Castellani, Bertagna and Vero join Board of Trustees

President Stephen C. Ainlay, left, and Frank Messa, chair of the Board of Trustees, far right, with some of the newest members of the Board: Stanley B. O'Brien, John Vero and Robert Bertagna (back row); Adrian MacLean Jay and Douglass E. Karp. Not pictured: John J. Castellani.

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Enlarge President Stephen C. Ainlay, left, and Frank Messa, chair of the Board of Trustees, far right, with some of the newest members of the Board: Stanley B. O'Brien, John Vero and Robert Bertagna (back row); Adrian MacLean Jay and Douglass E. Karp. Not pictured: John J. Castellani.

John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C., and Robert D. Bertagna, managing director of Lehman Brothers in New York, have joined the College’s Board of Trustees.

Castellani, who received his bachelor’s in biology from Union in 1972, joined the Business Roundtable in 2001. Cited by the Financial Times as “the most influential chief executive lobbying group in the U.S,” the Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees and $4.5 trillion in annual revenues.

He has appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” PBS’ “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” and CNBC’s “Street Signs.” He also regularly provides testimony before Congress on issues of key concern to Business Roundtable.

Bertagna, who received his bachelor’s in economics from Union in 1985, is the head of the industrial group within investment banking for Lehman Brothers. Prior to joining the firm, he was with Credit Suisse First Boston and was a vice president with Goldman Sachs.

Bertagna has advised a wide range of companies, including International Paper, Walt Disney, American Airlines, Mattel and Sears, Roebuck and Co. He has a master’s from Harvard Business School.

In addition, John R. Vero ’97 joins the board as the new president of the Alumni Council, succeeding Jason Oshins, who remains on the board. Vero is an attorney with Couch White in Albany, working in its Commercial Transactions and Commercial Litigation group.

A political science and economics major at Union, Vero received his law degree from Albany Law School. He is the co-founder of GenNEXT Council, a networking group whose goal is to keep young professionals in the area. The group is an affiliate of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce. Vero also is a regular contributor to NextGen Workbytes, a weekly column in the Times Union newspaper.

Earlier this year, Adrian MacLean Jay ’98, Douglass E. Karp ’97 and Stanley B. O’Brien ’74 also joined the board. Jay is director of television and video for DoubleJay Creative, a visual media production company in Knoxville, Tenn. She is the daughter of Mary Ann MacLean, a former trustee who stepped down this year after 12 years on the board. Karp is a senior vice president for New England Development Company in Newton, Mass., and co-founder of Lids, Inc, which was sold in 1999. His father, Stephen, was a longtime trustee. O’Brien is a vice president with Mellon Financial Corporation in Boston.

Shanique Kerr ’09 is the new junior student trustee. 

The new chairman of the Board is Frank L. Messa ’73 of Saratoga Springs. Messa retired in 2005 as senior vice president for International Strategies of Ayco Co., a Saratoga Springs-based financial services and planning firm that was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2003.

He succeeds Stephen J. Ciesinski ’70, who served as chairman since 2002 and as a board member since 1993. A Schenectady native who now lives in California, Ciesinski remains on the board.