Leadership and Public Engagement

John R. Koelmel has served as Chairman of the NY Power Authority since June 2012, when he was nominated as a Trustee by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. He became a Board of Director when the NYS Canal Corporation became a subsidiary of the Power Authority in 2017.

Mr. Koelmel is currently an advisor for and investor in several early-stage businesses based in Western New York. He previously served as President of HARBORCENTER, LLC, and as President and Chief Executive Officer of First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. including its principal subsidiary, First Niagara Bank N.A.

He began his professional career with KPMG LLP in 1974 and was managing partner of KPMG's Buffalo office and Upstate New York Business Unit. Mr. Koelmel earned a B.A. degree in economics and accounting from The College of the Holy Cross in 1974. He has also assumed numerous and varied leadership roles in the Buffalo and Western New York community throughout his career.

Dennis G. Trainor is Vice President of CWA District 1.

Dennis Trainor was unanimously elected Vice President of CWA District One in June, 2015. His election to the CWA's top regional position capped a career dedicated to advancing the rights of working people. As regional Vice President, he leads 140,000 workers in telecommunications, public sector, media and broadcast, health care, airlines and manufacturing across New York, New Jersey and New England.

In April and May of 2016, Dennis led the successful 49-day strike of 40,000 Verizon workers up and down the East Coast, the largest strike in the country for the last five years. He also played a critical role in resolving the 17-week long IUE-CWA strike against Momentive Performance Materials in Waterford, NY in the winter of 2016-2017, including negotiating a back-to-work agreement that returned all the strikers to their jobs.

Prior to his election as Vice President, Dennis had served for ten years as Assistant to the Vice President of District One. In that role, Dennis had primary responsibility for collective bargaining throughout the region, which involved hundreds of collective bargaining agreements covering all members in District One. He served as the Verizon Regional Bargaining Chair for the 2008 and 2011 bargaining. He also chaired the AT&T East bargaining for the last five contracts and negotiated a new agreement with Frontier Communications when it purchased AT&T East.

Dennis was appointed the Downstate New York and Connecticut Area Director for CWA during bargaining with Verizon in 2003. As Area Director, Dennis supervised all of the CWA staff assigned to Local Unions in downstate New York and Connecticut and co-chaired the 2003 Verizon Regional Bargaining with the then Assistant to the Vice President Chris Shelton.

Dennis went to work for the New York Telephone Company in 1969 as a splicer's helper. He started his union career during the seven-month long strike against New York Telephone in 1971 when he was elected shop steward in CWA Local 1101. He was elected chief steward in 1975 and represented the Bronx Construction Department in NY Tel. He held that position for eleven years until he took over the chief steward's position in the Empire City Subway Company. He negotiated break out wages for many of the crafts in Empire City Subway during bargaining in 1991 and 1994.

Dennis lives with his wife Kathy in Holbrook, NY. He has three married sons, Dennis, Jr., Greg and Brian and three daughters-in-law – Dina, Jill and Kate and six grandchildren – Jesse, Henry, Julian, Scarlett, Graham and Lucy.

Cecily LaVigne Morris retired as a New York State Family Court Judge and Acting Supreme Court Justice in December 2021. Judge Morris began working in the New York State Unified Court System in 1989, beginning as a law clerk and court attorney for the Hon. David S. Nelson. After Judge Nelson retired, she continued in the UCS, and was elected Family Court Judge, serving from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2021. As an Acting Supreme Court Justice, Judge Morris, in part, presided over the Integrated Domestic Violence Court Part and the Youth Part of New York State Supreme Court.

Judge Morris is the current Chair of the New York State Economic Development Power Allocation Board and member of the New York State Bar Association and the St. Lawrence County Bar Association.

Judge Morris has lived most of her life in St. Lawrence County, primarily in Massena, and earned her undergraduate B.A. degree in history at LeMoyne College in Syracuse in 1980, and her J.D. degree at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia in 1983.

Laurie Wheelock, Esq. is the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Public Utility Law Project. She began her career working for the New York Public Interest Research Group, where she fought for the rights of consumers across the state.

Wheelock went on to work for three different members of the New York State Assembly in both Albany and New York City, focusing on a wide variety of issue areas, including legislation to promote affordable housing, public access to insurance, nonprofit reform, and environmental protection.

Wheelock received her bachelor's degree in political science from Binghamton University and received her Juris Doctorate and Masters in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School.