Introducing Wheeler’s New Trustees

We are pleased to share that Ting Barnard P’27; Stacy Hurley P’32; Katie Keeffe P’31, P’32; Pamela O’Hara P’20, P’22, P’25; Jasmine Sykes-Kunk P’27; and Nick Wall ’03 have joined Wheeler’s Board of Trustees. Ms. Barnard, Ms. O’Hara, Ms. Sykes-Kunk, and Mr. Wall were each elected to three-year terms that began on July 1, while Ms. Hurley is an ex-officio member of the board through her role as co-president of the Wheeler Family Association.

Ting P. Barnard is the owner of Ting Barnard’s Studio LLC, a boutique marketing agency that connects individuals, organizations, and ideas to create something powerful and inspiring through communication and collaboration. She hosts unique events that raise awareness and inspire personal giving around missions and causes that align with her core values and beliefs in humanity.

Ms. Barnard’s work has been shaped by her own upbringing as a first-generation immigrant and refugee from Laos. As she shares, her family settled and found the American dream in Rhode Island. She attended public school in Providence and St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in Sociology.

Prior to starting her marketing business in 2015, Ting worked for a decade as a business development director and client relations manager at Deutsche Asset Management in Boston and Lehman Brothers in New York City.

In addition to being a Wheeler trustee, Ms. Barnard also serves on the boards of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School, Leadership Rhode Island, and the Papitto Opportunity Connection Foundation.

She lives on the East Side of Providence with her husband, Ian, and their daughter, Victory ’27.

“I am so honored and proud to be a parent, and now be part of Wheeler’s Board,” Ms. Barnard says. “Education and creativity are deeply intertwined, exposing young learners to broaden their perspectives to a variety of disciplines, cultures, and viewpoints. The Wheeler School fosters such creativity, collaboration, and compassion through an exemplary education model that couples a rigorous curriculum with strong partnerships within our state.

“It is with great privilege and enthusiasm that I participate as a board member who will encourage our next generation of leaders to stay innovative and resilient in how they approach their contribution to society as a whole.”

Stacy Hurley is counsel at Barton Gilman, LLP, where she concentrates her practice on medical liability defense, personal injury, premises liability, and employment law. Her employment experience includes assisting employers and nonprofit entities with general HR matters and navigating a variety of personnel issues.

Ms. Hurley grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina and attended Wake Forest University and Wake Forest University School of Law. She moved to Rhode Island after graduation from law school in 2006.

Ms. Hurley resides in Warwick with her husband, Ryan, and their children, Finn ’32 and Eloise. She has greatly enjoyed volunteering at school since joining the Wheeler and Hamilton community in the fall of 2020.

“I am incredibly honored and excited about serving on the Board of Trustees this year,” she shares. “I am committed to contributing my time and energy to help support and enrich the Wheeler experience for all students and their families. Additionally, I greatly look forward to collaborating with the other trustees to advance and amplify Wheeler’s mission, including a continued focus on accessibility and inclusion.”

Katie Lynch Keeffe is a member of Wheeler’s Advancement, Communications, and Enrollment Committee, as well as the Campaign Steering Committee. She is a graduate of Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Columbia College and a master’s degree in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Columbia’s Teachers College. Ms. Keeffe spent over a decade in college and graduate school admissions at both Columbia and Brown and has a passion for issues related to college access.

After having children, she transitioned her professional focus to non-profit and political fundraising. Ms. Keeffe served as president of the East Greenwich Education Foundation and chaired its Advancement Committee.

In addition to her volunteer involvement at Wheeler, she is a member of the Columbia University Athletics Women’s Leadership Council and the Columbia Women’s Swimming Advisory Board. She is currently enjoying her role as a swim coach at The Kent County YMCA, an organization that was influential in her own development as a young scholar-athlete.

Ms. Keeffe, her husband, David and their family joined the Wheeler and Hamilton community in the fall of 2020. They are the parents of David ’31 and Grace ’32, and they reside in East Greenwich.

“Joining the board is both an honor and an opportunity I feel so lucky to have been given,” she says. “Since the first day that our family visited Wheeler’s campus, it has felt like a place we belong, like it has for so many other families in this community. Wheeler is an incredible example of a school that fosters academic curiosity and excellence while holistically supporting students and meeting them where they are – my two children included. When a community does that so well for its students, all we can do as parents is to stand up to support and encourage the people who work so hard to make this happen. I’m so enthused to start working more closely with the leadership of this incredible community in a more intentional and impactful way.”

Pamela O’Hara founded and successfully ran Batchbook CRM, an online software development company providing small businesses with online tools for managing their sales and marketing operations. She also co-founded the Cloud Software Association, an international trade association of software manufacturers developed to create partnership and integration opportunities in the Software as a Service (SaaS) community.

She was featured as an Entrepreneur on Fire on John Lee Dumas’ podcast and named a Small Business Influencer Champion by “Small Business Trends,” and Ms. O’Hara has been invited to speak on topics such as woman-owned businesses, social media software, and work/life balance at programs and events including SXSWi, WomanCon, and the Small Business Summit.

In addition, she writes and speaks on the topics of mental health and parenting, and she was recently featured on the Manuscript Academy podcast to discuss the craft, business, and community of publishing.

Ms. O’Hara has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Richmond, and she is the mother to Molly ’20, Catie ’22 and Robert ’25. Her late husband, Geoff O’Hara ‘87, late father-in-law, Bob O’Hara, and mother-in-law, Joan Page O’Hara Erikson, filled her with a love and appreciation for the rich history of The Wheeler School campus, traditions, and people.

“I’m honored to be serving on the Board of Trustees at Wheeler during this pivotal time in the school’s development,” she shares. “My family has a collective 60 years of school attendance in addition to 36 years as faculty and administration. I figure it is my turn to help out the cause. I hope that I can bring a perspective that benefits from my family’s time in the classroom and at the farm, along with my own decades of cheering from the sidelines. I look forward to supporting this special institution as it continues to lead the way in individualized learning and dedication to inclusion.”

Jasmine Sykes-Kunk is the head of research services at the John Hay Library at Brown University. In this role, she leads a researcher-focused operation that fosters positive, informative, affirming, and welcoming interactions for the global community of students, scholars, and the public that visit the Hay Library.

Ms. Sykes-Kunk is a certified digital archives specialist, and she recently completed the Andrew W. Mellon Rare Book School Fellowship for Cultural Heritage. For the past four years, she has served on the jury for the American Library Association’s Spectrum Scholarship, which supports underrepresented students with mentorship and funding to assist with obtaining a graduate degree in Library Science. She has a master’s degree in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Local and Archival Studies from Pennsylvania West University Clarion and a bachelor’s degree in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her commitment to cultivating inclusive and welcoming spaces spans both her professional and personal realms. Ms. Sykes-Kunk currently serves on the Wheeler Diversity Committee as well as the Spence School Alumnae Diversity Committee. She and her family recently relocated to Providence from her hometown of Brooklyn, New York. She lives in Pawtucket with her husband, Trevor, and their two kids, Cyra ’27, and Oscar.

“I am honored and excited to join the Board of Trustees,” she says. “Wheeler has made great progress to build an inclusive learning space and I look forward to continuing that work by serving on the board and as co-chair of the Diversity Committee.”

Nick Wall is a managing director, chief operating officer, and head of investor relations at American Pacific Group, which is a lower-middle market private equity firm focused on making control buyout investments in the technology, consumer, business services, and industrial sectors. He joined the firm at its inception in 2019. Prior to American Pacific Group, Mr. Wall was a director in the Private Capital Advisory group at Lazard.

He started as a student at Wheeler in 7th grade and went on to serve on the school’s Disciplinary Committee and The Feinstein/Wheeler Philanthropy Board, and he was a writing fellow and co-captain of the Varsity Golf team. He also proudly received the Edith Erlenmeyer Award for Excellence in Foreign Language in his senior year. After graduating from Wheeler, Mr. Wall went to Brown University and concentrated in Political Science. During his freshman year at Brown, he started a tutoring business and coached more than 40 students in the following four years.

Mr. Wall’s community involvement has included serving on the Wheeler Leadership Council, Wheeler Alumni Board, The Gordon School Head’s Advisory Council, Breakthrough New York, Brown Annual Fund Young Leadership Council, Brown University Club in New York, BUILD California, and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity.

Since leaving Providence after Brown, he has lived in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and he currently resides in Miami Beach and spends summers in Rhode Island.

“Wheeler is a special place and I am honored to have been asked to join the Board of Trustees,” he shares. “It is an exciting time for our school and I am excited to get to work.”

Please join us in congratulating Wheeler’s newest trustees!