News Release
February 8, 2018
Press contact: Matt Porter (617) 514-1574
matt.porter@jfklfoundation.org
www.jfklibrary.org
John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Announces New Board Members
BOSTON, MA – Ronald L. Sargent, new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, today announced that the Board of Directors unanimously elected the following new members: Ivy Brown, President of UPS’s Northeast District; Richard Donahue, Jr., lawyer and Senior Vice President of AmWINS Program Underwriters; David Gasson, Vice President and Director of Boston Capital Corporation; Laurie Leshin, President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Kaiyuan Wang, Founder and Chairman of the Governance Institute; Pamela Wickham, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Communications for Raytheon Company; and Damian Wilmot, Senior Vice President, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer for Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
“As we look beyond our unprecedented celebration of John F. Kennedy’s Centennial year, I am very pleased that we were able to recruit such distinguished individuals to guide the Kennedy Library Foundation,” said Sargent, former chairman and CEO of Staples, Inc. “Each of our newly elected Board Members is committed to our goal of ensuring that the legacy of President Kennedy endures and inspires future generations. We are honored that this diverse, thoughtful, and respected group of individuals will be joining our leadership team.”
The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization founded in 1984 to provide financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, a federal institution under the National Archives.
About our New Board Members:
Ivy Brown is the President of UPS’s Northeast District. Her responsibilities include oversight of Operations, Business Development, Employee Health and Safety, Service Excellence, Engineering, and Security. She also provides the strategic direction for roughly 19,000 employees who service communities populated by more than 20 million people. Brown started her UPS career in 1988 as a driver in Cordelia, CA. She serves on the board for the United Way of Greater Boston, Chamber of Commerce of Boston, and the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. Brown holds a Bachelor of Science from Southern Illinois University and an MBA from Golden Gate University in California.
Richard Donahue, Jr. is the Senior Vice President and Director for Claims and Loss Control at AmWINS Program Underwriters. Donahue has past served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Saints Memorial Medical Center and President of the Northern Essex Community College Foundation. Donahue has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School.
David Gasson is the Vice President and Director of Corporate Communications at Boston Capital Corporation. Gasson also serves as the Executive Director of the Housing Advisory Group, an organization comprised of industry professionals from around the country founded to advocate on behalf of housing issues. He served on the staffs of Congressman Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine. Gasson is a graduate of the University of Florida.
Laurie Leshin is the President of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Leshin has past served as the Dean of the School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also served as the Deputy Director of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate where she was responsible for oversight of NASA’s future human spaceflight programs and activities. Leshin has been awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the Meteoritical Society’s Nier Prize. She has a Bachelor in Science from Arizona State University and a Ph. D. in geochemistry from the California Institute of Technology.
Kaiyuan Wang is the Founder and Chairman of the Governance Institute in Cambridge, MA. He is also a Center Associate of the Fairbank Center at Harvard University. Wang has a Bachelor of Science in Power Systems and Automation at Southeast University in China and an MBA from Peking University Guanghua School of Management.
Pamela Wickham is the Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Communications for the Raytheon Company. She is a member of Raytheon’s Executive Diversity Leadership Team, the Raytheon Women’s Network, and serves as Corporate Champion of the Raytheon Political Action Committee. She is the current chairwoman of the Communications Council of the Aerospace Industries Association. Wickham has past served as Vice President of Corporate Communications for General Electric and Hewlett Packard. She was named one of ExecRank’s 50 top CMOs and Marketing Executives and, in 2015, was awarded the John J. Molloy Crystal Bell Lifetime Achievement Award by the Publicity Club of New England.
Damian W. Wilmot is the Senior Vice President, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. He is responsible for leading the company’s Global Compliance, Global Litigation & Enterprise Risk Management, and Quality Assurance organizations. Wilmot has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission (by gubernatorial appointment) and board of directors for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. In 2010, the Boston Business Journal recognized him as one of Boston’s outstanding business leaders under the age of 40. He has also been honored as one of Boston’s most influential people of color in healthcare and life sciences. Wilmot is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts.
About the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The private financial support provided by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation enables the federal government to expand the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s research and archival capacity, to undertake marketing and public information projects, to offer intern and research fellowship programs, to enhance its museum and exhibits, and to offer nationally recognized educational and public programming.
By sponsoring and administering programs such as the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, the New Frontier Award, and the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for High School Students, the Foundation is united with the Library in a common mission to perpetuate President Kennedy's ideal that political and public service be conducted and exemplified as an honorable and patriotic profession.
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