"Alum of the Month" Archive

Caroline Gilroy-Brown, Class of 1983

Caroline Gilroy-Brown graduated from Syracuse University College of Law in 1986 after leaving PC. She was an attorney with Providence law firms Partridge, Snow & Hahn as well as Tillinghast, Collins & Graham for 19 years. With a specialty in mortgage banking, she was led to Massachusetts clients and joined the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association in the early 1990s, where she has remained a star member. She has been general counsel at AAA-Southern New England since 2004. In this position she provides legal advice and practical recommendations to all business lines, senior management, and the Board of Directors on various business, strategic and legal matters and compliance with applicable laws, regulations and best practices. She is now the 2008 chairwoman of the MMBA, where she oversees the organization’s operations. In 2004 she helped make Massachusetts’s predatory lending bill into a law, where it is now widely recognized as balancing consumer protections with the appropriate flow of credit into the state. In 2005 she received the MMBA’s certificate of Outstanding Achievement for “service above and beyond the call of duty”. Gilroy-Brown fell into the world of finance by chance, but she has come to find it an interesting challenge and “a lot of fun”.

Angela Dias, Class of 1977

Angela Dias is the morning news anchor/reporter at WTIC Newstalk 1080, a 50-thousand watt radio station with a news/talk format serving Southern New England. Prior to this she worked as a reporter and anchor at radio stations in Fall River, Massachusetts and Providence. She also did a brief stint as a news anchor for CBS Radio Network in New York. While many in the news media have journalism degrees, her political science degree gives her a unique perspective on many of the issues she has covered. She has hosted talk shows, moderated political debates and hosted public affairs programs in which knowledge of government and politics is essential.

Matt Smith, Class of 1998

After his graduation from PC in 1998, Matt began his work with the Inner City Teaching Corps Volunteer Teaching Corps (VTC), working for two years as a volunteer. For the next two years, he continued teaching at St. Dorothy School on the South Side of Chicago. While there he coached basketball, moderated the Beta Club, took his students to London, Paris, and Madrid, learned about the struggles of the families and students that he worked with, and discovered the challenges of teaching in such an environment. After completion of his Masters of Science in Education at Northwestern University, he got a job offer to work at Inner City Teaching Corps. For the last five years he has served as the director of the UNITE program, a career changing program which recruits, trains, and supports individuals who want to change careers and become teachers. The teachers, trained through Northwestern, teach in Chicago Public Schools, Charter School, and Catholic Schools in underserved communities in Chicago. During the fall he took on a position as the Director of Outreach and Partnerships, a new position in which he builds relationships with everyone from State Senators and Legislators to local leaders and other education organizations, as well as raising organizational awareness, development, and communications.

Beth S. Viola, Class of 1995

Beth S. Viola graduated from Providence College in 1990. In 1995, she attended the John F. Kennedy School for senior managers in government. After completing her studies, she began her career in government affairs for Matsushita Electric Corporation of affairs. She also served as a congressional staff member for the U.S. Representatives John Edward Porter of Illinois and Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island. In 1994, Beth joined the White House as a senior advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Her responsibilities as a senior member of the team involved advising the president and vice president on environmental and energy issues. She also served as the liaison for these issues communicating with elected officials, members of the media, labor leaders, etc. Finally, in her last year at the White House, Beth was one of Vice President Gore’s chief environmental advisors and went on to advise him during his presidential campaign. During her time with him she took it upon herself to store a series of environmental slides that she had helped to develop, which ended up as an integral part of Gore’s Academy Award–winning “An Inconvenient Truth”. She also served as an advisor to John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. Today, Beth works as the managing director of Holland & Knight Strategic Communications Group. Her work includes environmental consulting, trade, appropriations and public relations.

Frank Finamore, Class of 1988

Frank graduated from Providence College in 1988. He received his masters in Organization Development from American University 1997. Upon graduation from PC, he was a Management Consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc. and later served as an analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. After completing graduate school, he founded an organization development consulting firm, Finamore and Associates, Inc. His clients included the International Rescue Committee, the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, Whole Foods, and the National Minority AIDS Council. In 2005, Frank joined the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) and currently serves as the Director of Products and Service Lines. CAL is a non-profit with a mission to improve communication based on a better understanding of language and culture. The organization conducts research and develops practical tools and applications to help with this mission. Frank oversees five earned income business lines within the organization. In this capacity, he brings his knowledge of organizational development and business, passion for language, and commitment to social justice to develop business ventures that affect change in the world.

Frank lives in Washington, DC with his partner, Peter, and their son, Elias Finamore-Velasco, who they adopted in 2002 from Guatemala. Frank credits his work in the Data Center at Providence College for shaping to his future career in terms of analytical thinking and quantitative skills, and his years at PC helped to develop his commitment to social justice.

Patricia McLaughlin, Class of 1984

Patricia McLaughlin graduated from Providence College in 1984. She went on to receive her juris doctorate from the George Washington University, The National Law Center, Washington, DC in 1987. After graduating, she clerked for the Superior Court of Rhode Island and then served in various positions for the City of Providence. These positions included Director of Administration, Deputy City Solicitor, and Assistant City Solicitor. She served as the director of corporate, foundation, and government relations for Rhode Island School of Design for four years and has been teaching general law courses at Providence College since 1999. She joined the Johnson and Wales University staff in 2006 as the senior vice president of institutional advancement, where she oversees the advancement efforts of JWU’s four campuses in Providence, Denver, Charlotte, and Miami. She is responsible for defining a vision for philanthropy that is coherent with the university’s plans and goals, as well as maintaining relationships with and gaining funding from independent sources. She oversees alumni relations and the Creative Services Group, which includes print and web communications, marketing, and efforts towards the enhancement of the university’s reputation and national visibility. Being a dedicated citizen of the Providence Community, McLaughlin serves on the boards of WaterFire Providence, Splendor of Florence USA, and as a member of the executive committee for Housing Works.

David Governo, Class of 1978

After completing his undergraduate studies at PC, David went on to obtain a degree in law from Northwestern University in 1981. His first position in the legal community was within the toxic tort department of Burns & Levinson, a Boston-based firm. In 1989, he went on to become a partner at Kirby and Governo, also based in Boston. Since then, he formed his own firm where he is senior partner in the Governo Law Firm, LLC and has achieved a nation-wide reputation as a leader in the legal field of toxic tort. In 1992, David organized and chaired Mealey’s National Lead Litigation Conference, the country’s first national litigation conference on lead poisoning. He has also been invited to present papers at conferences around the nation on a variety of topics such as indoor air quality and regulatory/environmental liability and is a member of a number of prestigious Bar associations. Finally, David is listed in Martindale-Hubbell’s Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers and has co-authored texts such as Toxic Torts Law and Science Manual in 1996 and Toxic Tort & Medicine Internet Directory in 1997.

Joe Carr, Class of 1983

Joe Carr is director of university relations at the University of Maine, the state's flagship university, located in Orono. In that role, Joe is responsible for UMaine's strategic communications and marketing activities, including media relations.

Following graduation from PC, Joe earned a master's degree in journalism from Emerson College. He worked as television journalist in Maine for several years before moving to UMaine in 1993. Joe continues to work as a free-lance sports play-by-play announcer, mostly covering college hockey on television. His play-by-play career began when he broadcast Friar hockey games from 1981-1983 on PC's WDOM-FM.

Joe lives in Brewer, Maine, with his wife Ellen (Good), also a 1983 PC graduate. They have three children: Brendan (18), Colleen (16) and Brian (14).

Jennifer Graham, Class of 2000

A former member of Pi Sigma Alpha and President of the Class of 2000, Jennifer has held some interesting professional positions since her departure from PC. After graduation she was employed by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein in San Diego, California where she acted as a Field Representative and Constituent Service Representative for a little over two years. Following her employment with Senator Feinstein, Jennifer began working for Fox Filmed Entertainment in Los Angeles, where she spent three years working as a Senior Executive Assistant to the Chairman. She has since returned to the East Coast where she is working for Fox News Channel in New York City as an Associate Producer for The Alan Colmes Show and an as Assistant to Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes. An aspiring actress, Jennifer also found time to receive a Certificate in Dramatic Arts from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York, NY in the summer of 2005.

Mary Anne Trasciatti, Class of 1985

After graduation Mary Anne Trasciatti earned an M.A. in communication studies from Emerson College in 1991 and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Maryland in 1999. While she was going to school, she met and married Steve Caslowitz, a music teacher from Rhode Island, and they had three children: Michael, Sam, and Bridget. Presently, Ms. Trasciatti is the Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Chair of the Speech Communications Department in the School of Communication at Hofstra University. She teaches courses in the history of rhetoric, persuasion, political communication, and popular culture. Her research concerns the role of rhetoric in the formation of subjectivity and collective identity for early twentieth century immigrant and labor activists in the United States. Ms. Trasciatti has published articles in books and journals, and she is the co-editor of Representing Sacco and Vanzetti (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), an interdisciplinary volume of essays on cultural and political legacy of the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Currently, she is writing a book on literacy, citizenship and Americanization, 1885 – 1920. In her spare time, Ms. Trasciatti enjoys spending time with her family, watching old movies, riding her bicycle, and baking.

Tom Schrempf, Class of 1988

After graduation Tom attended Georgetown Law School. He remained in the Washington D.C. area following completion of his degree, working for a small law firm for several years before returning to his home state of New York. In New York, he worked as an Assistant Country Attorney in Westchester County. Tom’s current job is in the public sector as well. He serves as the Assistant Attorney General for New York State, working out of Albany. His work centers on the environmental field and includes suing to recover state expenditures from the clean up of petroleum spills.

Tara Reynolds, Class of 1991

Since her departure from PC Tara has been involved in several fields. Some of her positions include a Management position at Prudential Insurance, running a customer complaint call center, running a regional sales force as well as performing financial analysis abroad in Brazil. After moving back to Newark, NJ, Tara settled into a customer marketing role. She is currently the Vice President of customer marketing for Prudential Life Insurance. Her responsibilities include customer retention, communication as well as a continuing endeavor to build Prudential’s first successful life insurance sales channel via phone and internet. In addition to all of this, Tara has also found time to get her MBA from Rutger’s University and travel throughout Europe.