About the Business, Aviation and Construction Professions Faculty
Full-Time Faculty
Michael Araujo is an associate professor in the Business, Aviation and Construction Professions department. He comes to DCC with more than 15 years of full-time college teaching experience in finance, accounting, business and economics. He has an MBA with a concentration in finance from Providence College, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from Suffolk University in Boston, a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning from Boston University and some doctoral work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Professor Araujo has been teaching since 1994. Most recently, he was the academic director and associate professor of finance at the University of Maryland, University College, or UMUC. Previously, he was a professor for more than 10 years at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he also served as department coordinator from 2006 to 2008. During his time as coordinator, he pioneered the business transfer degree program to become one of the college’s first fully available online programs; co-created an Entrepreneurship Start-up certificate program for licensed tradespeople who wish to build a business around their skill; and created the Accounting/Finance Assistant Certificate program, which quickly became one of the most popular retraining programs for local workers on unemployment assistance. He also was a full-time instructor at a for-profit business college in Boston where he taught various business courses and coordinated the internship program for business students. He had the privilege of teaching part time at a number of other colleges including Worcester State University, Nichols College, Curry College, Fisher College and Massachusetts Communications College. Prior to teaching full time, he was the director of administration and finance for the Extension Division at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Before Araujo’s career in higher education, he worked in various capacities in the finance field. He was trained as a financial planner and worked as a retirement plans specialist. He also spent six years working in the investments field as an investment/trade representative for State Street, where his clients included Fidelity Investments (stock and bond portfolios) and Goldman Sachs (money market funds).
A native New Englander, Professor Araujo maintains loyalty to Red Sox Nation as well as the Bruins. While living there, he had the pleasure of serving as an elected official on the Town of Hubbardston’s Finance Committee in 2009-2010. He has two great boys (ages 8 and 12) and enjoys baseball, hockey, comedy and being an armchair political economist!
Maureen Peters Gittelman has a background in marketing and not-for-profit management and began teaching at DCC in Fall 2015. Prior to becoming a full-time faculty member she served in a variety of roles that have encompassed marketing and social media, strategic planning, leadership development, workshop facilitation, fundraising, sponsorship, board engagement and staff development. In addition to consulting practice, her professional experience includes serving as Deputy Director of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center, executive-level fundraising and management positions at the Westchester Medical Center, NLN Foundation for Nursing Education and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Maureen received her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business. Additionally, she received a Certificate in Personal Leadership from the Institute for Personal Leadership and the Columbia Business School.
Irene M. Hughes has a background in management and marketing and began teaching in August of 2005 at Mount Saint Mary College. Her first course, an introduction to management, ran accelerated in the continuing education program. Within her first year of teaching, she had expanded into marketing and international marketing, both in the accelerated, blended/online format, and in the traditional day program. Prior to teaching, Ms. Hughes managed office operations for a small dental office. She spent two years working with various agents at New York Life Insurance Company to increase sales and awareness of insurance and investment products. For three years, she worked in sports management and marketing at Ice Time Sports Complex, promoting and selling ice time, youth and adult hockey programs and preparing promotional activities for various public skate events. She continues to oversee managerial operation for the dental office in Newburgh, focusing largely on strategic planning and control, and also takes an active role in marketing and strategic planning for her husband’s landscape business.
Ahmed Ismail joined DCC Department of Business in Fall 2014 as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Accounting. He comes to us with over twenty years of full-time college teaching experience in accounting, business, finance, and economics. At DCC, he teaches Introduction to Financial Accounting and Introduction to Managerial Accounting. He is a CPA licensed by Virginia Board of Accountancy; his educational achievements include a Master of Science in Accounting (MSA) from Kent State University and an MBA with concentration in accounting from California State University Fresno.
Professor Ismail has been teaching full time since 1993. Before he joined DCC, he left a tenured position with Nunavut Arctic College, a two-year public college in Canada, where he taught Financial and Managerial Accounting and, to a lesser degree, other business and economics courses for the last thirteen years beginning fall 2001. Prior to that, he was a Lecturer of Accounting at the University of Fort Hare in Eastern Cape, South Africa for four and half years. At Fort Hare, he taught Advanced and Intermediate Financial Accounting at the Bachelor of Accountancy program, both at the main campus and evening extension campus, and Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting to the Executive MBA program. Before he joined Fort Hare, Professor Ismail held the position of Accounting Lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare for two and half years, where he taught Introduction to Managerial Accounting and Intermediate Financial Accounting. Finally, sometime between his tenure at Nunavut Arctic College and University of Fort Hare, in the spring of 2001, he taught at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada as an adjunct instructor and taught Introduction to Managerial Accounting and Intermediate Financial Accounting I. In all those institutions, besides teaching, Professor Ismail advised students, participated in institutional governance, curriculum development, and student recruitment and retention to varying degrees.
Before his academic career, Professor Ismail spent nine years in industry accounting, public accounting, public service, and primary school teaching. Learning and teaching turned out to be his favorite activities.
Joan McFadden is the Chair of the Business, Aviation and Construction Professions department. She was born in Brooklyn and lived in Riverdale, New York for several years before relocating to the Dutchess County area. She completed her undergraduate education and law school while working as a legal secretary and as a paralegal in several law offices in Dutchess County. After admission to the New York State Bar, Professor McFadden worked as an associate attorney practicing commercial litigation in Poughkeepsie, New York. She began teaching as an adjunct instructor in 2006 at Marist College and Dutchess Community College and then was hired as a full-time faculty member and chairperson of paralegal programs at Dutchess Community College in 2008.
Scott Willmen graduated from Gettysburg College with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management, an MBA from Auburn University and a DBA at the University of Sarasota Argosy. He not only ran his family’s resort business in Lake George but started his own business as well. Prior to coming to DCC, Willman taught a variety of business courses at Marist College.
Thomas Winship holds a BS from SUNY Empire and an MBA from St. Thomas Aquinas College. Prior to full-time teaching, he spent twenty years in the corporate world—primarily in the pharmaceutical industry—becoming an HR executive specializing in organizational development and communications, before opening a boutique consulting company. He started teaching college courses in 2008, covering a variety of undergrad and graduate subjects within Business, Communications, and English, and has been teaching online courses since 2010. From 2012-2014, he also served as MBA Director for a private college in southern NY.
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Part-time Faculty
Shane Egan, an attorney and lifelong resident of Dutchess County, earned his BA from Siena College and his JD from Albany Law School. Mr. Egan is an associate at the law firm of Cappillino & Rothschild, LLP practicing in the areas of municipal, business and elder law. Prior to entering private practice Mr. Egan worked as a staff attorney for the New York Power Authority (NYPA). He has taught courses in both business law and government at Dutchess Community College.
Michael Jandrew joined the US Air Force and served as a flight mechanic for four years active duty and six in the Air National Guard after graduating from DCC in 1994. Upon returning from service, Michael graduated SUNY New Paltz in 1999 with a BS in marketing. He worked as project manager at IBM while completing an MBA in management at SUNY New Paltz. Michael has also worked as a pharmaceutical representative, a consultant, and a real estate developer before pursuing a career in education. He has been teaching for ten years as a lecturer at DCC, Marist College, and SUNY New Paltz.
Kenneth E. Nebel earned a BA in economics and a BS in mechanical engineering from Tufts University. From there, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School. After six years as an officer in the US Navy, he worked for International Paper, BOC Group Business Development, and was a business consultant for 22 years. He has taught classes at Houston Community College, Mount Saint Mary College and Marist College.
Karen Noye has been an adjunct professor at Dutchess Community College since 2005 and a business education teacher at Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York since 2002. Prior to entering the education field, she worked for IBM as a project manager in the IBM Global Services.
Jacqueline A. Olivet, born and raised in Ulster County, is a life-long resident of the Hudson Valley and currently resides with her spouse and their four dogs in Catskill. Since September 2000, Ms. Olivet has been an adjunct instructor in the Business Department. She is an attorney with 19 years of experience practicing law in New York. After starting her legal career as a staff attorney for the New York State Assembly, she entered private practice working for firms in both Ulster and Dutchess counties before opening her own general law office in Kingston handling real estate, business, family, matrimonial, bankruptcy, criminal, personal injury, and other areas of law.
In addition to her private practice, she served as a law guardian in Supreme and Family courts, as an assistant corporation counsel for the City of Kingston, and as an assistant district attorney for Ulster County.
Ms. Olivet, who holds a New York State permanent secondary education social studies teaching certificate, also has taught criminal justice, government, economics and history in secondary education.
Ms. Olivet’s current and past community involvement includes American Red Cross, the Kingston Classic and Kids Classic race, board member of the American Heart Association and Ulster County Council of Girl Scouts, candidate for the Ulster County Legislature, City of Kingston Greenway Committee, Law Exploring Post Associate Advisor and coach of Catskill High School mock trial team.
Ann D. Schwinger is the owner/manager of I & I CPA TAX SERVICES, P.C. The company is located in Poughkeepsie, NY and has three additional employees that provide support and professional expertise. The company provides services to the public in bookkeeping, payroll, tax planning and corporate and individual tax preparation.
Ann is a CPA, licensed by New York Board of Accountancy and a CFP® licensed by the CFP® Board of Standards. She has 20 years of public accounting experience. She has previously held licenses in insurance, Series 6, and the firm was a registered investment advisor.
Her educational achievements include a Master of Science in Accounting (MSA) from SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome, Bachelors of Science with a concentration in accounting from Marist College, and an A.A.S. in Business/Accounting from Dutchess Community College.
She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, NYS Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Association of University Women.
Paula Shelley has a BA from Marymount College, an MS from Western Connecticut State University, and a Paralegal Certificate from DCC. After teaching high school English for four years, she left to run a successful business and then decided to return to academic life. In addition to being an adjunct faculty member at DCC, she also teaches at Ulster Community College and Marlboro’s Adult Education program.
Kyle A. Steller is a Dutchess County native. She earned a BA in Economics and English and an MBA in Human Resources/Information Systems from the University at Albany, and a JD from Western New England University. She completed her MBA field project at the Human Resources Department of Bausch & Lomb, in Rochester, New York, and advised small businesses at her law school Small Business Clinic/Center for Economic Development during her final year of law school. Since 2012, she has been a Staff Attorney at Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, and prior to that, worked as an attorney at Coffey & Coffey, LLP, in New York City. She is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In 2014, she was honored by the New York Law Journal as one of its '40 Under 40' Rising Stars.
Fred H. Van Tassell has taught part time in the DCC business department for 40 years. Previously, he has taught at Union College’s graduate program and in the economics department at Vassar College. Other responsibilities include: Mid-Hudson Library System Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Director, Peat Marwick Mitchell Staff Accountant in the auditing and income tax department, and Marist College full- and part-time instructor in the business department.
Susan Willhite, full-time teacher at Dutchess County BOCES, Career & Technical Institute (CTI), currently is teaching math, science, technology and integrated math in culinary, HVAC and plumbing trade programs. She also taught business classes, including accounting, at CTI from September 1991 to June 2005. During the summer and late fall of 2005, she taught Culinary Math as an adjunct at The Culinary Institute of America. She has been teaching at DCC since January 2006 but also taught business math for DCC in her class at CTI, where her students received three college credits.
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Emeritus Faculty
Erin Brennan graduated with a B.A. in English and French from King’s College and a J.D. from Villanova University School of Law. She has been a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania since 2001 and is a current candidate for admission to the New York State Bar. Prior to joining DCC, she served as a judicial law clerk in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Upon completion of her clerkships, she maintained a full time legal practice focusing on civil litigation as a partner at Oliver, Price & Rhodes, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. After ten years of teaching as an adjunct in various undergraduate and graduate programs at King’s College, Wilkes University, Marywood University, and Penn State – Wilkes-Barre, Professor Brennan became full-time faculty at DCC in 2016. She teaches Business Law as well as courses in the paralegal program and she serves as the faculty advisor for Alpha Beta Gamma.
John F. Falabella was born and raised in New York City where he attended elementary school, high school and began his college career before moving to southern Illinois to complete a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. After completing two years of full-time teaching at Southern Illinois University and a number of years of business experience, he returned to New York to join the faculty at Dutchess Community College. While living in the local community for more than 30 years, Professor Falabella and his wife have raised a family of three very successful sons, and he has been active in a variety of school, town and community affairs and organizations.
Carolyn C. Lampack taught at Krissler Business Institute, Poughkeepsie, and The Wood School, New York, New York, before coming to Dutchess.
Maryann Longhi has been working full time at Dutchess Community College since 1985, teaching both at the main campus and originally at Green Haven Correctional Facility. She was a sales manager for a recruiting firm for six years previous to that and a high school business teacher. She has lived in the Hudson Valley for 36 years. She enjoys teaching all the computer classes the college has to offer, and her specialty is business communications.
Deborah Most has taught full-time at DCC from 1982 to 2013. She was Accounting Program Chair from 1987-2008 and Adjunct Supervisor for high school accounting courses.
Yvonne K. Sewell, as a former graduate of Dutchess Community College, finds it interesting to be teaching in the same rooms she once occupied as a student. She left Dutchess with a degree in Retail Business Management and was able to pursue a career in merchandise-buying both locally and in New York City. When Professor Sewell returned to the area, she felt fortunate to have been invited to teach some business courses as an adjunct lecturer; that experience turned into a part-time job in the administrative offices on the campus and finally into a full-time teaching position in the Business Department.
William Harwood is a full-time professor of Business and Paralegal studies. He holds a BS from Bryant College and an M.ed from SUNY Buffalo.