce Funds. Her pro-bono activities include: The Bruce Museum where she is a Trustee and the Treasurer. She also sits on the Board of The Glimmerglass Festival, and is Chair of the Advisory board of Elon University’s Love School of Business. She also mentors middle school girls at Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem.
Prior to forming her own company, Patricia had a thirty-year career in the investment business as a research analyst, a portfolio manager, a strategist and eventually overseeing the institutional investment business for INVESCO, where she was a Global Partner.
In 2016, Patricia co-founded and is the CAO of Anchor Health Initiative, a primary and specialty health care company that serves the needs of the LGBTQ community.
Her memoir, Little Sister, was published in 2019 and she is currently working on her second book, Breaking Glass, about her “growing up” on Wall Street. She writes a regular column for the Greenwich Sentinel.
Patricia has a degree in Economics from Boston University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Diane Hayes grew up in the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. She has been a member of St. John’s, Pine Meadow since 1994 where she has served as Treasurer, Vestry member, Building Committee chairman, Fundraising Committee chairman, Stewardship chairman, choir member, Eucharistic visitor and Altar Guild member.
Outside of church, Diane is Executive Director of The Valley Thrift Shop in Winsted CT; an all-volunteer non-profit that supports charities and families in need in Litchfield County. Under Diane’s leadership, the organization’s governance and leadership roles were restructured to increase decision making transparency and distribute key responsibilities to more of the organization’s membership.
Diane also volunteered as Producer for the Northwestern Region 7 School Theatre Program for twelve years. She partnered with the Directors to make strategic capital purchases that reduced production expenses enabling the program to become self-funding while providing the school with upgraded facilities. Before Diane retired as a Senior Program Director for the Travelers Insurance Company, she spent over 20 years managing large cross divisional IT projects. Her last assignments were in enterprise data management, developing a strategy to jump start data management programs for smaller divisions and implementing a Big Data platform and governance process. Diane earned a BA in Physics from Colby College, Waterville, ME.
Gordon Ross served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for six years, including two as the navigator and operations officer for the Sixth Fleet flag ship during the Lebanon conflict. After the Navy, he received a Masters in Finance from Columbia University and joined JP Morgan’s Private Client division. In 1991, he and his family moved to Milan, Italy and in 1995, Gordon joined Merrill Lynch as the Director of Merrill Lynch’s Swiss Bank branch in Lugano. While in Lugano, Gordon served on the vestry of St. Edward the Confessor and as a trustee of the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce. Gordon started a new career in 2003 as a history teacher at Northwestern Regional High School. Since returning to Connecticut, Gordon has been Senior Warden of St. John’s in Pine Meadow and he has served as the Treasurer of New Hartford for the past ten years, leading numerous bond issues and investing the town’s liquidity. He and his wife, Caren, live on a small farm in New Hartford where Caren leads a Montessori middle school.
Laurence Hale, AAMS, CRPS is principal and founding partner of Weiss, Hale & Zahansky Strategic Wealth Advisors. He is the Chief Executive Officer (CIO), leading portfolio management efforts and chairing the firm’s Investment Committee. In addition to developing goal-driven financial plans for clients, Laurence has extensive investment experience with estate planning and charitable strategies. Laurence is a Five Star Wealth Manager and has a particular focus on helping pre- and post-retirees and estate planning clients.
Laurence brings many years of institutional investment experience, having started his career in the institutional defined contribution business for Putnam Investments. In addition to more than 27 years of investment management for our clients, Laurence has volunteered his professional talents on behalf of many non-profit and public institutions. He formerly served as an appointed member of Connecticut’s Investment Advisory Council (IAC), an advisory body to the Connecticut State Treasurer, overseeing the approximately $29 billion in the State of Connecticut’s retirement plans and trust funds, on behalf of more than 200,000 beneficiaries.
When not advising clients, Laurence is active with several non-profit and charitable organizations. Laurence currently serves as chairman of the YMCA of Greater Hartford’s Investment Committee, as member of the Hale YMCA Youth & Family Center’s Board of Advisors and is also a member of the Rectory School Board of Trustees. He is a former member of the Pomfret School Board of Trustees, Day Kimball Healthcare’s Finance Committee, past President of the Quinebaug Valley Community College (QVCC) Foundation and over the years has supported many other organizations.
David Kalal has spent his career in banking and finance, principally in credit risk management, bankruptcy, and restructuring, at Bankers Trust Company, Credit Research & Trading, and UBS. He currently maintains an advisory practice focused on insolvency matters. A New Canaan resident, David attends St. Mark’s Church. He has served the parish on the Vestry, as Assistant Treasurer and Treasurer, as Chair of the Finance Committee, and as a member of the Investment and Endowment Committee. He also sits on the board of GetAbout of New Canaan, which provides transportation services to seniors and works with the University of Arizona Foundation (Dianne Kalal Scholarship Endowment for Disabled Students).
David earned a BA (English) from Yale College and an MBA (Finance) for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He was elected as Trustee of Donations and Bequests in 2023.
Ed Seibert grew up in Salem, MA, and Darien, CT. He spent two years as 1st. Lt., U. S. Army, stationed outside Paris, France, managing the non-appropriated fund activities for U. S. forces in France, the U. S. European Command, NATO, and SHAPE Headquarters, and the American Embassy. He joined JP Morgan, Inc., in 1965, retiring in 1991 as Sales and Marketing Manager of JP Morgan Futures, Inc., its commodity futures brokerage affiliate. He served as a member of the Disciplinary Hearing Committee and as a Member Arbitrator at the National Futures Association in Chicago. From 1990-2000, Ed was a Trustee of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, serving on the Strategic Planning, Investment, Budget, Mission Strategy and Congregational Support Plan Committees. He was also Treasurer of the Episcopal Housing Corp., a diocesan subsidiary making pre-development loans to churches throughout the diocese that were sponsoring affordable housing initiatives.
Since moving to Guilford in 1999, Ed and his wife have been involved in a number of local church and non-profit activities. At various times, he has been Treasurer, Finance Committee Chair and Senior Warden at Christ Church in Guilford, served a term as Trustee of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford and as a member of ECCT’s Standing Committee. He was Treasurer of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven for 16 years, where his duties included overseeing its endowment and its relationship with its investment manager.
Ed joined the board of Neighborworks New Horizons in New Haven in 2000 as a member of its Real Estate Development and Finance committees and was Board Chair from 2010 to 2016. He rejoined the board in 2017 and is the current Board Chair. NWNH owns and manages nearly 1,000 units of affordable housing in Fairfield, New Haven and New London counties. Ed is also a Board and Finance Committee member of Capital for Change, a community development financing institution in Wallingford.
Ed received a BA degree in Economics from Trinity College, Hartford, and an MBA in Finance from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Brad Babbitt is a partner of Robinson & Cole LLP, and co-chair of the firm’s Litigation Section. A trial attorney, Brad represents businesses in a wide variety of industries, helping them to protect their interests in disputes arising from myriad different commercial relationships. In addition to contract and business tort disputes, he has handled copyright, trademark, and trade secret litigation in both federal and state court. Brad also regularly handles administrative appeals for companies in the energy sector. Additionally, Brad represents religious organizations in different types of disputes, including claims of physical abuse, competing claims to property claims, governance issues. As Chancellor of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Brad serves as legal counsel to the Bishop of Connecticut. Brad also serves on the Board of Directors of the two charities that operate the Travelers Championship on the PGA TOUR, and the Seabury Retirement Community in Bloomfield.