Meet the Board

Katherine Kanaga- PRESIDENT

Katherine moved to Columbia County in 2010 after visiting the county for many years. Katherine holds a BA, MA, and M. Phil from Columbia University. Her background includes 24 years at Marsh & McLennan, from which she retired as the Property Practice for the International Division at the end of 2009 shortly after returning from 5 years in London. While in New York, Katherine mentored girls at a NYC public high school as part of a Financial Women’s Association program. She is active in the Columbia County and Hudson communities as Vice-Chair of Art Omi in Ghent, NY, and co-Chair of the Friends of the Public Square in Hudson, NY

Philip Forman, Co-Founder 

Philip has been a board member since its inception. He has served as treasurer and  senior advisor. Prior to moving to Hudson in 2008, Phil was a founding partner of  Mitchell Madison, a global consulting firm. He currently chairs Hudson’s Historic  Preservation Commission, a post he has held since 2015. He also serves as  Treasurer of Hudson Development Corp.  

Don Moore- treasurer 

Don Moore is a Hudson activist, for its families, for the breadth of its diverse cultures and for its future.   After retiring from higher education administration, Don spent over a decade as an elected official and full-time volunteer in economic development, the performing arts and community building.  He is a former three-term President of the Hudson Common Council who made it a signature of his time in office to open the responsibilities of committee chairs and assignments to include all communities represented on the Council, who provided leadership and advocacy for anchor building projects like the renovation of Washington Hose and the construction of Hudson’s Police and Court Center.  He co-chaired the 2016 Fair and Equal campaign to equalize the voting power of the City’s five Wards and served for one term as a Columbia County Supervisor representing Hudson’s Third Ward and as the Mayor’s deputy for part of 2019.  Don has volunteered in leadership roles on the boards of a number of Hudson nonprofit organizations including the Hudson Development Corporation, Christ Episcopal Church, Classics on Hudson, Operation Unite New York and Friends of the Historic Presbyterian Church.  With his two children and two grandchildren, Hudson is now home to three generations of Moores.

JEFFREY ZEILER - Secretary

Jeffrey had a long career in advertising in New York and now works part time at Columbia University helping administer a community service program that provides free GED and ESOL classes to low income adults in Harlem. She's in Hudson most weekends and champions the idea of helping Perfect Ten Girls imagine a larger world and see themselves thriving in it

AMY ADLER

Amy settled in Hudson for four years ago to be near her daughter, Tamar Adler. She holds a Ph.D. from the Ferkauf School of Psychology, Yeshiva University and has spent most of her professional life, both as a children’s summer camp owner and co-director and a developmental psychologist, working with children and their parents. Amy worked at the Early Child Development Center at Albert Einstein College of Medical School providing dyadic therapy for parents and foster parents and their 2-7 year old children who had experienced trauma, language disabilities, and pervasive developmental disorders. Amy has been a faithful volunteer at Perfect Ten, teaching baking and cooking classes and providing home-made lunch once a week.

NICK BENNETT

Nick has spent the last 20 years as a leader and advocate for innovative digital marketing technologies helping to reshape how marketers approach consumer engagement. He is an expert in in his field with a deep understanding of how data and technology can intersect to drive marketing outcomes. Nick has been an executive leader for businesses across the globe, leading high-performing teams and business units in many regions. He has held senior positions within large corporate businesses such as Twitter, Yahoo and innovative start-ups such as BrightRoll, Place Exchange.  Nick's career has taken him around the world living in Perth, Melbourne, San Francisco and New York before now settling in upstate, New York.

Debbi Calton

Debbi Calton-Roberts is a seasoned radio broadcaster who began her career at Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. She has worked all over the country. Her career includes thirty seven years on Philadelphia radio and she continues to do a weekly online radio show for OutsideFM.com which she writes, records and produces at home. She is an ongoing host for American Public Television/ PBS music shows. Debbi was also part of a Grammy Award winning project for ALL ABOUT BULLIES BIG AND SMALL. Debbi now lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband Chip Roberts, a musician, and they have an adult son. Debbi has a stained glass studio at home and is also on the Albert B. Roberts Foundation Board. Debbi hopes that her involvement with Perfect Ten will allow her to leave a mark on young women to believe in themselves and to never settle for less 

Krisiti Sangster

Kristi Sangster was born in Ithaca, New York, to Canadian parents. She lived in New York until age three and then moved to Canada with her family where she was raised and educated. She completed her Bachelor of Arts at Saint Mary’s University followed by the French immersion program at L’Universite´ Sainte-Anne.  Several years later, she moved to Chonju, South Korea where she taught ESL to students ranging in age from 5 to 65 years of age. She returned to Nova Scotia and received her Bachelor of Design and Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University. In 2004, Kristi left Canada once again and moved to New York City where she spent a decade working in product design. She relocated to Hudson in 2014. As a full time resident of Hudson, she has been involved in the Hudson art community participating in several exhibitions at Circle 46 Gallery and TSL. She also volunteers for Precious Pounds Pet Rescue, an organization based out of New York and Georgia that rescues animals from high intake shelters. 

Jackie Salvatore

Jackie is a life-long Columbia County resident and a proud graduate of Hudson High School. She attended Columbia-Greene Community College and earned an Associate’s Degree in Biblical Studies from Vision Christian Bible College & Seminary. Jackie worked for NYS for 33 years, starting at the NYS Crime Victims Board, OMRDD, now Office for Persons with Developmental Differences and the Development Disabilities Planning Council, where wages were negotiated for persons providing direct care. Jackie served 28 years as a New York State Trooper where she held the titles of Trooper, Investigator, Regional Coordinator and retired as a Senior Investigator and the Director/Detail Commander of the NYS Police Employee Assistance Program. Jackie spent more than 20 years building and managing a family contracting business. She started a career in Aviation with DGS in 2016 as a Ramp Agent and after a promotion to Supervisor, was once again promoted, in 2018, to Station Manager and oversaw full handling of Operations for United Airlines at Albany Airport. She left the Aviation Industry in 2019 to accept a position as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency. On January 1, 2022, she became the first female and person of color to assume the position of Undersheriff in Columbia County.

Kendall Turner

Kendall is the Director of the Fund for Alternative Journalism and a professor with the Bard Prison Initiative, where she teaches classes on constitutional law to people earning their college degrees in prison. She also writes about gender and the law for various publications, including The Stranger. Kendall previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and then-Chief Judge Merrick Garland, taught at Stanford Law School and the University of Washington, and argued successfully before the Supreme Court as well as other federal and state courts. In her practice, she focused on free speech, reproductive rights, and criminal justice litigation. Kendall is a graduate of Princeton and Stanford Law School, and she was recognized by Forbes 30 under 30 for her work in law.

Frances Grace

Frances Grace was raised in Charlottesville, Virginia and Charleston, West Virginia but spent all her summers in New England to appease her Mainer mother. Passionate about the arts, theatre and gardening from a young age, Frances has always walked a creative, non-conformist path. Educated at a Friends high school in Virginia and then at Colorado College, she studied Religion and Gender Studies, volunteered with Planned Parenthood and for Obama’s 2008 campaign, and spent extracurricular time skiing and recreating in the mountains, working on organic farms and studying yoga and meditation. After college, she completed multiple training programs in the healing arts and various yoga methods and worked in those fields, as well as volunteered with The Boys and Girls Club in Charlottesville teaching yoga to elementary school children. The majority of her professional career was spent in the events industry in Colorado where she ran a floral design and styling company, called Prema, from 2015-2021 designing for luxury weddings in the Rocky Mountains, as well as working as an editorial prop stylist. After closing her business and spending the past few years traveling and focusing on being a full-time mother, she moved to an historic farm in Copake in 2023 with her young son and partner. She is currently focused on transitioning the entire property to organic farming methods, selling cut flowers and creating a range of botanical distillates and other products, but most of all just enjoying connecting with the land and community of the Hudson Valley.

Liz Novine

Elizabeth Novine retired after 20  years as a school counselor within the Hudson NY school district, a Title 9 school with 100% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. She has extensive experience across all grade levels, working for eight years in grades 2-8, eight years at the high school and three years in middle school. She excelled working with high school students particularly in the area of career counseling and specialized in finding financial avenues for first generation college students to access resources for higher education. She values creating relationships with children of all ages, especially children coming from families with little experience in higher education pursuits. Elizabeth excelled in network building with all the stakeholders needed to support each students’ individual post graduation plan. She takes every child's case individually, creating relationships not only with the child but also with school and career opportunities. Many of her greatest successes were with those students in temporary or unstable housing. Liz has a masters degree in education with a concentration in school counseling from St Rose in Albany, NY.