Candace (Candy) Maxwell is a retired health care industry executive with diverse experience in business strategy, leadership, governance and policy. She has been coming to Chautauqua every summer assembly season since 2001. Maxwell also serves ex officio as a Chautauqua Foundation Director and Vice Chair of the Chautauqua Hotel Corporation’s board.

Marnette Perry is recently retired following a 45-year career at the Kroger Company, where for several decades she was the highest-ranking female executive. She and her husband, Paul Perry, a retired attorney, spend their summers at Chautauqua, where their daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren visit for four weeks every year.

Veronica Biggins is Managing Partner of the Board of Directors Practice at Diversified Search Group and a member of the Board of Directors of Southwest Airlines. Previously, she served as Assistant to the President under William Jefferson Clinton and Chairwoman of the Slovak Enterprise Develop Fund for 10 years, following earlier service as an executive with what is now Bank of America. She and her husband first came to Chautauqua in 2017 and have visited frequently since.

Laurie Branch is CEO and President of Iroquois Group, Inc., one of nation’s oldest and largest networks of independent property and casualty insurance agencies. Holding three master’s degrees and a Ph.D., she also teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level at St. Bonaventure University. She is a fourth-generation Chautauquan and a lifelong resident of upper Peck Avenue.

Rick Evans is an attorney with a five-generation family history at Chautauqua. In his 65 summers at Chautauqua, he has been intimately involved in the community, from attending Children’s School and Boys’ and Girls’ Club to serving as co-President of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra League and now co-running the Grapevine community message board.

Sara Ponkow is an emergency medicine physician and owner/proprietor of the Dragonfly Inn at Chautauqua Institution. In addition to being an on-grounds small business owner, she is a multiple-generation Chautauquan who attended Boys’ and Girls’ Club and worked at Chautauqua as a teen, as well as at area hospitals as a resident physician. Her two children are also lifelong Chautauquans. Most recently she served as Health Director at Boys’ and Girls’ Club during the 2021 and ’22 summers, and as Area 2 Rep for the Chautauqua Property Owners Association in 2021.

Helene Gayle is the 11th President of Spelman College. Just prior to joining Spelman, she was the president and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust. She was also president and CEO of CARE following a long career in public health with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Gates Foundation. Five generations of Gayle’s family, beginning with her grandmother taking her mother and uncle as children, have frequently visited Chautauqua; the younger generations now make it an annual tradition. She has been a Chautauqua Lecture Series speaker several times, and has been intimately involved in launching the African American Heritage House.

Nancy Gibbs is the director of the Shorenstein Center and the Edward R. Murrow Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and formerly was Editor in Chief of Time magazine. She is a lifelong Chautauquan, thanks to her mother Janet Gibbs, who made her concert debut as a pianist with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Nancy and her brother Christopher grew up at Club and both worked for the Daily; he is a former trustee and their father Howard a former chair of the Board of Trustees.

After studying architecture and urban design in Florence, Italy, and Cleveland, Ohio, Paul Hagman became the founder of RBF Colab Architecture, a heritage preservation firm providing design and consulting throughout the Northeast. He has been attending Chautauqua for nearly a decade and is looking forward to increasing his family’s time spent at the Institution in the coming years.

Izumi Hara is a retired corporate attorney in the life sciences industry, most recently at Warner Chilcott PLC (now part of Abbvie), where she was Senior Vice President and General Counsel. She serves as board chair of the YMCA of Montclair and on the board of the American Red Cross, Northern New Jersey Chapter. Three generations of Hara’s family began coming to Chautauqua in 2003. She and her husband purchased a home here in 2006.

Terry Horner is Director of Continuous Process Improvement and Product Owner for Engagement Systems at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Congressional watchdog agency. He serves as convener of the Cornell Alumni Advisory Board and chairs the DC Annual Fund Committee, among other roles. As a native of nearby Jamestown, New York, Horner has regularly attended Chautauqua since childhood. Since college, he has spent parts of every season on the grounds and looks forward to many more.

Also a member of the Chautauqua Foundation Board of Directors, Nancy Kyler is a Past President of the American Medical Association Foundation. In 2007 she was appointed to serve on the American Medical Association Council on Legislation. She currently serves on the American Shakespeare Center Board of Trustees and Augusta Health Foundation Board of Directors. Nancy and her husband, Robert, have owned a home on the grounds since 1992.

Anita Lin is a retired professional ballerina and former Artistic Director of Ballet Western Reserve. She served on President Obama’s Advisory Committee on the Arts and on The Advisory Board for The Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Lin and her family have been Chautauquans since 1996. She currently serves on the board of Courage to Care, and as President of the Arcade Condominium on Miller Park.

Sarah Hagen McWilliams is a retired clinical social worker who now works as a community volunteer, grant writer, fundraiser and private investor. A lifelong and fifth-generation Chautauquan originally from nearby Erie, Pennsylvania, McWilliams also serves a number of other boards, including as a trustee of the Erie Community Foundation.

Steve is currently retired. He is the former president of ECG Management Consultants. He grew up in nearby Lakewood, and in 1976 his parents purchased a cottage on the grounds. He in turn purchased it from them in 2004 and his family has been enjoying their summers and some of the shoulder season at Chautauqua for several generations.

Michael D. Metzger serves as Vice President of Finance and Administration at the State University of New York at Fredonia, Prior to being in higher education, he held officer positions in manufacturing companies. A long-term resident of Chautauqua County, he currently lives year-round at his property on the Institution grounds with his wife Marjorie.

Dr. Bill Neches is an Emeritus Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he is the former director of Pediatric Cardiology, Medical Director of Information Systems and Vice Chair of Pediatrics for Finance. Neches and his family have been Chautauquans for 25 years; he and his wife Ellen have two children and three grandchildren.

Gwen Adams has had a 28-year career in banking and finance. She has served as a Senior Vice President and the Business Banking Executive for Wachovia Bank, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Banco Popular of Puerto Rico in the Virgin Islands, and the Commissioner of Finance for the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. She and her husband are relative newcomers to Chautauqua, having visited during summer for four years.

Bob is a founding principal of Businessolutions LLC, a boutique consulting firm established in 2008, focused on profit improvement through effective application of business analytics, primarily in the transportation industry. Previously he was an executive officer with Roadway Corporation in Akron, Ohio, leading mergers & acquisitions, information technology, and operations planning and engineering. Robert earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in business administration, concentrating in operations research and computer science. 

For over 45 years, four generations of his family have assembled each summer at Chautauqua. Prior generations included Board of Trustee and Foundation Board members. He is a Chautauqua property owner, committed to supporting the Arts and all four pillars of the Institution. 

Rich Osborne is retired from Duke Energy Corp, where he worked for 31 years, including service as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Group Vice President-Public & Regulatory Policy. Having started visiting Chautauqua in 2012, he purchased a home on the grounds in 2014 and has spent each season here since then.

David Peckinpaugh is president and CEO of Maritz Holdings and president of Maritz Global Events. He is a founding co-chair of the Meetings Means Business Coalition in conjunction with the U.S. Travel Association, past chairman of the PCMA Education Foundation and past PCMA trustee and was recently inducted into the Event Industry Councils Hall of Leaders. A native of Cleveland, Peckinpaugh is a lifelong Chautauquan and Boys’ and Girls’ Club alum. He ran the Chautauqua Sports Club for six years and introduced the beloved Old First Night Run.

Jill is the chief people and company services officer at The J.M. Smucker Company. She has 25 years of professional experience across corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, human resources, corporate communications, government relations, information technology and philanthropy/community engagement. 

Her family has visited Chautauqua for 15 years. She recently became a property owner on the grounds with her husband and children in 2017.

Larry Thompson, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General, retired as Executive Vice President for Government Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at PepsiCo in 2014 and recently served as the U.S. Department of Justice’s Independent Compliance Monitor & Auditor for Volkswagen AG. His first Chautauqua experience was in 2004 when he was a Chautauqua Lecture Series speaker. Larry and his wife Brenda are art collectors and have been coming to Chautauqua yearly since 2004.

Steve is a retired mechanical engineer and business owner. He is a former director of the Chautauqua Foundation 2007–2023. His family has been coming to Chautauqua since 1991 and they raised three daughters on the grounds. They have been Chautauqua property owners since 1998.