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Board Members

Angela Randolph

Dr. Angela Randolph is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College. Her research focuses on the cognitive and behavioral process by which nascent entrepreneurs identify, evaluate, and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. Randolph holds a Ph.D. from the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, an MBA from the College of William and Mary, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia. She and her family reside in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Brent Heeringa

Brent Heeringa is a computer scientist and entrepreneur. Currently, he is the Chief Technical Officer at SwiftComply, a water compliance startup. Before that, he was VP of Product for Materialize, the SQL streaming database startup. Brent founded password protection software company Valt, which was acquired by Dropbox in 2019 where he built Dropbox Passwords and later led engineering for new products. He also is a former associate professor and chair of computer science at Williams College

Don Dubendorf

Don is a retired attorney who specialized in business law. Don is an alumnus of Williams College and has lived and worked in Williamstown since completing law school. Don has worked very closely with Mass Tech Collaborative in a variety of roles, including serving as Chair of Mass Tech’s John Adams Innovation Institute. As a volunteer, Don led Mass Tech’s efforts to provide broadband service to rural communities in Western Mass. He currently advises the Innovation Institute’s Technology and Innovation Program.

Elizabeth Nielsen

Elizabeth has experience as a teacher, in a range of volunteer work, and non-profit Board service, including serving as the Board Chair of InterVarsity.

She earned her BA in English at Williams College and later earned graduate degrees in literature (Rutgers University) and theology (Knox Theological Seminary). Elizabeth serves as Pastor of Congregational Care at the First Presbyterian Church in North Palm Beach, Florida. Elizabeth and her husband Steven enjoy living part-time in the Berkshires.

JD Chesloff

JD Chesloff is the President and CEO of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable (MBR). His work at MBR is focused on strengthening the state’s long-term social and economic vitality with the goal of making Massachusetts a highly desirable place to do business in a global economy. Originally from the Berkshires, Chesloff grew up in Cheshire and has worked in and around Beacon Hill for more than 25 years. In the Massachusetts State Legislature, he was the Chief of Staff to the House Committee on Commerce and Labor, and was the education issues analyst and Deputy Budget Director for the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Jeffrey Thomas — Lever Co-Founder

Jeffrey D. Thomas is Lever’s Executive Director. A self-described “scientist-by-training and entrepreneur-by-accident“, Jeffrey was among the founding scientists at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and was the founding CSO of Genstruct (now Selventa). He also led the genomics and bioinformatics program at Pfizer‘s Ann Arbor site. He founded Entrepreneurs@Williams in 2011, a program that includes courses, internship opportunities, and a campus-wide business plan competition. He received his B.A. from Wabash College and his Ph.D. and M.D. from Indiana University. He lives in Williamstown.

Sara Lalumia

Sara LaLumia is a Professor of Economics at Williams College, where she teaches classes on public economics, tax policy, and income distribution. Her research has investigated how the U.S. individual income tax affects individuals’ labor supply, educational choices, tax reporting behavior, and other outcomes. She has served as a co-editor of International Tax and Public Finance. She is a board member of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and a volunteer tax preparer. She received a BA from Youngstown State University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Steve Jenks – Chair of the Lever Board

Steve Jenks is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Candescent Partners. He has thirty years of management and investing experience in private equity. Prior to that, Mr. Jenks was an Associate with Norwest Venture Partners, where he managed private equity investments in business services, consumer services, healthcare and software industries. Mr. Jenks graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Williams College in 1981, and also received his MBA from New York University in 1983.

Tim Petersen

Tim Petersen co-founded healthcare venture capital firm Arboretum Ventures in 2002, which manages $1 billion in investment capital and is based in Ann Arbor, MI.  Tim’s investments address opportunities that disrupt healthcare sectors starved of technology or business model innovation. His investments have spanned various healthcare sectors, including healthcare information technology, medical device, and research instrumentation companies. One example of Tim’s successful companies is Inogen (Nasdaq: INGN) which revolutionized the delivery of oxygen to COPD patients. Tim holds a BA in Economics from Williams College, an MS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Emeritus Board Members

Julia Bowen
Barry Davis
Tina Olsen
Lee Park

Denise Richardello
Will Schmidt
Laurie Thomsen
Travis McCready

Richard Morgenthal
Jim Mahon
Jack Wadsworth
Cairn Cross

Angela Dixon
James Birge
Richard Rowe