Seven Leaders in Business and Industry Appointed to Bay Path University Board of Trustees

Seven new members have been elected to the Bay Path University Board of Trustees. Kirk Arnold, technology executive; Lamont Clemons, Senior Vice President, Proton Energy and Executive Vice President, S-Cel-O Painting; Laura Grondin, President and CEO of Virginia Industries, Inc.; Andrea Hill-Cataldo, founder and president of Johnson & Hill Staffing;  Stefano Martini, Chief Information Officer for MassMutual Financial Group; Wayne Webster, Vice President of Commercial Lending for Westfield Bank; and Michelle Wirth, owner, Mercedes-Benz of Springfield, will each serve a three-year term.

Kirk E. Arnold

Kirk Arnold is a CEO, advisor, board member, and teacher with a demonstrated history of leadership in the technology industry. She is an Executive-in-Residence at General Catalyst Ventures, an independent member of the board of Ingersoll Rand, serves on the board of Cylance and a former board member of EnerNOC. She also serves on the board of trustees and the executive committee of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council and is a member of the board of the UP Education Network. A lecturer for the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she began her career at IBM working her way up a ladder that would lead her eventually to become a founder and the Chief Executive Officer of NerveWire, Inc., a management consulting and system integration firm. Under her direction, that company grew from $1 million to $40 million in three years. Most recently, Arnold was the CEO of Data Intensity, a cloud-based data, applications, and analytics managed service provider. She has also served as an executive leader for Keane, Inc., Computer Sciences Corp, Avid, and Fidelity Investments.  

Profiled in a case study by the Harvard Business Review, Arnold was named to Bay Path University’s Women Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2004, its inaugural year, and inspired University graduates by giving the Commencement address in 2016, where she also received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. Arnold, a resident of Charlestown, Massachusetts, earned her BA in political science and government from Dartmouth College. 

Lamont Clemons

Lamont Clemons, a Springfield, Massachusetts native, is a business leader in the region. Clemons is the Senior Vice President of Commercial Energy Sales for Proton Energy Group, an Agawam-based company that brokers deals with energy suppliers to reduce commercial costs. He is also Executive Vice President of S-Cel-O Painting, his family’s 30-year-old business. In this position, Clemons was involved with the opening of MGM Springfield, where his company was contracted for painting on site. He has also held positions at  Dominion Power, Wachovia Securities, Capital One and American Express. He is president of the Springfield Rotary Club, and has served as president of the McKnight Neighborhood Council, and assistant treasurer of the Greater Springfield YMCA. Clemons is credited with launching programs at the Dunbar Community Center, including one that teaches teens essential financial and business skills. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, MBA in Finance, and an MS in Project Management. 

Laura Grondin

Laura Grondin is President and CEO of Virginia Industries, Inc., a privately-held industrial products company operating manufacturing and distribution facilities in the US and China. Grondin currently serves on the Board of the American Foundry Society, YaleWomen, Inc., and  The Committee of 200 (C200), an invitation-only group of the world’s top female entrepreneurs and C-Suite executives who work to foster, celebrate, and advance women’s leadership in business. Grondin earned her bachelor of arts degree at Yale University and is a resident of West Hartford, Connecticut.     

Andrea Hill-Cataldo

Andrea Hill-Cataldo is the new Chair of the Bay Path University Advisory Council.  She is the founder and president of Johnson & Hill Staffing Services, Inc. a woman-owned staffing company with offices in West Springfield and Northampton that service Western Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Isenberg School of Management, where she earned her bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in marketing and a minor in economics. She is a longtime resident of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband and son. Hill-Cataldo volunteers her time to local organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters, St. Mary’s Academy in Longmeadow, and Girls, Inc. among others.

Stefano Martini

Stefano Martini is currently serving as Chief Information Officer for MassMutual Financial Group in Springfield, Massachusetts. Martini has been with MassMutual since 1996, where he first worked as an IT Project Manager, subsequently holding other positions such as Director, IT Department Head, and Senior Vice President, Technology. Martini is also Director of the Society of Grownups,(a MassMutual start-up in Brookline, MA); and CEO of Buy Time LLC. He earned his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, and his BS in Information Technology and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Martini lives in Suffield, Connecticut.

Wayne Webster

A banking and financial services executive with over 22 years experience, Wayne Webster is Vice President, Commercial Lending, for Westfield Bank in Westfield, Massachusetts, a position he has held since 2009. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Horace Smith Fund in Springfield, Massachusetts, an organization helping deserving students in Hampden County cover the cost of post-secondary education. Webster earned his bachelor of arts degree in English literature from the University of Hartford and was past president of the alumni board. He is a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and two children.  

Michelle Wirth

Owner of Mercedes-Benz of Springfield, Massachusetts, Michelle Wirth is an expert in integrated marketing communications, agency management, media relations, project management, strategic planning, and event planning and execution. She opened Mercedes-Benz of Springfield in the fall of 2017 with her husband, Peter. Her tenure with Mercedes-Benz dates back to 2000, where she began as an engineering associate in Montvale, New Jersey, after earning her BS in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University. Wirth also was an automotive industry advisor and consultant to the global sales and marketing teams on the automotive industry go to market strategy at Quantcast, serving as Strategic Brand Partner and Head of Industry – Automotive. Wirth delivered Bay Path University’s 2017 Innovative Thinking and Entrepreneurship Lecture. She lives in Leeds, Massachusetts with her husband and four children.