Board Nominees

Greg Adams has held senior financial positions (CFO, COO, and Director) for over 25 years in both the public and private sectors. Currently, he’s SVP and CFO for the American Management Association (AMA), an international, nonprofit, membership-based educational organization. As a leader, Greg’s mission is to help employees and business leaders achieve corporate excellence. His skills encompass strong relationship building with stakeholders, early-stage ventures, high-growth environments, financing, M&A, and restructuring operations. A few of Greg’s prior positions as COO or CFO include EDGAR online, Keemotion Group, Green Earth Technologies and other NASDAQ listed technology solutions companies. Greg graduated from the College of William and Mary with a BBA in accounting. He resides in Ossining.

Phyllis Bock recently retired as Director of Education at Teatown. She began her career at Teatown as a part-time naturalist in 1991 and continues to volunteer for Teatown, leading a weekly women’s hiking group. A resident of Yorktown, Phyllis serves as the co-chair of the Yorktown Conservation Board and is on the Yorktown Advisory Committee on Open Space. She and her husband, Aaron, are lifelong hikers and kayakers, having met at the Queens College Outdoor Club while they were students there. She holds a BA in biology from Queens College, CUNY. Her son and daughter-in-law live in Croton Falls where they are raising two granddaughters who are Teatown campers.

Ella currently works in corporate communications at the biotechnology company Regeneron in Tarrytown, New York. With more than 15 years of experience in science communications, she honed her skills with years working in agencies helping various pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health organizations tell their stories. Prior to entering the science communications field, she spent time volunteering and working for various non-profits, including Mercy Corps. Ella is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and is originally from Portland, Oregon.

Beyond her work, Ella has been a lifelong lover of the outdoors, going back to her childhood growing up in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, one of the things that first drew Ella to Westchester County was her love of the trails through the woods that reminded her of home. Now a resident of Tarrytown, she’s eager to put her skills and commitment to the outdoors to use in order to help others experience and learn from nature and to give back to the community.

Cynthia Coudert has served previously on the Teatown board and will continue the Rosenwald and Coudert family commitment to this organization that has been a leader in environmental education and the protection and conservation of land. Growing up walking Teatown’s trails instilled a love of nature and birds, particularly owls, from an early age. Cynthia is a math and science teacher and associate director of the theatre department at the Nightingale Bamford School in New York City, where she has taught for the past 31 years. She resides in the city with her husband Brian Morris and her three children, Hailey, Bennett, and Caroline, who began walking the trails from an early age with their grandparents. Cynthia also serves on the Board of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx and the Barnard School Foundation in New York City.

Ziporah obtained her undergraduate degree from New York University in 1979 and her JD from St. John’s University School of Law in 1982. From 1982 to 1990 she was a Corporate Litigation Associate at the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. From 1991 to 2007, Ziporah was in-house counsel at MMC, a global financial services company. There she served as Chief Legal Ethics Officer and Associate General Counsel of Mercer, an MMC company. At MMC she managed a multi-billion-dollar professional liability litigation docket, oversaw corporate initiatives, and directed the activities of teams of attorneys in New York and abroad.

From 2007 to 2019, Ziporah worked at Camp Shane, a weight loss camp business her husband operated for 50 years until his retirement in 2021. There she oversaw the creation and operation of an adult weight loss and wellness program. She also helped the business expand its reach by establishing children’s summer camp weight loss programs around the country. She obtained her certification as a healthy chef from the Natural Gourmet Institute in 2015 and is the author of Meal Simple: The Shane Camps & Resorts Cookbook.

In the nonprofit sector, Ziporah is on the board of the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center, where she also serves as a second-generation Holocaust survivor speaker. In the past, Ziporah served on a working group advising U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on childhood obesity. She served as co-chair of the Directorships & Corporate Governance Committee of the Financial Women’s Association of New York and sat on the board of the InterOrganization Network, a national organization dedicated to the advancement of women to boards of directors and executive suites of public companies. She also served as a member of the board of Temple Israel of Northern Westchester.

Alice Kraus was born and raised in the Chicago metropolitan area, attended the University of Wisconsin, and received her bachelor’s degree from Temple University, where she was a President’s Scholar and majored in psychology. She received a master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois and, years later (as described below), a master’s degree in museum education from the Bank Street College of Education.

Alice volunteered as a docent at “Science Port,” a children’s science museum sponsored by the Westchester Junior League; at the Bush Holley House, a historic site owned by the Greenwich Historical Society; and at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. These experiences led her to pursue a degree in museum education at Bank Street, where her thesis included a presentation of a conceptual framework and plan for the development of a docent education program.

Alice continues to work at the Bruce Museum, where, based on her experience with her aging mother who had dementia for the last ten years of her life, she developed an outreach program that uses visual images to engage, stimulate, and validate people with early- to mid-stage dementia. She has been leading this program at adult day care centers and residential assisted living and memory care units in Westchester and Fairfield counties for more than 15 years.

Alice and her husband, Doug, have lived in Chappaqua for more than 45 years, where they raised their two children, and have been actively engaged in a variety of school and community activities. They have four grandchildren, ages 2 to 8, who are very curious about everything and provide constant and fascinating opportunities for Alice to utilize her childhood education skills.

Rachel Seebacher is an Associate Regional Attorney for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation Region 2 office. She is responsible for environmental enforcement across all areas of state environmental law. Rachel holds a JD from Brooklyn Law School and a Master’s of Law in Environmental Law and Climate Change from Pace Law School. Rachel has a BA from Wesleyan University in the College of Social Studies, a political science interdisciplinary program. Rachel grew up on Spring Valley Road (where her parents still live), helped with animal care and volunteered in the Raptor program at Teatown in 2001-2002; and worked as a camp counselor at Teatown Lake Summer Science Day Camp in the summer of 2003. Rachel’s life-long love of nature is firmly rooted in her naturalist beginning in Teatown’s Knee-High Nature, where she appeared in a live adaptation of Jean Craighead George’s “One Day in the Woods.” Rachel is also keenly interested in mycology, a passion learned from a former Teatown naturalist, and moderates an Internet forum on that topic.

Richard serves as a Principal and Senior Client Advisor at Bessemer Trust Company. He works with his clients to help them achieve both their personal and financial goals. He is the primary point of contact for the delivery of the firm’s services, which include investment management, wealth planning, and family office services. He’s worked at the firm for more than 17 years as both a Senior Client Advisor and a Senior Equity Analyst.  He has worked for more than 25 years in the financial services industry, at J.P. Morgan Chase, Mark Asset Management, and Scudder Kemper Investments.

Richard received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Boston University and his M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School. He is also a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor (CTFA), and has his Series 7 and 63 licenses.

Dr. Angela White began her career with the NYC Board of Education 41 years ago. Prior coming to the Ossining School District, Dr. White served the students of District 75/Citywide Programs for 15 years in the capacity of Elementary and Middle School Reading Specialist, Coordinator of Title I Reading Program, Director of Funded Programs, Assistant to the Superintendent, and Elementary Principal.

Dr. White began her administrative career in the Ossining Union Free School District in 1996. During her time in Ossining, she spent two years as Principal of the Roosevelt Alternative School and nine years as Principal of Brookside School. She was appointed as the Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education and Administrative Services of the Ossining School District in 2006.

In January 2006, the New York State Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS) presented the “Pathways to Leadership Scholarship” to Dr. White in recognition of professional and academic credentials coupled with promise in the field of educational administration including the Superintendence.

On February 1, 2009, Dr. Angela White received the degree of Doctor of Education from Fordham University Graduate School of Education. During her tenure as Assistant Superintendent and as building Principal, Dr. White has been instrumental in many district successes, including but not limited to the implementation of First Steps, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, Response to Intervention, Teacher Expectations Student Achievement (TESA), the reorganization of our elementary schools, and various literacy initiatives. In 2015 Dr. White retired from the Ossining Union Free School District after 34 years in public education. She was appointed to the Teatown Board in 2015 and was selected to chair the Teatown Education Committee in 2017.

After a brief retirement, in July 2016, Dr. White was appointed Superintendent of Schools for the Carol and Frank Biondi Education Center @ Leake and Watts (now known as Rising Ground). The Biondi Education Center is a New York State Education Department-approved special education school that serves students in grades K-12. In addition to its instructional programs, students also receive therapeutic services to address their specific social and emotional needs.

In March 2021, Dr. White was honored during Women’s History Month by the Westchester County Board of Legislators and March 24, 2021, was proclaimed as Dr. Angela White Day in Westchester County.