August 6, 2009 - ChaddsFordLive.com

Personnel changes addressed in Chadds Ford

Chadds Ford Supervisors, Wednesday night, began taking steps to address some personnel changes in the township.

With the departure of Maryann Furlong as township secretary and treasurer, the board made two temporary appointments. Judy Thorpe, wife of Supervisors’ Chairman George Thorpe, was appointed temporary secretary while Joe Barakat–the township manager, roadmaster and emergency management coordinator–was appointed temporary treasurer.

The board also announced that Paul Koch would go from alternate to full member on the Zoning Hearing Board. That change was necessitated because long time resident and active volunteer Ed Wandersee, who was the zoning board chairman, has moved out of Chadds Ford.

A new zoning board alternate will be named later. Barakat said anyone interested in the position should submit a resumé and letter of interest.

Other business

Supervisors passed a resolution thanking Delaware County Council for agreeing to contribute $55,000 to help operate the Brandywine Battlefield Park once the state ceases its operation of the site.

Barakat said the township is preparing a business plan for the park, located on Route 1 and Ring Road across the street from the township building. He said the township would like to get $150,000 from the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission even though PHMC members voted in June to cease funding the park.

Supervisor Garry Paul said the board gave the formal recognition to County Council because council members responded quickly and should be commended.

“The next biggie is Chester County,” Paul said.

He said the township is looking to get $55,000 from both Chester County and from the Chester County Visitors’ Bureau.

• The board approved a moon bounce request by PNC Bank for a planned grand reopening of the branch at Route 202 and Marshal Road. The event is planned for Aug. 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The board also approved a request for a temporary tent to be put up at Hannum Harley Davidson from Aug. 20-25.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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Furlong says so long to Chadds Ford

Local News

thorpe and furlong 25 — Furlong says so long to Chadds Ford

After seven years as township secretary, Maryann Furlong has resigned. Her last day was July 30. The township does intend to find a replacement, but there is no timetable, according to Supervisors’ Chairman George Thorpe.

According to Furlong, “It’s time for mom to take a break.”

She said the job came at a good time for her. It helped pay the bills getting her two children through middle school, high school an into college.

She has no immediate plans, but will continue to do the books for her husband’s business and she will remain as the tax collector for Chester Heights.

Close to two dozen people attended an impromptu party for Furlong at Turner’s Mill on her final day. Among them were residents, committee people and state rep. Stephen Barrar and two members of his staff.

Barrar referred to Furlong as a “great person, a lovely lady.”

Tracy Plunkett, one of Barrar’s aides, said to Furlong, “I’ve just been overwhelmed dealing with you on a personal and professional level. It’s been a privilege.

Thorpe said that all who have dealt with Furlong would miss her.

“I’m very unhappy and sad that we will be without you,” Thorpe said. “I know you’re happy, but you can’t please everybody, you have to please yourself. You’ve done a terrific job for us. Our community is much better off with you having been involved.”

Thorpe also asked Furlong not to change her cell phone number “just in case we have a problem. All of us will have a hard time getting along without you.”

Furlong called working for the township the past seven years “a tremendous experience.”

“I think we were able to change a number of things for the better, hopefully,” she said

Furlong said the township is now much more in the 21st century than it was when she became secretary in 2002.

“It may be coincidental with moving into this building, but things seem to just have just taken off,” she said. “There’s certainly a need for a bigger staff and a fulltime staff.”

She added it was a pleasure working for the township because the supervisors were always understanding of her needs when it came to her own family commitments.

She joked, saying she always e-mailed requests for time off to Thorpe because she knew it would be a month before he would read the e-mail. When he finally would, he’d call to ask what the e-mail was about and she’d reply, “It’s fine, George. Don’t worry about it.”

Furlong received a going away gift, a print of Paul Scarborough’s “Chadds Ford Days.” On the back will be affixed a paper with farewell comments from those who attended the party.

About Rich Schwartzman

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Chadds Ford native turns 100

Local News

Mary Beck has seen a lot in her life. And why not? That life has been going strong for 100 years.

Beck lives in the same Chadds Ford house on Ring Road where she was born Aug. 1, 1909. She recalls things about Chadds Ford that most residents have only heard about.

“But I don’t think I’m very interesting. I didn’t do very much,” she said four days after celebrating her 100th birthday.

Yet, at least by extension, she’s been deeply involved in Chadds Ford history. Her father, she said, was the person who, in the 1920s, lent money to a German immigrant named Karl Kuerner so he could buy a now very famous farm on Ring Road. Her father also worked on the farm for a while.

Beck also remembers a time when her mother was ill and the man who made the farm famous, Andy Wyeth, came by with his wife Betsy, to see if there was anything they could do to help.

“He was a wonderful man,” Beck said.

She also knew Chris Sanderson and Sister Archie.

Much has been said in recent years about Chadds Ford being a rural township, but Beck was in the township when it really was. While cars were in the area, she recalls when the main mode of transportation along Route 1 was still horse and wagon and how the sound of the hooves and wagon wheels would change when moving from the old cindered cartway to a new concrete surface.

And while there are no grocery stores in the township now, Beck said there used to be two food stores across the street from each other at Route 1 and Creek Road. One was Baldwin’s and the other Gallagher’s.

She said Gallagher would come around on his horse and wagon to take orders on Tuesdays, then come back and deliver the food order on Fridays.

There was also a barbershop on a third corner and a blacksmith shop on the other, where Hank’s Place is now.

The era of her youth predates television, and one of the popular forms of entertainment were the community sings held at Brandywine Baptist Church on Tuesday night.

“Every denomination went there. It was a pretty big thing,” Beck said. “Mrs. Pyle would play the organ.”

She also remembers when trains would stop at both Chadds Ford Station and Chadds Ford Junction, two close stops in the area of Fairville Road in Pennsbury Township.

Beck graduated high school in 1927, the year Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic. Beck said she was on her way back home from Washington for her senior class trip when Lindbergh landed in France.

She married Joe Beck in 1936 and moved to a house on Ridge Road across from what is now the Ridings. The couple later moved to Darlington Corner near Wawa and their daughter Peggy Day was born 1938. Beck moved back to Ring Road after her husband died.

Joe Beck died after an accident at Sun Ship two days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Beck said someone failed to properly close a hatch and Joe fell into the hold of a ship at the yard. He died two days after that. Beck said his death was “the thing that hit me the most,” but if she had her life to live all over again, “I’d marry the same man.”

When asked if she would anything differently, she said, “I wouldn’t let Joe go to work at the shipyard.”

She thinks the biggest thing mankind has done was the moon landing in 1969, though she doesn’t think she personally did anything spectacular.

Beck worked as a lab technician at NVF for 35 years, and in looking back over her life she thinks she could have done more and would definitely have liked to further her education. “I didn’t do anything outstanding.”

Her daughter disagrees. She said her mother took care of everyone in the family and that Beck was the primary caregiver for the extended family.

Beck said she couldn’t think of any specific piece of knowledge she would pass on to other generations, but her daughter said there was something the family learned from her mom, that being, “Always be considerate of other people.”

As for the people of Chadds Ford, Beck said, “I still love them all.”

About Rich Schwartzman

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Crowley was wrong

Opinion

Using history as a guide, one might expect conservative news sources and their contributors to routinely side with police when someone is arrested. Such has been the situation in many cases, but that is changing in the wake of the recent arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

At least two contributors to conservative news organizations both agree that Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley was flat out wrong when he arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct.

Writing in the Aug. 1 Washington Times, columnist Jacob Sullum said anyone in America, white or black, faces the possibility of arrest simply because there are “police officers who conflate their own personal dignity with public safety.”

Sgt. Crowley was responding to a call of a possible break-in at a home. It was Mr. Gates’ residence, a house he rents from Harvard University. And while Mr. Gates was reluctant to show identification, he eventually did. The police officer knew who he was, knew he belonged in the house, but arrested him anyway because of how he was being spoken to.

By conflating personal dignity with public safety, as Mr. Sullum said, Sgt. Crowley was actually stepping outside the boundary of law, assuming that a private citizen in his own home must be totally obedient to whatever a police officer says.

As Mr. Sullum wrote:

“Sgt. Crowley claims Mr. Gates recklessly created public alarm by haranguing him from the porch of his house, attracting a small crowd that included ‘at least seven unidentified passers-by’ as well as several police officers. Yet it was Sgt. Crowley who suggested that Mr. Gates follow him outside, thereby setting him up for the disorderly conduct charge.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Sgt. Crowley was angered and embarrassed by Mr. Gates’ ‘outburst’ and therefore sought to create a pretext for arresting him.”

Joining in the criticism of Sgt. Crowley’s action is Judge Andrew Napolitano, the legal analyst for Fox News.

The judge explained that arrests for disorderly conduct are permitted only if the conduct in question was done in public and if it prevents those “lawfully present what they are lawfully present to do. … You can’t be disorderly if you’re in your house or on your property.”

He further said that if Mr. Gates was arrested for the words he used either in the house or on the porch, it was an improper arrest.

While it was proper for Sgt. Crowley to respond to the report of a possible break-in, what followed was out of line. It reflects an attitude by the responding officer that he is owed something special, deference in all situations.

The attitude is not new and it reflects one of the negative aspects of human nature. People sometimes confuse themselves with what they represent. For people to respect the law, the laws themselves need to be respectable, as do those who represent the law.

Sgt. Crowley would have done better had he departed the property once he learned that Mr. gates belonged there and simply ignore any comments Mr. Gates made. That’s what a true peace office would have done. Instead, the sergeant acted as a law enforcement officer who thought he was the law itself, and was not to be questioned or challenged.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

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Police log fpr Aug. 6

Police

Four people were injured in a three-car accident on Route 1 near State Farm Drive on Aug. 3. According to a state police report, a Chevrolet Astro, driven by Rafael Rodgriguez Ramirez, 36, of Newark, was travelling south on Route 1. Ramirez failed to stop at a red light as two cars were turning left onto Route 1 from State Farm Drive, the report said. There was an initial collision with a Ford 350 driven by Dennis Barry, 53, of Media. Ramirez’ vehicle then overturned and struck a Honda Accord driven by Andrea Roche, 34, of West Chester, according to the report. All three drivers received minor injuries, as did a 19-year-old passenger in Roche’s car.

• A Kennett square woman faces retail theft charges following an incident at TJ Maxx in East Marlborough Township on Aug. 1. According to a report from the Avondale barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police, Lori Anne Brown, 45, allegedly placed a pair of shorts and a pair of pants into her pocketbook and tried to leave the store without paying. She was stopped by a store employee and taken into custody by police. The value of the items totaled $33.98.

• Several visitors to the Penns Wood Winery on Beaver Valley Road in Concord Township were the victims of a smash and grab when someone smashed three car windows and stole purses from each of the vehicles, state police report. Credit cards, ID cards and an iPod were taken. The thefts happened Aug. 1, between 8:45 and 9:30 p.m., the report said. Anyone with information is asked to call Tpr. Dolena at 484-840-1000.

• Someone smashed a window of car parked at Longwood Gardens and stole a GPS and a cell phone, according to a Pennsylvania State Police report. The car was in the visitors’ parking lot between 9:45 and 10:45 a.m. on July 30. Anyone with information is asked to call PSP at 610-268-2022.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

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Mind Matters: Depression in Children

Along the Ford

Can pre-schoolers be depressed? “Yes,” comes the answer from the clinical research of the National Institute of Mental Health. Depressing news in itself, perhaps, but not necessarily shocking.

While the researchers may contend there are genetic predispositions or biochemical factors afoot, we can also consider environmental and family influences as well. The common, yet erroneous, notion among psychiatrists and psychologists many years ago was that a preverbal child, younger than three years old, had no memory of physical or sexual abuse and therefore, it “didn’t count.” We know now how wrongheaded this idea was. An emotionally noxious environment even affects the fetus in the womb.

The recent findings of Dr. Joan Luby and her colleagues arise from a study of three to six year olds. Nevertheless, this research adds to the compendium of understanding that our children, no matter their age, should be both seen and heard.

This new research has validated again the link between traumatic events (such as parental death, physical or sexual abuse) and early childhood depression. The researchers also noted that children whose mothers were depressed, or had other mood disorders, were likewise depressed. Some may be quick to say, “ah, a genetic link.” As a psychologist trained in family therapy, I would say, “not so fast with the phenotype.” Children are emotional barometers. They pick up the behavioral weather in the family and live it out unwittingly. If a parent is anxious or depressed, the child feels this.

Many years ago, I worked with a family in which the young son had an anxiety disorder. True, this boy and his sister were not preschoolers, but of middle school age. However, I would bet their emotional barometer mechanisms got set long before I met these children and their parents. I had a sense that there was more going on in this picture-perfect family than this boy’s panic attacks. Brother and sister turned out to be quite insightful and articulate. Seeing them both one day, sans parents, I came upon an interesting discovery. The children recounted that their parents put on a show of conviviality and connection for the community. It was another story at home. There, the parents led tense lives, in a virtual divorce. Their son believed his anxiety attacks would help unite the parents and save the family intactness. The sister blurted out “well, if you stop having your anxiety attacks, then I’ll have to have them back again and I had them last year.”

Not 3-year -lds, these very perceptive children had some sense of how they carried the emotional valence of the family. A 3-year-old can’t articulate that (and many much older adults can’t either), but the fact remains that the young child will resonate with the emotional pain of the family as much a s a tuning fork will respond to the tuning fork resounding next to it.

I would hope that in our recognition of preschool depression, we would not only attend to the affected child, but also help the family as well.

Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments at MindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted to http://www.DrGajdos.com/Articles.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.

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Blogging Along the Brandywine

Along the Ford

Until recently, my mother would voice concern when I told her I would be driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike or I-95 to get to one of my 18th century re-enactments.

I always explained there was a much greater chance of being involved in a fender bender every morning while pulling into Chadds Ford Village to go to the post office, the Keystone Bank or the Wawa. It was like weaving through a maze of possessed cars and demonic delivery trucks massing in attack formation.

But that doesn’t happen any more does it?

When I stop by the post office on my way to work now, I have a choice of over a dozen spaces.

Why is that? Someone help me out here.

Of course we miss Sondra Eisenman at the Keystone Bank. How strange to go in the bank, look in her office and not see walls covered with prints of Brandywine Valley artists, and every other square inch of office space covered with her collection of foxes of every shape and form.

But the effervescent Patty Burns is still there, as well as the same team of able tellers under the management of Fran Gill.

Then we have the Chadds Ford Post Office.

True, everyone misses the ever-popular Ron Coates who recently retired, but we have Ric, Barb and Choon to take care of our special mailing needs and stamp purchases.

Then in 2008 all of Chadds Ford went through Wawa withdrawal when the store closed its doors, and rejoiced almost a year later with the news that the void would be filled with another convenience store –The Cattie Shack.

I looked forward to once again getting my coffee in the morning and hoagies on the weekends when I was guiding at the Sanderson.

And the Cattie’s addition of the tables out front was great. Most mornings between 8 and 9 a.m., one can see Charlie Cuno, who has now appointed himself “Mayor of Chadds Ford” and Phil Oberly who Charlie has appointed “dog catcher”, meeting for coffee and conversation.

But when I walk into the Cattie Shack, I am often the only one there.

Where are the double lines around the cash register island? Where are all the people waiting for cold cuts or freshly made hoagies?

True, ounce for ounce, Cattie Shack’s coffee is 5 cents higher than Wawa’s. For example a 12-ounce cup of Wawa Coffee is $1.15 while at the Cattie Shack it is $1.20.

And to be absolutely fair, Wawa lists their hoagie sizes in inches while the Cattie Shack as small, medium and large. But even with a 4” Wawa hoagie listing as $2.89 and a 6” Wawa hoagie as $3.99, the Cattie shack’s “small” Italian hoagie still comes out on top at $4.49. A large Cattie Shack Italian hoagie is $6.99.

Sorry to say, the difference is significant.

The Cattie Shack is clean and their employees friendly and I am firmly committed to supporting local businesses, especially the efforts of a family that takes a leap of faith to make a dream come true.

But it is a rare family that can compete with a corporate giant like Wawa. Nor do they have the luxury of this summer’s “Wawa Hoagie Fest” which has now been extended through August 9.

What’s the answer Chadds Ford? How do we get our village back?

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”

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Know Your Finances

Business

You have heard it time and time again. We are living longer thanks to medical advancement and seniors’ healthier and more active lifestyles. We are living so long, in fact, that our health care system desperately cries out for an updated work-out regiment.

How can you ensure that you won’t outlive your assets? Gone are the days of companies paternalistically protecting us with pension plans in retirement that complement social security benefits. Speaking of which…what about social security? Will that particular “ponzi scheme” hold up for most of us? And now that employer 401k plans, which became “201k” plans earlier in the year, have morphed only back into “301k” plans over the last few months, retirement funds may not be on track to get us to our golden years.

How much is enough for our retirement? I like to think of planning for retirement in three basic steps. These steps are for those who are still earning money and not yet financially retired. (I will address retirement for seniors who no longer work in another column.) I call these steps the big E’s: Enlighten, Evaluate, and Energize.

Enlighten

You should enlighten yourself about your current (and future) income and expenses. It may sound simple to some and boring to others, but you should know your individual or family cash-flow statement intimately. Only when you do, can you estimate how it may change in retirement. It’s a dynamic exercise, the numbers can change as often as necessary. But without a beginning there’s no way you can plan for change in the future. Once you know how much your life costs you each month and year then can you begin to have real control over your future.

Let’s pretend that currently you spend $75,000 a year and you are not planning on retiring for another ten years. In ten years you will be 65 years old and assume you will live for another 35 years. In 10 years, at a 3 percent average annual inflation rate, that $75,000 needs to be $101,000. But don’t fret, because by enlightening yourself you may have determined that though you spend $75,000 a year today, in retirement you will only need $50,000. Perhaps your home mortgage will be paid off, or you will no longer have to support your children, or maybe your Aunt Tilly named you a beneficiary of her sizable IRA. With inflation, that $50,000 needs to be $67,000 when you retire in ten years in this example. But before you move on to the second step, to evaluate, remember that the $67,000 may be subsidized by social security, a company pension plan, or an annuity. Just subtract the expected annual receipts from social security, pension, or annuity from the total amount you expect to need from your investments (your investments include both your retirement and non-retirement accounts). For example, if you expect to receive $2,000 each month, or $24,000 per year, from social security when you retire, then you should plan to withdraw $43,000 a year from your investments ($67,000 less $24,000). Next, it’s time to evaluate how much you will need in the pot to generate $43,000 of cash flow from your investments each year throughout your retirement.

Evaluate

The evaluate step may be especially difficult for many people. A knowledgeable friend or a trusted investment advisor or financial planner can help you calculate this. The evaluation involves determining how much money you will need in your retirement pot on day number one of retirement to ensure that you won’t outlive your annual need for, in our example, $43,000 each year throughout your retirement years. Assumptions must be made with regards to the investment returns you will earn through the years, how long you will live, and how much money you want to leave to your heirs, if any. In our example, assuming a 7 percent average annual return on your investments, your need for $43,000 for the 35 years in retirement puts your magic retirement number at $867,000.The final step is learning how to energize, or add to, your current asset base to get to that necessary lump sum for retirement.

Energize

Now that you have an idea as to how much you will need in the retirement pot on day one of retirement, you then need to make it happen! For many, this is the truly hard part. It’s a reality check. It may be impossible to get to the magic number given your current lifestyle. This is vital information indeed. It can encourage you to make dramatic lifestyle changes now for the benefit of your future. To reiterate, our example says that in ten years you will be 65 years old and will live for another 35 years. Assuming a 7 percent average annual return on your investments, your need for $43,000 for those 35 years puts your magic retirement number at $867,000. That means if you don’t already have that much money in your investment accounts, you need a plan to work towards getting it over the next ten years. How much you need to invest each year to get there depends on how much your asset base is now and how many years of earning power you have to contribute to your investments. For example, if you already have assets worth $200,000 you will need to invest much less each year than if you have $300,000 already built up. Similarly, if you have fifteen years of earning power ahead of you instead of ten, you will need to put away less money.

You are in charge

If all of this sounds complex and scary then you probably should talk to someone you trust, a friend, family member, or investment professional, who is comfortable with numbers and spreadsheet calculations. Every individual will have their own unique situation with a multitude of details to consider. Also, different assumptions about investment return percentages, number of years until retirement, and number of years in retirement may be used for different people. For each and every one of you, a little enlightenment that is evaluated and then energized can go a long way towards making you feel in control of you money and your life.

About Ellen Le

Ellen is the Founder and President of Ascend Investment Management. She was born in Philadelphia and has lived in the Delaware Valley for most of her life. When she is not researching investments and managing portfolios, she pursues her interests in tennis, bridge, hiking and art. Beginning her investment career in 1981 as a stockbroker at E.F. Hutton and Co., Ellen now has over 20 years of investment management experience. Prior to founding Ascend in 2006, she managed high net worth assets for many years at Bank of America, Mellon Bank, and most recently at Davidson Capital Management. At Davidson Capital Management, Ellen served as a Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager of the firm. She managed assets for more than 50 family relationships and was a core member of the firm’s Investment Committee.Ellen earned a BA in History from Brown University and a MBA in Finance & Investments from The George Washington University. She is a member in good standing of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, which is a global organization dedicated to setting a high ethical standard for the investment profession. Her professional memberships include the Delaware County Estate Planning Council, Women Enhancing Business (WEB), and the Chadds Ford Business Association. She is a docent with the Delaware Art Museum and an active volunteer with the Brown University Alumni Association.

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