NEWCASTLE — The Frances Perkins Center announces the addition of two new members to its Board of Directors in 2021: Carl R. Nold of Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Keith Mestrich of Washington, D.C.
Board Chair Sarah Peskin states, “We’re thrilled that two such distinguished leaders have agreed to share their deep experience in their respective fields with the Frances Perkins Center.”
Mestrich has recently retired as president and CEO of Amalgamated Bank, America’s largest socially responsible financial institution holding over $6 billion in assets and nearly $45 billion in custody and investment assets under management. Appointed CEO in June 2014, Mestrich brings three decades of executive leadership experience in the financial sector, along with expertise in core constituencies including labor, nonprofits, political organizations, and foundations. An accomplished author and speaker, Mestrich co-authored “Organized Money,” and is regularly featured as a commentator in the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and American Banker. In addition to the Frances Perkins Center, Mestrich serves on numerous nonprofit boards including the Roosevelt Institute, the Mayor’s Fund for New York City, the Democracy Alliance, DC-based Martha’s Table, and the New York Department of Financial Services State Charter Advisory Board. He is also a founding member of the Aspen Institute’s Finance Fellowship and an active participant in the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Nold is nationally recognized as a leader for not-for-profit cultural organizations. Nold has served as chairman of the American Alliance of Museums, America’s national museum association; chairman, Midwest Association of Museums; vice-chairman, Virginia Association of Museums; secretary, Michigan Museums Association; and ex-officio chairman of ICOM-US, the US branch of the International Council of Museums. He is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society, a life member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and served for 17 years as a member of the grant-making board for the George B. Henderson Foundation. Nold led Historic New England, the oldest and largest regional preservation organization in the U.S. as President and Chief Executive Officer for 17 years. His responsibilities included operation of 37 historic sites in five New England states and a program office in Vermont, oversight of preservation easements for 114 privately-owned historic properties, a 1.2 million item library and archives, and the largest collections of New England fine and decorative arts anywhere. Under his leadership the organization saw 14 years of continuous growth in attendance and membership, both to record levels, and raised $90 million for operations and endowment. In accepting his board nomination to the Frances Perkins Center, Nold commented, “At this time when we all need to rethink how our nation approaches social justice, serving on the board lets me help bring attention to how Frances Perkins created programs that continue to provide essential support to Americans at all stages of their life and across all communities.”
Executive Michael Chaney looks forward to working with these two new Center board members, “Each leader provides areas of expertise needed to help guide the Center into its next decade as owners and stewards of the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark. Their board participation brings critical scholarship and financial acumen for managing historic properties of national significance, historical and public programming development, and capacity building necessary to support our growing organization and to continue fulfilling the Center’s mission and vision moving forward.”
Frances Perkins (1880-1965), the first woman to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet, was Secretary of Labor (1933-1945) for the entire tenure of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Perkins was the driving force behind many of the groundbreaking New Deal programs that are still the foundation of the American social safety net — Social Security, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour work week, and the minimum wage. Born in Boston, educated in the public schools of Worcester, and a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, she spent summers throughout her life at her ancestral family homestead in Newcastle, Maine, now a National Historic Landmark owned by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Frances Perkins Center.
The Frances Perkins Center is dedicated to honoring and preserving the legacy of the woman behind the New Deal by continuing Frances Perkins’ work for social justice and economic security and by preserving for future generations her nationally significant family homestead in Newcastle, Maine.
To learn more about the Frances Perkins Center, contact mchaney@francesperkinscenter.org, call 207-563-3374 or visit www.FrancesPerkinsCenter.or.