President: Ford Fay ’82
fordfay14@gmail.com
Professional Experience:
Experienced Board Executive with Public, Private & Non-Profit Boards. Experienced Operations & Engineering Executive focusing on business transformation & efficiency improvements across People, Process & Systems. Involved in over 40 M&A integrations, managing budgets of $200K-$2B annually.
Held Executive roles at US West, Qwest, tw telecom, Zayo & Crown Castle. Experience in building high-performing teams, enabling processes and systems across many departments in the Telecommunication space: contract management, vendor management, quoting, ordering, invoice payments, vendor management, network planning, product introductions, systems requirements and integrations.
Resides in Denver, CO. Married to Kathleen Flynn (CU ’81). Proud father of three children and a granddaughter. Avid skier, biker, kayaker, hiker & sometimes golfer.
Board Experience
• SOBR: Public Co. – Board Director (2019-2026)
• Axiom – Private Co., Chairman of the Board (2024-26)
• Labra – Private Co., Board Advisor – (2017-2026)
• Shaka Franklin Foundation, non-profit, Board Member, 1997-2005
Vice President: Larry Keane ’99
larrykeane@gmail.com
Professional Experience: Larry Keane is a Transformation Executive and Trusted Advisor with over 25 years of experience, who has built a career revitalizing and turning around manufacturing organizations. Larry’s experience includes executing large strategic and operational profitability and performance improvement programs across industries, in both Public as well as Private Equity owned organizations. He has led efforts across the business value chain including product development, operational restructuring and cost reduction, throughput enhancement, footprint optimization, maintenance optimization, supply chain and procurement cost reduction, SG&A and organizational restructuring, and so on. Cornell Class of ’99 in Engineering ’06 MBA in Operations and Strategy
Cornell Involvement: Larry was on the executive board at MU chapter and a Cornell Tradition Fellow during undergrad, and a member of the student council during business school.
Treasurer: Richard Rego ’82
rrego@alphacap.net
Professional Experience: Richard (Rick) is the founder and managing member of Alpha Capital Research, a boutique investment advisor established in 1997. The firm focuses on assisting family offices in asset allocation, sub-manger oversight and issues related to generational transitions. Before starting Alpha Capital, Richard worked as a proprietary trader for a bank and several hedge funds. Richard is a 1982 Ag and Life Sciences graduate, holds an MBA from The Stern School of Business and is Chartered Financial Analyst.
Cornell Involvement: Richard was Treasurer of the Chapter as an undergraduate and recently has been organizing an annual Alumni Ski trip that spans classes from the late 70’s to early 80s.
Secretary:Michael Vernick ’83
michael@giantface.com
Professional Experience:
After spending three years as Milkboy at Sigma Pi, Michael left the dairy business and Cornell for a career in technology. Six years at a startup interspersed with two round-the-world trips was followed by another six years back in graduate school. After receiving his doctorate in computer science at SUNY Stony Brook, Michael spent time at Lucent Bell Labs and Avaya Labs as a research scientist, primarily working in the area of video communication systems. He recently left the industrial-lab environment to work for Worldnow, a small technology media company in New York City. Michael lives on the Jersey Shore with his wife and two children. He is the organizer of the Sigma Pi Procrasticup Golf Tournament.
David C. D’Orlando ’79
ddorlando@comcast.net
Professional Experience: Principal of Baldwin and Welsh & Parker Insurance Agencies in Massachusetts since 1990. Prior to that, served as export transportation manager and folding carton division administrative manager at Westvaco Corporation and as an environmental engineer with Dynamac Corp. and Proctor and Gamble.
Cornell Involvement: Cornell Engineering Ambassador in the ’90s. Class of ’79 fundraising for 30th Reunion Gift in 2009.
Kitchen & Dining: Mark Lynn ’00
mtlynn78@hotmail.com
Mark Lynn is a 2000 graduate of the Hotel School. He works as a Regional Director of Finance for Loews Hotels and resides in NJ with his wife and three daughters.
Professional Experience: Ricky Melasecca has spent the past two summers as an intern at EY-Parthenon and MediaOcean. He will be returning to EY-Parthenon next year as a full-time generalist first-year associate.
Cornell Involvement: As an undergraduate, Ricky was his Sigma Pi pledge class president, a recruitment chair as a sophomore, and then sage in the 2022–2023 academic year. Additionally, Ricky has served as an orientation leader and the vice president of judicial affairs for the IFC. He is also a member of the a cappella group Last Call and a business consulting club, International Business Consulting.
Henry Schechter ’25
Henry Schechter joined Sigma Pi in the Fall 2023 pledge class as a transfer student and served on the chapter’s executive board in the years after. Henry graduated from Cornell in the Class of 2026, where he majored in Government and American Studies. During his time on campus, he served as Opinion Editor at the Cornell Daily Sun, overseeing the paper’s editorial and opinion content.
He has spent his summers working for the federal government in both the executive and legislative branches. Henry is currently a law student at Cornell Law School and will graduate in 2028.
Outside of his academic and professional life, Henry reads legal and presidential history, plays guitar, and runs.
Professional Experience: Since graduating, Dennis has been involved in corporate and securities law for both private practices and corporate counsel teams. For the past 15 years, he has served as the acting general counsel for a company engaged in mergers and acquisitions and served as the in-house counsel of two financial services firms. He is currently the executive vice president and general counsel of Oppenheimer & Company, Inc., a New York-based financial services company with offices in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, and Beijing.
Cornell Involvement: Dennis has, for the past several years, served as a Cornell Alumni Association ambassador, meeting with and interviewing prospective students.
Professional Experience: Kurt Rasmussen, PhD, is the chief scientific officer at Delix Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on developing neuroplasticity, promoting therapeutics for neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, and substance-use disorders. Dr. Rasmussen’s career spans 30 years of highly innovative scientific research in neuroscience pharmaceutical discovery, from hypothesis generation to clinical candidate evaluation. Prior to Delix, Dr. Rasmussen was at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he was the director of NIDA’s (National Institute on Drug Abuse) Division of Therapeutics & Medical Consequences. In this role, he directed the medications development program and played an integral role in evaluating the safety and efficacy of pharmacotherapies, behavioral therapies, and devices to treat substance-use disorders. Prior to the NIH, Dr. Rasmussen served as a senior research scientist and head in neuroscience research at Eli Lilly, where he led multiple R&D teams and projects, resulting in multiple neuropsychiatric therapeutics. A Fellow in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Dr. Rasmussen has amassed over 100 publications and patents. He received his BA with honors and distinction from Cornell University, his PhD in neuroscience and psychology from Princeton University, and was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Professional Experience: Stephen Ryan is an ILR graduate who practices law in Washington, DC, at the international law firm, McDermott Will and Emery, where he heads the firm’s lobbying, congressional investigations, crisis management, and government contracts lawyers. Steve married Lisa Ryan, and two of his three sons, John Lincoln ’10 and William ’14, also attended Cornell, while son Matthew played soccer for nearby Binghamton. Steve went to the University of Notre Dame Law School, clerked for a federal judge, served as a federal organized crime prosecutor, and as chief counsel of a Senate Committee chaired by Senator John Glenn.
Cornell Involvement: As a Pi man, Steve, along with a group of brothers, could often be found working as bartenders or night managers of the Thirsty Bear Tavern, game room, and other facilities of the North Campus Student Union. Steve, a mediocre athlete at best, captained successful Pi house soccer and lacrosse teams.
Jarett F. Wait ’80 (emeritus)
jwait@jfwaitadv.com
Professional Experience: Jarett Wait is managing principal of JF Wait Advisors, a consulting firm based in New York City. He is senior advisor and board member at CoVenture. Prior to this, Jarett was a managing director, member of the executive committee and global head of the Capital Formation Group at Fortress Investment Group. Jarett spent the vast majority of his career at Lehman Brothers in various senior executive roles. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, advisory board member for Center on Law and Security NYU School of Law, board member of Workforce Opportunity Services (WOS), and member of the board for CityLax. Jarett is a 1980 graduate of the College of Art & Sciences, Cornell University.
Cornell Involvement: Jarett served as president of the alumni board of Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity for over 20 years. He is a board member for the Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. He previously served on the Cornell University Council, the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council, and Cornell Athletic Advisory Board. He is an active supporter of both Cornell men’s and women’s lacrosse teams.
John Haggerty ’78 (emeritus)
jjh56@cornell.edu
Professional Experience: Before retiring in 2003 to pursue a doctorate degree at Cornell (received in 2010), John spent 27 years as a human resources manager, including 21 years at General Electric where he was the vice president of human resources for the Industrial Systems business. He is now teaching at Cornell.
Cornell Involvement: John is a senior lecturer in Industrial Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell.