Five New Members Announced for Board of Trustees
Posted 10/20/2008 09:00AM
Pingry has announced five new members of the Board of Trustees for the 2008-2009 school year: Deborah Barker, William D. Ju, Donna Kreisbuch, Steven M. Lipper ’79, and Denise Vanech.

“We are excited to welcome such a talented and distinguished group of new trustees. They bring a wealth of experience, a breadth of perspectives, and a heartfelt passion for Pingry’s mission to their work as members of the Board of Trustees. We are enormously grateful for their extraordinary commitment of time and expertise to the important work of stewardship that board membership represents,” Headmaster Nat Conard said.

Deborah Barker volunteers for Pingry’s Annual Fund and has been a volunteer for numerous other organizations for many years. She has been a Trustee of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, since 1999 and has served the school in a number of volunteer capacities since her graduation in 1980. She also is a Trustee of Student/Partner Alliance in Newark, N.J. and New Jersey SEEDS in Newark. She earned her master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University in 1985 and is a former Managing Director in Investment Banking for Prudential Securities Incorporated, and prior to that worked for Irving Trust Company. Ms. Barker and her husband Randy have two children attending Pingry: James is in Grade 5 and Lee is a freshman.

William D. Ju, M.D., is a former Trustee for The Peck School, Caldwell College, and the Chinese American Medical Society and former Board Director for the ExSAR Corporation. He currently is President of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Finance Committee for the Presbyterian Church in Morristown and a Board Director for Validus Pharmaceuticals. He received his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University, his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and his postgraduate medical training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and National Institutes of Health. Since 2003, he has been Chief Operating Officer of PTC Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, and he has worked at Hoffmann-La Roche, Merck, Pharmacia, and Pfizer to develop new medicines. He and his wife Doris have two children attending Pingry: Evan is a senior and Christopher is a sophomore.

Donna Kreisbuch is president of the Pingry School Parents’ Association (PSPA) and has been volunteering for the PSPA since 1995 to organize many school fundraising and social events. As president, she is responsible for the daily management and coordination of the PSPA. She previously served as vice president, managing the PSPA’s non-fundraising committees, and treasurer, managing the PSPA budget and managing finances at all fundraising events. She also managed 20 parent volunteers as Library Volunteer Coordinator. From 1995 to 2007, Ms. Kreisbuch was a Trustee at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, N.J. and, from 1984 to 1994, she worked as an attorney. She graduated from SUNY at Albany and Cardozo School of Law. She and her husband Alan are the parents of two Pingry children: Johanna is a junior and Michael graduated from Pingry in 2006.

Steven M. Lipper ’79, CFA, has more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and is also the new president of the Pingry Alumni Association (PAA). He volunteers for Pingry’s Annual Fund, is a Class Agent, and participated in Career Day in 2006, 2007, and 2008. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1983 and is Director of Retirement Marketing for Lord Abbett & Co, responsible for all marketing aspects of Lord Abbett’s retirement business. Previously, Mr. Lipper worked for Reuters, Ltd., Lipper Analytical Services, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Folger Nolan Fleming Douglas. He and his wife Ann Marie have three children attending Pingry: Catherine is a senior, Matthew is a freshman, and Stephanie is in Grade 7.

Denise Vanech has been a Trustee for The Vanech Family Foundation since 2003, a member of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Expansion Steering Committee at Morristown Memorial Hospital since 2005, and a member of the advisory board and director of the School-to-School Program for the Global Literacy Project since 2007. From 2006 to 2007, she served as Corresponding Secretary for the PSPA Executive Committee. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. in 1984 and worked for RJR Nabisco, American Express, Combustion Engineering, and Kramer Levin LLP. She and her husband Dean are the parents of Nicholas and Christina, a Pingry senior.