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WELCOME TO THE RICHMOND FIRST CLUB!
Join us at September's Membership Lunch Meeting where we will feature a panel discussion on the impact by the arts in Richmond by three representatives of leading community organizations. They are:
Erin Freeman
Associate Conductor, Richmond Symphony
Keith Martin
Managing Director, Richmond Ballet
Carol Piersol
Founding Artistic Director, Firehouse Theatre Project.
Richmond First Club Lunch Meeting
The Colony Club
10 E. Franklin Street, Richmond, VA
September 8, 2010, 12:00 Noon
$16 for members / $18 for nonmembers
Reservations, call (804-264-8613) or email membership@richmondfirstclub.org
Meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month unless otherwise noted.
The public is welcome to attend meetings.
Richmond First Club's Spring Fling, June 6 at Westover Plantation - home of RFC President Fred Fisher
Click here for more pictures from Spring Fling
Meet Our New Officers
Nancy St.Clair Finch, president, returned to the RFC three years ago when she retired as executive director of Virginians for High Speed Rail. She was on the Club board in the early 90s and served as program chairman but she can’t remember for how long. Finch lives in Bon Air and is active in and former president of the Chesterfield Business Council. She is a former reporter and public relations practitioner. She worked at the Virginia General Assembly for 24 years representing George Mason University, the Virginia Community College System, Mary Washington University, Virginians for High Speed Rail and other clients. She is a graduate of Radford University and came to Richmond in 1963 to work for the Richmond Times-Dispatch after working as a reporter for the Radford News Journal, Waynesboro News Virginian and Charlottesville Daily Progress. A graduate of the Virginia Institute for Political Leadership (now the Sorensen Institute) f the University of Virginia, Nancy has been active in politics. She ran for the House of Delegates in 1995. She and her husband, Jerry, have three children and six grandchildren. Nancy is a native of Radford.
Mesha Mendenhall Mott, first vice president, came to Richmond with MeadWestvaco, as manager of college relations and recruitment. Previously, for 10 years, she was with Verizon Communications in marketing and human relations. A graduate of Clark College where she received a B. A. in mass communications, she also has an MBA in marketing from Clark Atlanta University. She attended the South Carolina University School of Law for one year. Over a span of 10 years, Mesha worked for General Motors, DuPont, Time Warner and Sharp Advertising. She is a member of the upcoming Leadership Metro Richmond class. Her activities include the National Black MBA Association, National Association of African Americans in Human Resources, Richmond Area Diversity Roundtable, Junior Achievement and Planned Parenthood.
Mesha has worked with a number of organizations in “positively elevating the lives of those in impoverished, underserved communities.” She has served as an advocate for children via her work as a guardian ad Litem giving children a voice within the legal system.”
She has a daughter, Nya Elise Mott.
Jonathan Macdonald, secretary, is a native of Richmond, and a business attorney. He is a long-time member of the RFC board. Previously he worked in Richmond for Ethyl Corporation, Albright & Wilson Americas, Cherry, Seymour & Hundley. In his practice while with Ethyl, he was involved in the exchange of Browns Island to the City of Richmond and also purchase of the State Penitentiary. He also handled the construction contract for the Albright & Wilson offices in Innsbrook. Jonathan is a Richmond native, University of Virginia graduate and served in Viet Nam. He is a UVA law school graduate (1974). He is the father of three children and a grandfather of two with another on the way. A long-time member of Junior Achievement of Central Virginia, he is also a Leadership Metro Richmond graduate. He enjoys fishing, gardening and his two cats. And he implores the Richmond First Club incoming president to spell his name correctly. Macdonald. . . little “d”. He says she uses a variety of spellings.
Louis K. Matherne Jr., treasurer, is the senior vice president and chief financial officer of Virginia Blood Services. Louis is a graduate in accounting of the McIntire School, University of Virginia. He has a master of science degree in accounting from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the Executive Program in the Darden School, University of Virginia. He is a retired commander in the United States Naval Reserves. A native of Tennessee, Louis has worked for Chesapeake Corporation and Price Waterhouse. Louis is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Virginia Society of Public Accountants and is a long-time member of Richmond First Club. He came to Richmond in 1978. Single, Louis has a step-daughter. He lives at Rocketts Landing.
Pat Fishback, membership director, is a new Richmond First Club member who is enjoying participation in community affairs since her retirement in 2006 from the Science Museum of Virginia where she was director of science education. Born in Lexington, VA, but reared in New York, Pat says her life has always been “affected by the contrasts in the two cultures, both of which I love.” She attended New York public schools and then Madison College (now JMU). She majored in physics in a teaching curriculum. She also has a master’s in science education from UVA and a PH.D from VCU in education leadership. She has taught in public and private schools. She was a program specialist at the Math/Science Center. Her husband, Jim, is a consulting mechanical engineer. They have two children. An unsuccessful candidate for the Richmond School Board in 2000, she was appointed to the board of the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation. She is an advocate for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She believes that the city of Richmond and surrounding counties “can achieve and sustain regional cooperation that will bring greater prosperity and opportunity to us all.”
Sam Seeley, communications director, came up with a new title for the dated “Bulletin Editor” office described in the also dated articles and by-laws of RFC. Websites, electronic communication and public information are all right down Sam’s alley. She has worked in public relations for more than 20 years mainly running her own public relations consulting firm. Sam was born in Virginia but grew up in suburban Maryland. She graduated from Furman University in S. C. with a degree in art. She has lived in Virginia for more than 25 years. Major clients have included those in real estate, health care and the hospitality industry. Recently she went back to school, the University of Virginia, and received a master’s degree. She has taught for more than 10 years at VCU. She teaches communication in the Business School. Sam is married to Ken Dye, in government relations for Comcast. She describes him as “one terrific husband”. She has “three awesome daughters, one very cool dog and three independent-minded cats.”
Fred Fisher, past president, stepped into a void for Richmond First Club as president in 2009-10. The club had been without a president for year. Fred works part-time in the Office of the Attorney General specializing in environmental law.
Jeff Cimbalo was elected vice president, but decided the job is too time consuming so we had a job switch. He switched with Mesha Mott and is now an at large director while Mesha is vice president. Jeff is a lawyer in his own firm in Richmond and Brussels specializing in civil litigation, a variety of corporate transactional law fields and international law. He lives with his wife, Susan, and daughter, Amelia, on West Avenue and in a 17th century farmhouse in New Kent county. Jeff is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His degree is in international politics. His master of public administration degree is from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His law degree is from the University of Virginia. Prior to opening his firm, he was general counsel to the $4 billion Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project for the office of the Attorney General of Virginia. Prior to that, he was a litigator in state and federal courts nationwide, most recently with Weil, Gotshal & Manges’s in Washington.
Pat Ryan, at large director, has given up her membership director job to serve as a director of RFC. Members will be familiar with Pat’s monthly announcements of RFC meeting details and of seeing her at the monthly meeting registration desk. Pat came to Richmond in 1983 with First Virginia Bank where she worked for 11 years as president of the Northern Operations Center Inc. Pat’s strong banking career with Old Dominion Bank in Arlington and First Service Company in Springfield was followed with First Virginia Bank where she continued in the Mechanicsville Center. From 1999 to 2003, she was executive vice president of First Virginia Operations Services Inc. for BB& T/First Virginia Banks Inc., in Mechanicsville. There she managed a staff of 255 employees with multi-departmental operational responsibilities for three banks with assets of approximately $3 billion and servicing 98 branches. When changes with her company meant a move to North Carolina, Pat opted to stay in Richmond and move into real estate. She is with Keller Williams Realty. For 12 years, she has served as the Rules/Regulations Committee chairman and judicial hearing panel coordinator chairman for the Home Owners Association of Richmond.
Pat is a graduate in business administration (real estate) of American University. She was the first woman president of the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Banking and is a member of the Women’s Council of Realtors. Pat is single and lives in Henrico County.
Click for summary of previous speaker presentations
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City of Richmond & Region Chesterfield County Henrico County
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