PHIL BEAN, Olmsted City Committee Chair, a graduate of Utica’s Proctor High School, is a former dean at Harvard and Haverford colleges; he has also held teaching appointments at Harvard and Hamilton colleges.  He is the author of The Urban Colonists: Italian Americans Life and Politics in Utica, New York (Syracuse University Press, 2010) and 10 research articles on Utica’s history, and he served as an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of New York State (Syracuse University Press 2005), to which he contributed several articles on European immigration history.  He resides in Utica and also currently serves as President of the Utica Public Library Board of Trustees.

AMY FUNKHOUSER, Olmsted City Committee Vice Chair and Operations Subcommittee Chair is a native of Seattle.  A former Air Force Captain whose service took her around the world, Amy is a life-long gardener and Past President of the Seed and Weed Garden Club. She is passionate about sustainable landscape design, native plants and restoration and conservation in our historic parks.

DEBORAH BURKE, a native of Deerfield, has worked in manufacturing management, production, market research, telecommunications, and the utilities industry.  She has volunteered at the Boilermaker Race and as on the Ride for Missing and Exploited Children Committee. Deb has attended seminars at Hamilton College and Cornell Cooperative Extension on horticulture.

BOB DESANCTIS, a native of Utica, is the owner of the Royal Landscape Company, Inc., which he founded over 40 years ago.  He has served as President of Cornell Cooperative Extension and as a member of the Utica Common Council.  For 10 years, he was the featured horticulturalist on WKTV’s weekly “NewsTalk” show, on which he fielded viewer questions about gardening and landscaping.

CAROL GABLE is a resident of Utica Certified Public Accountant, and former Assoc VP for Finance at Hamilton College and St. Lawrence University, in addition to having served as Controller at Hamilton and Associate Controller at Middlebury College. She currently works for the Unitarian Universalist Association as Budget Manager. She also serves as Treasurer and Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee of the Utica/Oneida County branch of the NAACP. Some of her previous volunteer work includes President of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica, Treasurer of the Oneida County Democratic Committee, Coordinator of the Clinton/Kirkland Climate Smart Task Force.

TATJANA KULALIC was born in Bosnia.  She now lives in Whitesboro and works at The Center (previously known as the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees), specifically as a Board of Immigrant Appeals-accredited representative in the Center’s immigration department.  Working with fellow refugees is the mission of her life. She also serves as a member of the ICAN Board of Directors.

CHRIS ROHDE, a native of New Jersey, relocated to Utica in 2021, seeking quality of life. For 30 years, Chris has had executive-level corporate positions with large profit-and-loss responsibility and hundreds of direct-report employees operating in multiple states and countries.  Chris had the honor of being the youngest Planning Board Chair in the history of his hometown, Ringwood, New Jersey.

CHRISTINA SCHUBERT is a native of North Carolina. She earned a degree in biology with minors in environmental science and arts and design from North Carolina State University and a masters degree in adolescent education from Utica College. She has taught at the Utica Academy of Science Charter School, Adirondack Central Schools, and in the Young Scholars Program at Utica College. She currently serves as Laboratory Coordinator in the Biology department at Hamilton College. Along the way, she has also interned at Rogers Environmental Education Center in Sherburne and at the Utica Zoo, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, served as an Oneida County poll worker, and worked at Common Thread farm in Madison. She and her family have resided in Utica since 2008.

FRANK SCIACCA is a resident of Yorkville and an Emeritus Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature at Hamilton College. His scholarly interests include Russian and Ukrainian folklore, on which he has published extensively. He has also studied early horticulture in Central New York and acquired heirloom seeds that students used to create the “1812 Garden” at Hamilton in commemoration of the college’s bicentennial.

ERIK SHEEHAN, a resident of New Hartford, began his landscaping career at 16, working in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Over the years, he gained professional experience across the country, including in Colorado, California, Texas, Alaska, Philadelphia, and Cooperstown. Eventually, he settled in the Utica area, where he developed a deep appreciation for Central New York. Having visited public parks nationwide, Erik believes, “we have something special here in Utica.”

DAVE SHORT is the Utica City Parks Commissioner and the city’s Commissioner of Public Works.  He also serves as Director of the City Youth Bureau.

ALEN SMAJIĆ, a native of Bosnia, is the Executive Director of Marketing and Communications at Mohawk Valley Community College. He earned an MBA in Technology Management and BS in Communications from the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute and an AAS in Graphic Design from MVCC.

HONORINE WALLACK, a native of Connecticut, has lived in Utica for 26 years.  She works as an investment advisor for R.W. Baird Wealth Management (formerly M. Griffith Investment Services) in New Hartford. She volunteers at Mary Mother of Our Savior Church and is the former President of the Utica Public Library Board of Trustees.

FRANK WILLIAMS, a native Utican, worked at Conmed Corporation for 42 years, including 33 years as a Vice President.  He was the chair of the Mohawk Valley Advisory Board of the Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 1995-2012 and chair of the Ride For Missing Children in 1997-2012.  He now serves on the board of the Masonic Medical Research Institute and as Vice President of Utica’s Forest Hill Cemetery.  He is also a certified Master Instructor for iMapInvasives (which tracks invasive species).