Area business people ‘On the Move’
Veteran firefighter John P. Farrell Jr. of Athens, N.Y., has been elected as President of the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York.
Farrell has previously served as first and second vice president of the association and spent a decade as a trustee of the FASNY Firemen’s Home, located in Hudson.
Farrell’s term as president will last two years. Farrell’s priorities for his upcoming term are to tackle issues like recruitment of volunteers throughout the state, energizing local youngsters to volunteer and get acquainted with the fire service earlier and progressing the FASNY legislative agenda.
Farrell began his 49year volunteer fire service career in 1971 when he joined the Catskill Fire Department and went on to be named captain of Citizen Hose No. 5 Rescue Squad. In 1977, Farrell joined the West AthensLime Street Fire Company, serving as chief from 1987 to 1991. Since 1993, he has been commissioner of the West Athens-Lime Street Fire District.
He has been president of the Greene County Firemen’s Association, the Greene County Fire Chiefs Association and the Hudson Valley Volunteer Firemen’s Association, an organization which canvasses 16 counties in the Hudson Valley and Capital Region. Farrell is also a member of the New York State Fire Coordinators’ Association and currently sits on the Revolving Loan Committee.
Outside of the fire service, Farrell has served as the director of emergency services for Greene County since 2002 and is also a fire coordinator for the county. He and his wife, Marilyn, have been married for 46 years. They have four sons and one daughter, as well as nine grandchildren.
Karisa Finch has been named the branch manager of the Ulster Savings Bank’s Lake Katrine location at 1571 Ulster Ave.
Finch, a Palenville resident, previously served as the branch supervisor at this location. She joined Ulster Savings in 2015 as a teller at the Woodstock branch and has assumed the role of several positions in her career at the bank.
Her responsibilities in this new role will include oversight of all day-to-day branch operations, and providing support, guidance and training to branch staff, as well as achieving the branch’s business development goals throughout the surrounding areas.
Finch is currently enrolled in the US Banking Professional Program and has an associate’s degree from The Culinary Institute of America. She is also enrolled in the Ulster Leadership Development Institute, a leadership skill development program provided by the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Katarina Spitzer has been named as a new member of The Columbia Memorial Health Foundation board of trustees.
A native of Athens, N.Y., Spitzer is the youngest of nine. She received a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in public health, which she applied to a career in the pharmaceutical industry, culminating with posi
tions at Sterling Winthrop, The School of Public Health and, finally, The University at Albany.
Simultaneously, her interest in art led Spitzer to
become a New York State Mark Award-winning oil painter. Her work is routinely featured in regional galleries, most recently at The Arkell Museum and The Albany Institute of History and Art.
Spitzer and her husband, Ed, live in Kinderhook.
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