December 10, 2024
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Read MoreAssociated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) has elected five distinguished business leaders to its board of directors.
Members of the largest business association in Massachusetts elected the new directors in electronic balloting last week.
The new members of the AIM Board include Torrance Childs, Executive Vice President and Head of Private Banking at Boston Private Bank; Christa Hagearty, Chief Executive Officer of Dependable Cleaners in Quincy; Ezequiel Montemayor, CEO of Harbar LLC in Canton; Krina Patel, Associate Director of State Public Policy and Government Affairs – Northeast Region at Biogen in Cambridge; and Anthony A. Samuels, Founder, President and CEO of DRB Facility Services in Boston.
“It’s a great day for AIM as welcome five directors who will add energy, experience and intelligence to our deliberations on behalf of Massachusetts employers,” said Joanne Hilferty, Chair of the AIM Board of Directors and President and CEO of Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries.
“We are deeply gratified that this year’s class of new directors is made of up respected, senior business leaders who represent the full variety of people and companies that are part of the Massachusetts economy.”
The new directors will join a diverse and active board of 65 business owners and CEOs representing the full variety of people, industries, company sizes and locations that drive the Massachusetts economy. AIM earlier this year re-elected officers of the association, along with 14 members of the AIM Executive Committee and 14 current members of the Board of Directors who will serve new, three-year terms.
The new directors are:
Torrance Childs
Torrance Childs is Executive Vice President and Head of Private Banking at Boston Private. He represents the bank with respect to all major constituents (clients, employees and Board members/shareholders).
He is Chairman of the bank’s Trust and Investment Committee and a member of the Board Directors for Boston Private Bank & Trust.
Torrance was formerly President and Consumer Executive for Bank of America’s Community Banking division.
He earned his MBA from Northeastern University and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University.
Torrance has been honored with the 2016 Gail Snowden Legacy Award and the Boston Private CEO Exemplary Leadership Award.
Christa Hagearty, Dependable Cleaners
Christa Hagearty became chief executive officer of Dependable Cleaners in 1996 and has since expanded the business from 12 to 16 locations, more than tripled its revenue, added home pickup and delivery service in Boston and 31 suburbs, and branched out into specialty services.
Dependable Cleaners is a third-generation, certified women-owned family dry cleaning company in business for more than 75 years. The company employs 200 people.
Christa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Simmons University School of Management. She recently completed the President’s Program in Leadership at Harvard Business School.
Ezequiel Montemayor, Harbar LLC
Ezequiel Montemayor has been the CEO of his family’s business, Harbar, since 2008. Harbar was founded in 1986 south of Boston with a vision to develop the most authentic and high-quality tortillas in the New England market.
After 34 years, and multiple plant relocations, the company continues to manufacture and market premium quality and differentiated corn, flour and specialty tortillas/wraps for the national retail and food service markets.
Born and raised in Mexico, Ezequiel completed an economics degree from Monterrey Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard.
Krina Patel, Biogen
Krina Patel currently serves as Associate Director of State Public Policy and Government Affairs – Northeast Region at Biogen, a biotechnology company focused on neurological diseases with its Global Corporate Headquarters in Cambridge.
Krina previously served as Coalition Director for the Yes on 3 ballot campaign that successfully protected the state’s transgender public accommodations law from repeal at the November 2018 ballot.
An attorney with 12 years of government affairs (state and federal) experience, she possesses strong knowledge of the legislative and political process and health care landscape.
She is active in the community, serving as Board member of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Board member of the Women’s Bar Association (WBA) of Massachusetts and Co-Chair of the WBA Legislative Policy Committee, and Co-Founder of Boston Young Healthcare Professionals, a 501(c)(3) organization to connect emerging health care professionals. Krina received the 2018 Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly honor for Excellence in the Law – Up and Coming Lawyer.
Krina has a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Masters degree in Health Policy & Management from the University of Maine and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School.
Anthony Samuels, DRB Facility Services
Anthony A. Samuels is the founder of DRB Facility Services and has been President/CEO since its inception in 1993. The company has grown steadily under his leadership.
Today he oversees a company that employs more than 600 team members and is a recognized leader in the business community.
DRB provides janitorial, landscaping and snow removal services to some of the largest and most respected companies in the United States.
Anthony attended University of Massachusetts’s Management program, The Tuck Executive Education Program at Dartmouth College, and has a degree in Computer Aided Drafting from Roxbury Community College.