Governor appoints new CRMC Council members

May 19, 2011, PROVIDENCE – Governor Lincoln D. Chafee has appointed five new members to the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). The terms of these new Council members will expire in 2014 and 2015. The appointments were confirmed on Wednesday.

Member Tony Affigne, M.P.A., A.M., Ph.D., of Providence is a political science professor at Providence College and a visiting professor of ethnic studies at Brown University. Affigne previously served on public commissions for school desegregation in Providence, K-12 special education, municipal zoning, neighborhood economic development, and affordable housing. He was chair of the City of Providence’s advisory committee to the federal Community Development Block Grant program and served as a member of Lt. Governor Richard Licht’s Hispanic Advisory Council, the first such group in Rhode Island. He has been executive board member and vice president for the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee, and was previously a member of the Puerto Rican Political Action Committee. As an administrator for Rhode Island College’s Urban Educational Center, between 1981 and 1986, Affigne developed the state’s first computer learning system center for adult students, the Reading and Writing Skills Center at UEC. More recently, he has been PC’s Political Science Deparment chair and was founding director of its program in Black Studies. At Brown, he teaches the university’s first and still the state’s only seminar on Latino Politics in the U.S.

Member Guillaume de Ramel of Newport is an investor and trustee of The de Ramel Foundation, a Rhode Island-based, private foundation that supports environmental, educational, community and health initiatives. De Ramel is also director of F.H. Prince & Co., LLC, a private, family holding company established in Boston in 1885. A graduate of Hobart and William Smith Colleges with a BA in architectural studies, and a graduate of Columbia University with a MS in real estate development, de Ramel was also COO of Arnold Construction from 2006 to 2009; founder of Air Newport, LLP, an air charter service out of Newport State Airport; and a real estate analyst from 2002 to 2003 for Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, LP, a commercial real estate capital intermediary in New York City.  He was a 2006 candidate for RI Secretary of State, and has also been involved with Rhode Island Hospital, Normal Prince Neurosciences Institute as a steering committee member. De Ramel was also formerly a board member of the MLK Community Center in Newport and chairman of the Newport Hospital Wellness Fund for Youth.

Member Michael Hudner of Little Compton has been co-founder, chairman and CEO of the B+H Shipping Group, an international ship-owning firm, since 1978. A Swansea, Massachusetts native, Hudner is a graduate of Harvard College and received his J.D. from New York Law School. He is a member of the Little Compton Harbor Commission, a director of Phoenix House of New England, a trustee of the Mystic Seaport Museum, a member of the Roger Williams University School of Law Advisory Committee, and a director emeritus of Grow Smart Rhode Island. Hudner has previously served as director and president of Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education (RISE), and is an overseer and former trustee of the Sea Education Association, a nonprofit education organization that offers a hands-on experience in ocean and nautical science to college and high school students through semesters at sea. He is also a former trustee of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, and a former trustee of the Boys’ Club of New York. In 2004, Hudner endowed the operation of a fisheries research vessel, the Hope F. Hudner, at the University of Rhode Island.

Member Anne Maxwell Livingston of Jamestown has been the chair of the Jamestown Democratic Town Committee since 2010. She was also a candidate for Jamestown Town Council in 1997 and the School Committee in 2001. Maxwell Livingston served as a member of the Jamestown Tax Assessment Board of Review from 1993 to 2011, serving as chair from 1998 to 2011. A Connecticut College graduate, with a BA in Government, and a Boston College Law School graduate with an LLB, she has also worked for State Mutual Life Assurance Company; Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank, as vice president of the legal department; Old Stone Bank, where she worked as counsel; and Morneau & Murphy. She has also worked as tax preparer for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program since 1998, and for H & R Block as a tax professional since 2003. Maxwell Livingston has also served as a board member for the Girl Scouts of Rhode Island; and the International Institute of Rhode Island, Providence Children’s Museum (where she is still a board member), and Island Moving Company, all three of which she served as president as well. She was founder and treasurer of the Jamestown Education Foundation from 2004 to 2010, and has been treasurer for the Newport Performing Arts Center since 2004 and treasurer of the Jamestown Arts Center since 2009.

In addition to the new appointments, the governor also re-appointed Council member Raymond C. Coia, Esq. of Cranston, an attorney at the practice of Coia & Lepore Ltd., Attorneys at Law in Providence, and a tri-fund coordinator for New England Laborers’ Tri-Funds, which manages three labor management trusts. Coia has served as a member of the CRMC Council since 2002.

Two other CRMC members, Vice Chairman Paul E. Lemont and Bruce Dawson, have terms that will expire in January 2012. Members Don Gomez and David Abedon have terms that will expire in January 2013. The appointments will bring the Council membership to 10.

“These five talented, experienced Rhode Islanders will bring a great deal of positive energy, experience, and skill to this important Board,” Governor Lincoln D. Chafee said in a statement. “I recognize the significant role the CRMC plays in the environmental and economic life of the Ocean State, and I am confident that these new additions will work with the rest of the Board to address the challenges and opportunities surrounding the Rhode Island coastline – which is one of our state’s greatest and most treasured assets.”