NAMES AND FACES - October 2007

David Bouchard, Dennis Kinnan and Ernest Loomis.

Ernest Loomis, state chairman of the New Hampshire Employer Support to the Guard and Reserve presented the Patriot Award from the Department of Defense to Dennis Kinnan, manager at the state Department of Corrections as a "Patriotic Employer, for contributing to National Security and protecting liberty and freedom by supporting employee participation in America's National Guard and Reserve Force."

Kinnan is the manager of 1st Sgt. David Bouchard of the 157th Security Forces Squadron, New Hampshire Air National Guard;

The N.H. Department of Corrections has been the recipient of many of these awards as well as the "Above and Beyond" award, "Seven Seals Award" and the very prestigious "Pro Patria" award. The state agency has more than 50 employees who serve in America's Reserve Forces, many of whom remain deployed in harm's way.

The mission of ESGR, is to gain and maintain the support of all public and private employers for the men women of the National Guard and Reserve as defined by demonstrated employer commitment to employee military service.

Paula M. Parrish has joined Bancnorth Investment Group, Inc. as a financial advisor based in Plaistow, N.H. She provides comprehensive, professional investment advisory services such as retirement planning, college planning, brokerage, and insurance services to individuals, families and small businesses throughout southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts.

Parrish has more than 18 years of experience in financial planning, banking and investments. Her office is located in the TD Banknorth branch at 47 Plaistow Road (Route 125) in Plaistow.

A Greenland resident, Parrish serves as business administrator for the Recreation Committee in Greenland. She received a Master's of Finance degree in 1996 from Suffolk University in Boston. A native of Framingham, Mass., Parrish is a 1993 graduate of Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, N.H.

Bancnorth Investment Group, Inc., is a registered broker/dealer and affiliate of PrimeVest Financial Services, Inc., one of the nation's largest third-party marketers of financial products and services for nearly 600 financial institutions. Through a networking arrangement with TD Banknorth, N.A., Bancnorth Investment Group, Inc., offers securities and insurance products throughout the branch office locations of TD Banknorth, N.A.

The New Hampshire Public Health Association (NHPHA) has named Marilyn Duffy, RN, MPH, of Pembroke as president of its volunteer board of directors.

Duffy, who is a nurse disease management administrator at Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in New Hampshire, champions a number of public health issues and has served as an NHPHA board member since 2005.

As she takes the helm of the NHPHA, Duffy views her role as essential in establishing the ground work to make the organization fiscally sustainable by the year 2010, building relationships between NHPHA and state coalitions to aligning and coordinate policies, and partnering with area interest groups to create and implement interventions to meet mutual health goals based on the New Hampshire state health indices.

Duffy is an 11-year associate at Anthem and holds Masters' Degrees in both Nursing and Public Health from the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Later this summer, she will also complete a Masters in Business Administration at Franklin Pierce College in Concord.

Sharon Foley, holistic practitioner, has just opened her new office at Pine Brook Business Suites, 37 Route 236, Suite 110, Kittery, Maine. Foley recently moved to Kittery from Massachusetts, where she had practice space at Spirit of Joy in Beverly. She is an Usui Reiki master teacher and a Shamballa master teacher. She studied polarity therapy at Spa Tech Institute's Ipswich, Mass., campus, reflexology at Muscular Therapy Institute (MTI) in Cambridge, Mass., and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with Mindbridge Training.

Besides individual sessions, Foley conducts group sessions on healing arts, visioning and stress reduction, and teaches classes in Usui Reiki and Shamballa basic healing.

Gordon A. Simmons, president/CEO of Service Credit Union, in Portsmouth, has been elected chairman of the Defense Credit Union Council for the 2007-2008 term. He previously served as chairman from 2000-2002.

Simmons was elected to the DCUC board as representative-at-large in 1995. He served as second vice chairman from 1996 to 1998, and as first vice chairman for the 1998-1999 terms and again from 2006-2007.

Simmons has more than 36 years' experience with credit unions, 33 years with Service Credit Union, a prominent military and civilian credit union.

Throughout his career, he has focused on the financial well-being and education of the credit union's worldwide membership, and has developed programs to aid members and their families during periods of deployment or other transitions.

Service Credit Union serves more than 100,000 members located in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, throughout the rest of the United States and around the world, including members stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Far East.

Simmons holds a bachelor's in business from the University of Maryland and a master's in business in quantitative analysis from the University of Utah.

In addition to his involvement with the Defense Credit Union Council, Simmons is also a board member of the Armed Forces Financial Network, the New Hampshire Credit Union League, and the current chairman of America's Credit Union Museum.

The Defense Credit Union Council Inc. is an organization of 255 credit unions and more than 14 million members. Membership in the council is restricted to those credit unions whose field of membership includes a well-defined segment of the military and/or civilian personnel of the U.S. defense establishment.

AARP New Hampshire recently announced the appointment of Ally McNair to the position of state president.

In this volunteer role, McNair will oversee the work of the organization's New Hampshire Executive Council, collaborate with state leadership to ensure the achievement of AARP's strategic goals, serve as spokesperson, and continue to build partnerships with leaders in business, government and nonprofits.

McNair brings an extensive record of achievement to her new role as AARP New Hampshire state president. A television personality, she has served as anchor, host, producer and reporter at New Hampshire Public Television's New Hampshire Outlook and New Hampshire Roundtable.

She was also a freelance news reporter at WMUR; reporter and producer for Healthline, and co-host of Granite State Challenge.

During the 2002 New Hampshire senatorial and congressional campaigns, McNair moderated the candidate debates that aired on New Hampshire Public Television, New England Cable News and C-Span. Throughout her years of work in television, she has had the opportunity to speak with people from all over New Hampshire and find out what issues were most important to them as individuals and the state of New Hampshire as a whole.

In addition, McNair has earned a variety of awards from The Associated Press, New Hampshire Association of Broadcasters, three New England Emmy nominations and the Emily Cluett Award for Outstanding Courage and Fortitude.

McNair is a graduate of the University of Vermont. She and her husband live in Bedford.