Directors

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Brendan Walsh - President

William Yuhas - Vice President

Don Gay - Secretary/Treasurer

David Abrahamson

Brendan Walsh – President

Brendan Walsh has been active in the community for decades. Professionally, he began as a classroom teacher in the Salem MA school system, teaching history and serving as a career education specialist for 17 years. For the next 20 years, Mr. Walsh served as the Salem school system’s director of the U.S. government’s Title 1 program. During this period he served two terms as President of the Massachusetts Council of Administrators of Compensatory Education and as a national delegate to the National Association of Federal Program Administrators.

While Title 1 director, Mr. Walsh inaugurated publicly funded Early Childhood Education in Salem, first by establishing a pre-school for 4 year olds. He subsequently began the Parent-Child Home Program, which teaches parents of two and three year olds how to increase their child’s readiness for school via verbal communication. Now retired from the school system, Mr. Walsh has continued to educate parents on the importance of reading aloud to children through his company, “The Wonders of Reading Aloud.” In 2005, he was elected to the Salem School Committee.

Among his other community activities, Mr. Walsh has served on the boards of a number of not-for-profit organizations. Currently a member of the Massachusetts Advisory Committee for the Parent-Child Home Program, he has for more than a decade been a trustee of the Plummer Home for Boys in Salem, serving as chair three times. For six years he was a member of the Board of Directors of My Brother’s Table, a soup kitchen in Lynn MA, serving as the group’s second president. An active member of the Voice of The Faithful, he is also a member of the Board of directors of Axis Mundi, a not-for-profit organization active in Washington DC and Brazil.

Mr. Walsh earned his bachelor’s degree at Merrimack College, his masters at Salem State College and his doctorate in Educational Administration at Boston College. He lives in Salem with Katherine, his wife of many years who is a Nurse Practitioner.

william yuhas– Vice-President

Bill Yuhas has been an architect serving residential, corporate, and governmental clients for more than 40 years. His practice has been based on the North Shore of Boston, MA, since 1984 where he has become active in community affairs ranging from the preservation of historic housing to assisting with programs to feed the hungry.

Don Gay – Secretary/Treasurer

Donald Gay is Vienna Virginia Branch manager for Fairway Mortgages, a nationwide firm offering residential financial services. He has been active in placing such loans for more than a decade.

Mr. Gay has been a supporter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) for over 7 years and is an advisor and major supporter of The Julie Duggan Memorial Fund, a Massachusetts 501c3 organization. The Julie Duggan Memorial fund was established in 2002 and seeks to raise donations to help find a cure for CF, and to support the education of children with CF. Mr. Gay is a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston and currently resides in Arlington, VA.

Don Gay is also a board member and officer of Children and Youth Services, a local CFC federation.

David Abrahamson

Mr. Abrahamson is a lawyer and accountant in private practice in the Washington, D.C. area. He has been active in the housing industry for decades, serving as Vice President of Acquisitions and Dispositions for the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships in the 1980’s, as a principal in an investment and management firm that specialized in operating government subsidized housing in the 1990’s, and as Vice President for Finance in a nationwide mortgage lending firm in the 2000’s.

Mr. Abrahamson received his bachelor’s degree from Marquette University and his law degree from George Washington University. He is married and has three adult children, ages 26, 24 and 22. He enjoys golf and softball in his leisure time.