Board of Trustees

Executive Director
Martin W. Mahoney

Officers
Jennifer Fels, CHAIR
David M. Pilachowski, VICE CHAIR
Anne Slattery, TREASURER
Kelly DePonte,  SECRETARY

Trustees
Thomas Ascher
William Deveneau
Perez Ehrich
Heather Hamilton
Jasmine Huff
Steven Korn
Kathleen Morris
Erin McKenny
Mary Ellen Munley
Edie Sawitsky
Katie Hazlett Schmidt
Don Trachte
Constance F. West

Meet Our Staff

For general inquiries, contact the Administrative Offices:
802-447-1571

Email

Executive Director: Martin Mahoney
[email protected]

Martin holds an impressive and progressive track record of more than 20 years of Museum leadership experience. At the Norman Rockwell Museum, Martin was responsible for managing the Museum’s national and international traveling and onsite exhibitions as well as supervising Registration, Collections, Facility Operations, and Security Departments. As a member of the museum executive team, he was deeply involved in fundraising and budgeting on the institutional level, managing multiple departments, overseeing the preservation and operational management of the Museum’s historical buildings, and participating as a key stakeholder in the institutional strategic planning for the expansion of the Museum. 

Additionally, Martin has curated numerous exhibitions including Journey: David Macaulay (2019), Perspective and Place: Thomas W. Barrett’s Hudson River Valley (2016), and Mort Kunstler: The Art of Adventure (2014), to name a few. He graduated from Castleton State University with a BA in history and holds advanced degrees from both the State University of New York at Albany, where he received an MA in Public History and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where he completed his MBA. Martin also participated in the prestigious Getty Leadership Institute (now the Museum Leadership institute) in 2019.

A member of the Berkshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, Martin has served as the chapter vice-chair and chair and has previously sat on the boards of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center as well as the Massachusetts Art Commission at the State House. He is particularly interested in the intersection of history and popular culture, as well as the evolving cross connection of environmental stewardship and community advocacy and how they can be leveraged as economic engines to assist in the revitalization of communities. 

Visitor Services Associate: Emily Breunig
[email protected]

Emily holds a degree in Social Science & Humanities from SUNY Adirondack and studied Art and Education at MCLA. They have a strong background working with children in museum educational settings at the Clark and Mass MoCA. They bring a wealth of experience to Bennington Museum from gallery attending to leading tours and school groups. Prior to joining the Museum Visitor Services team, Emily managed distribution and customer service at the award-winning Tupelo Press. They also worked at the box office of Images Cinema in Williamstown. They spent their formative years in Schenectady, Cambridge, and Lake George, NY but now call North Adams home. In their spare time, they are highly sought after for pet sitting and house sitting.

Visitor Services Associate: Sheri Delaine
[email protected]

Sheri has a BA in Theatre/Performing Arts from the University of Wisconsin. After living in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York City, she finally settled in Bennington, April 2022, to continue her life adventure.

Sheri began learning about plants as a child, years later becoming a Master Gardener and working as a Garden Designer and Organic Farmer. She has always had a passion for nature, growing up running barefoot through the woods, climbing trees and talking to animals. This led to a love of hiking, biking, canoeing, swimming, cross-country skiing and snow shoeing. To counteract the wild child, she studied piano, voice and dance and how to cook, bake and sew. Learning how to knit, however, was a failure.

Because of her respect for, knowledge of and experience with animals, she became a vegetarian 37 years ago. During her last year living in the Hudson Valley, she worked as a volunteer caring for the farm animals at the Safe Haven Sanctuary and creating a vegetable garden for the sanctuary so they could grow produce for the animals who live there.

In 2003, she traveled solo for seven months throughout eleven countries with just one carry-on bag (friends still can’t believe the one bag) and had the experience of a lifetime.

She loves to read and has a wide range of interests, including art and history.  In addition to her position at Bennington Museum, Sheri also is a licensed realtor with Mahar McCarthy Real Estate in Bennington.

Curator: Jamie Franklin
[email protected]

Jamie has been curator at the Bennington Museum since 2005. His scholarship has focused on American art of the early to mid-20th century, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of modernism and self-taught art. He has organized exhibitions and written books, essays and articles featuring artists and topics including Erastus Salisbury Field, Grassroots Art, Impressionism, Rockwell Kent, Anna Mary Robertson Grandma Moses, and Alice Neel. His 2014 exhibition Alice Neel/Erastus Salisbury Field: Painting the People was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the most memorable exhibitions of the year and his 2016 exhibition Milton Avery’s Vermont  was lauded as being “as close to a perfect show as mere mortals can mount.”

In his free time Jamie likes to explore the forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers of southwestern Vermont with his son, with whom he enjoys fishing, finding “critters” (mostly amphibians and reptiles), and rockhounding, and partner, with whom he enjoys foraging for wild mushrooms and exploring old graveyards.

Visitor Services and Store Manager: Jasen Frederickson
[email protected]

Jasen has been with the museum since 2013, before which he attended Bradford College for Sociology, Human Studies. Jasen brought over 14 years hospitality experience in Hotel Management when he joined the Museum team. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with family and friends.

Administration Assistant: Anne Marie Jarvis
[email protected]

Anne Marie grew up in the Boston area and has worked as a Human Resources Manager at the Peabody Essex Museum and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  She moved to the Bennington area with her family in 2014. In addition to her position as Visitor Services Associate at the Museum, she is also a substitute teacher and volunteers one of the local libraries. Making music and story-telling are among her favorite things to do.

Director of Advancement: Alexina Jones
[email protected]

Alix has worked with Bennington Museum in various capacities since 2019, beginning as Campaign Manager, moving into Interim Director, Deputy Director, and most recently serving as Director of Advancement. Her malleable skill set reflects past positions as Founding Director of Hubbard Hall Opera Theater (a Hubbard Hall project), and Director of First Night Saratoga (a program of Saratoga Arts) for which she also served as Development Associate.

Alix holds a BA from Skidmore College where she studied English, and an MA from New York University where she studied Classical Vocal Performance. In her free time enjoys walking around the farmlands of White Creek, NY with her husband, German Shepherds, and teenage daughter and baby son.

Facilities Director: TJ Lillie
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TJ is proud to have served Robert Todd Lincoln’s “Hildene” for 22+ years, as the Building Superintendent. In this next chapter, he is looking forward to joining the Bennington Museum team and to once again work in the town in which he was born and raised, just like his predecessor, Tom Moriarty.
After a brief period spent at Paul Smith’s College, TJ turned his focus back to construction, a familial profession on both sides. He worked for local contractors honing skills in the building, electrical, masonry, plumbing, and welding trades. He then became one of the youngest journeyman carpenters in the Massachusetts Carpenters Union. It was there that he was emersed in extremely large projects of concrete and steel such as the CoGeneration Power Plant located in Pittsfield Mass. TJ has worked in private sector and operated his own business locally, and has very much enjoyed putting his skills to use in service of a non-profits in need of help as well.
“As I have tried to walk in footsteps of my grandfather , Everett Lillie, I’m constantly reminded that, family is to always be first and to do the very best you can with the time you have.  I am honored now to once again be a member of another incredible organization, one that is steeped in a much deeper history. A history that will always remind me, that without winning the Battle of Bennington, there wouldn’t have been a Abraham Lincoln or a United States of America as we know it today.“

Director of Public Programs: Deana Mallory
[email protected]

Deana has been with Bennington Museum since 2005.  During her time at Bennington Museum, she has launched Museum ABCs for preschoolers and their adult companions, the Music at the Museum Concert Series, and, most recently, Art at Lunch, a virtual series of art-based programs. She loves sharing our community’s amazing stories with school-age learners, community members, and visitors from all over the world.

Deana holds a Bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Master’s degree in education from St. Rose College in Albany, NY.  In her free time, Deana likes to garden and spend time with her husband and son.

Assistant Director of Engagement and Editorial Projects: Damien McCaffery
[email protected]

Damien McCaffery joins us from Philadelphia, by way of Massachusetts, New York, and Glasgow. After a career in music journalism in New York City, Damien relocated to Scotland, where he earned degrees in musicology and librarianship. Returning to the States, he headed an academic library in Brookline, MA, and then served as a librarian at Jefferson University in Philadelphia. All along, his abiding interest has been teaching, whether as an information literacy librarian, ESL instructor in Brooklyn, basketball coach in Glasgow, or one-on-one youth tutor with South Philly’s Mighty Writers program. Now he and his wife have settled in Shaftsbury, where they heap love on their dog Joni, roller-skate as often as they’re able, and make drawings, paintings, calligraphy, pies, and the best postcards ever.

Facilities Manager: Tom Moriarty
[email protected]

Tom was born and raised in Bennington, where he and his wife Amy still live. Around age eight, he started work in the concrete business that his father owned. Eventually he started his own construction business, Moriarty Builders. After 20 years, many bridges, and many homes later he landed his dream job at Bennington Museum where he has worked for the past 17 years. When not repairing gutters, mowing the lawn, and building exhibition displays, Tom enjoys a good game of golf.

Collections Manager: Callie Raspuzzi
[email protected]

Callie has been the Collections Manager at the Bennington Museum for since 2004. Her job includes keeping track of the Museum’s tens of thousands of objects, photographs, rare books, and archival collections and ensuring that everything is properly cared and accounted for. She attended Colgate University and has a Master’s degree in Museum Studies from the George Washington University. The variety, beauty, and occasional absurdity of the Museum’s collection never cease to impress her. She lives in a lovely historic house in nearby Washington County, New York, and her mundane hobbies include gardening, cooking, and home improvement projects.

Senior Associate Director of Development: Ryan Senecal
[email protected]

Ryan is a development professional with over 10 years of experience at UMass Amherst and MCLA. He specializes in annual giving and data analytics. The Berkshire County native has his Bachelors in Business Management from UMass and obtained his MBA in ’20. He joined the team at the museum as of July 2022. In his spare time you may find him playing disc golf at the nearby Willow Park.

Office Manager: Marie Thibodeau
[email protected]

Marie Thibodeau is a retired Office Manager from the NYS Office of Children and Families and lives in North Bennington.  She has been with the Museum since 2018 as the part time Office Manager with a focus on Development and Membership support. Marie describes herself as someone who enjoys family, friends, good food, a well written story, and the comforts of home.