Our board of directors
Michael Whitman
Michael Whitman (Chairman) has lived in Lyme since 1975 and worked for Hypertherm since 1991. Before joining the Second Growth board in 2006, he served three years as chairman of the Lyme School Board in the 1980s, and twelve as a founding board member and secretary of the Lyme Foundation. The father of three boys, Michael is also active in local, state and national suicide awareness and prevention work.
Steve Klein
Steve Klein (Vice Chairman) has served on Second Growth’s board for five years. He has been a foster parent for over 20 years and a court-appointed special advocate and guardian ad litem since 2002. He has a long-standing interest in helping young adults and lives in Springfield, NH, where he is the town librarian.
Gene Kadish
Gene Kadish (Treasurer) has lived in the Upper Valley since 1978 and in Thetford since 1982. He was a school counselor in the Hartford School District and recently retired as guidance director at Hanover High School. Gene is on Thetford Academy’s board of trustees, a past president of the Vermont School Counselors Association, a long-time outdoor educator, and a facilitator for the National School Reform Faculty. The father of two daughters, Gene has been on Second Growth’s board since 2002 and is currently self-employed as an educational consultant.
Amos Kornfeld
Amos Kornfeld (Secretary) has been an educator in the Upper Valley since 1985 and is currently principal of the Ottauquechee School in Quechee, VT as well as the father of two teenagers. He has taught many subjects and ages, and has also directed summer camps in the region. Amos recently served on the board of the Upper Valley Business and Education Partnership, has been a foster parent and youth sports coach, and enjoys international travel.
We are confident that [Second Growth’s] early-intervention programs are making a difference in the lives of these young people.
—Hanover Diversion Committee
Margot Lalonde
Margot Lalonde (Tuck Board Fellow) graduated from Dartmouth in 2002, majoring in religion and psychology. She spent much of her extracurricular time counseling on eating disorders, as well as alcohol, drug, and sexual abuse programs as a peer advisor and program intern. Before coming to Tuck, she lived in Boston and spent five years in strategy consulting at Monitor Group, was an active project leader with Boston Cares, and enjoyed exploring great restaurants. Now a second-year student at the Tuck School, she and her husband have a house in Boston’s North End.
Ann Naughton
Ann Naughton (Tuck Board Fellow) is also a second-year student at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, spending summer 2008 interning with Bristol-Myers Squibb in Global Marketing. Prior to Tuck, Ann worked as the Assistant Director of College Counseling at North Yarmouth Academy in Maine. She also spent a year working in Research Development at the United Way of Greater Portland.
Lisa Solbert-Sheldon
Lisa Solbert-Sheldon has lived in Norwich since 1975. She has been a Special Ed teacher in several elementary schools in the area, and while a stay-at-home parent when her three children were young, she worked with other families to start and serve on the board of a new Waldorf School in Quechee. Lisa has also been a childbirth educator and doula (a labor support person) for the past 25 years. Interested in the arts, she has served on the board of Revels North and is a landscape painter who has shown her work in local venues. Lisa occasionally works for Dartmouth’s Office of Outdoor Programs conducting team-building exercises on their ropes course. Lisa joined the Second Growth board in 2008.
Michael Woodard
Michael Woodard, a Lyme resident since 1973, has taught 4th Grade in West Lebanon, served as a New Hampshire legislator, chaired the Lyme School Board, and cofounded and chaired the Lyme Foundation. Currently serving on the Lyme Town Offices Committee, he runs Woodard Associates, a property management and commercial real estate brokerage. His two daughters and son graduated from the Lyme and Hanover schools.