Governor Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick is a lawyer, business executive, entrepreneur and author who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. Born on the South Side of Chicago, he lived with his grandparents, his mother, and his sister in their grandparents’ two bedroom tenement, much of that time on welfare. Through the love and support of family, great teachers, and others in the neighborhood and in church, he became the first in his family to attend college and law school.
After earning his law degree, Patrick served as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund as a staff attorney. In 1986, he joined the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow and was named partner in 1990, at the age of 34. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the nation’s top civil rights post. At the Justice Department, Patrick worked on a wide range of issues, including prosecution of hate crimes, and the enforcement of employment discrimination, fair lending and disabilities rights laws. After the justice department, Patrick returned to private law practice in Boston before becoming a senior executive at two Fortune 50 companies.
In 2006, Patrick became Massachusetts’ first black governor, helping the state to rank first in the nation in energy efficiency, health care coverage, and student achievement by the end of his second term. After he left office, Patrick joined Bain Capital to launch Bain Capital Double Impact, which has invests in mission-driven companies for both financial return and social or environmental good. He serves currently as a senior advisor to the firm, as well as on several public and private company boards.
Patrick and Diane, his wife of 36 years, have called the Berkshires home for nearly 20 years.
U.S. Congressman Antonio Delgado
Antonio Delgado is an attorney and politician who serves as the U.S. Representative for New York's 19th congressional district. The district includes most of the southern and eastern suburbs of the Capital District as well as the majority of the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions. He is the first person of either African-American or Hispanic descent to be elected to Congress from Upstate New York.
Rep. Delgado is from Schenectady and lives in Rhinebeck with his wife, Lacey, and their twin sons, Maxwell and Coltrane. Rep. Delgado's parents worked for General Electric in Schenectady, demonstrating the values of hard work and commitment to community. It is that hard-working spirit that Rep. Delgado has continued throughout his life: he earned a Rhodes Scholarship while he attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and went on to attend Harvard Law School. Rep. Delgado's professional experiences include a career in the music industry focused on empowering young people through Hip Hop culture, as well as working as an attorney in the complex commercial space, where he also dedicated significant time to pro bono work in connection with criminal justice reform.
During the 116th Congress, Rep. Delgado received the Chamber of Commerce Spirit of Enterprise Award and the Jefferson-Hamilton Award for his bipartisan legislative work. Rep. Delgado is the Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit. The Congressman also serves on the House Small Business and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees.
Leticia Smith-Evans Haynes
Leticia Smith-Evans Haynes is the vice president for institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion at Williams College, a role she has held since 2015. Prior to her work at the college, Haynes directed the Education Practice at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) where she advocated for equal access to educational opportunities for students of all ages. With more than two decades as an administrator, educator, civil rights advocate, and lawyer, her past experience includes serving as a judicial law clerk to the late Honorable Dickinson R. Debevoise of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, an associate at a global law firm, a policy advisor to former Wisconsin governor, and an elementary school teacher.
Haynes has contributed to and helped shape the national dialogue around promising practices to curb racial injustice and discrimination, and led coalitions working to advance the rights of individuals with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and immigrants. She has successfully argued before state and federal trial and appellate courts and is co-author of "Eliminating Excessive and Disparate School Discipline: A Review of Research and Policy Reform in Inequality in School Discipline" (2016) and "Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity" (2014); and, author of "Ensuring Equality in School Discipline Practices and Policies and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline" in "A Call for Change: Providing Solutions for Black Male Achievement" (2012).
Haynes holds a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.