Steve Laughlin – Chair
Steve is Executive Chairman of Laughlin Constable, an advertising, PR and brand marketing company with offices in Chicago and Milwaukee. Steve's community service includes serving as a board member and board chair of The Milwaukee Performing Arts Center. He also chaired the Milwaukee Ballet Board and served on the board of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Steve is a former board chair of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. He currently serves on the board of the Milwaukee Film Festival and chaired that board as well. Steve and his wife Marge have a home on Boca Grande and were both instrumental in creating the Boca Grande Film Festival, presented by the Friends of Boca Grande, which is now entering its third season.
Tom Wilcox – Vice Chair
Tom has been coming to Boca Grande for 44 years with his wife Whitty Ransome whose family has visited Boca Grande through four generations Tom reports that it is “Friends” ability to inspire, enrich and engage that convinced them to retire here. Tom brings more than fifty years of nonprofit experience, having served as head of Concord Academy In Massachusetts and as president of the Baltimore Community Foundation. Tom is honored to have been asked to serve Boca Grande through the Friends board.
Geoff Verney – Treasurer
Geoff Verney graduated from Denison University and attended Columbia University's graduate program in Art History. He later joined is father and brother at Monadnock Paper Mills in New Hampshire, a manufacturer of fine and custom-designed industrial specialty papers and media. His focus was in Sales and Marketing. Now retired, Geoff and his wife, Liz, split their time between Boca Grande and Nantucket Island, MA. He is currently president of the Community Foundation for Nantucket having served as president of The Nantucket Historical Association among a variety of non-profit boards primarily in the arts. Liz is a former elementary school art teacher and serves on the board of The Island School and is Vice Chair of Postpartem International.
Sharon Hawkins – Secretary
A Michigan native, Sharon Hawkins has lived in Wayzata, Minnesota since 2002. She raised three children there and has been involved with her church, schools, and several community organizations, including serving on the boards of The MN Opera, Abbott Northwestern Hospital Foundation, Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, Twin Cities Rise, and The Chronicles Institute. In addition to joining Friends, Sharon is a member of the Boca Grande Garden Club, the Boca Grande Woman's Club, and Our Lady of Mercy Church.
Theresa Behrendt
Simon Bound
Simon is a veteran, experienced finance professional with over two decades spent at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and has a deep interest in history and education. He served ten years in the Royal Navy as a Mine Clearance Diving Officer, including service in the 1982 Falklands campaign and 1991 Gulf campaign. He was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for the conduct of diving operations on MV Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987. Simon left the Navy in 1991 and served with MI5 through 1993. He then transitioned to finance with Goldman Sachs and from 1999 worked at Morgan Stanley in a variety of senior roles, including Global Director of Research. He was a member of the Firm’s Management Committee and Securities Division Operating Committee. After retiring from Morgan Stanley, Simon completed an MA in history at Yale University in 2024. He is married to Maggie and the father of seven children. Simon is a competitive open water swimmer, inductee into the Barnes Rugby Club Hall of Fame and a co-founder of Useppa Island Partners.
Dod Fraser
Dod and Susan Fraser began vacationing in Boca Grande in 1987 and purchased their home in 1994. As they have been able to spend more time on the island, they have become more involved with the community. Susan serves on the Boca Bay and Pass Club Boards and participates in the Grande Chorus and the Garden Club; Dod has been Treasurer of the Fust Library Foundation and has served on program committees at the Community Center. They are members of St Andrew’s Church. For the past 25 years Dod has been an independent director of public and private companies and previously was an investment banker with Lazard Freres and J. P. Morgan Chase. During the summer they reside near their children and grandchildren in Sonoma, California.
Lynda Grant
Lynda hails from Chicago where she attended Barat College in Lake Forest, IL. She moved to San Francisco soon after graduating and worked as a paralegal. Upon returning to Chicago, she worked in Private Banking for the First National Bank of Chicago and with McKinsey & Company in their Financial Services division.
Lynda and her husband, Jim, have lived in Florida since 2004 and spend their summers at Point Lookout on Lake Huron in Michigan. They participate with the AuGres Community Affairs nonprofit which programs and sponsors weekly summer music performances. They have also created and sponsor a scholarship fund for local high school students to attend Delta College in Saginaw, MI. In Boca Grande, Lynda served as Director of the Barrier Island Parks Society and has served on multiple committees of Friends. For fun and enrichment, she has performed in many Royal Palm Players productions and loves traveling the world.
Peter E. Powell
Peter has been a resident of Boca Grande since 2014. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. His first experience with Florida was when he enrolled in 1974 at Rollins College in Winter Park, where he earned a BA in Economics/Theatre and an MBA in Finance. Although he spent an additional year working in Orlando, his grandfather convinced him to return to KC to take on an aggregate company he owned. Over his 35 years of ownership and management, he invested in aggregate and in salt mining, trading and distribution businesses. In 2015 he sold the salt businesses to a Private Equity firm out of New York City, kept one aggregate operation in Peoria, IL and took up a new life here in town. Peter currently serves on the Boards of Royal Palm Players, Inc., The GICIA, and will soon step down from the Board of Lemon Bay Golf Club where is served as its President from 2020 to 22.
Peter Sherwood
In 2013, Peter co-founded and is presently Managing Partner of a private debt fund, Prides Crossing Capital. The funds make loans that aid growing companies in specialty software, or which provide business or tech enabled services to other companies. During 16 years at State Street Corporation in Boston, Peter ran the Commercial Finance Group which provided debt capital to business, and which relied on the enterprise value of the business rather than on tangible assets. Peter holds an AB from Bowdoin College and an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University where he concentrated on American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies. Peter is a former a long-time board member of Care Dimensions, the largest hospice and palliative care provider in MA, and where he served as Clerk, Treasurer and as Board Chair. He has volunteered with the American Cancer Society, is the former President of the Prides Beach Association, the former Chairman of the Finance Committee for the Town of Essex, MA, a former board member for the Barrier Islands Parks Society, and presently serves as vice president of the Johann Fust Library Foundation.
John Sivolella
John has been visiting Boca Grande with his wife, Eileen, since 1990 and they became residents in 2023. They are passionate about giving back to their community on the island through various board and committee positions.
John is on faculty in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, where he earned a Ph.D., and has also been on faculty in the M.P.A. program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
He’s on the Board of Trustees of the University of Virginia Engineering Foundation and the Board of Trustees of the American Battlefield Trust. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Rutgers University Foundation. John is a Global Ambassador for Project Béisbol.
John practiced law in Manhattan, focusing on venture capital and M&A. He was legal counsel to the Governor of New Jersey and was a clerk on the New Jersey Supreme Court.
John also earned a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an M.P.A. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He received a B.A. from Rutgers University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa.
Honey Skinner
Honey Jacobs Skinner, her husband Sam and family have enjoyed Boca Grande for fifteen years and they live in Boca Bay. Honey is a retired partner of Sidley Austin in Chicago, and specialized in the representation of large hospital systems. Post retirement, she is the chair of advocacy at Lurie Children’s Hospital (Chicago), with a focus on expanded healthcare services for economically fragile children. She is a graduate and active alum of Harvard College and Northwestern University Law School, and serves as a corporate director.
Robbie Stanley
Robbie has been involved with Friends and island nonprofit groups since first settling on the island in 2012. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in structural engineering, she went on to become the editor of her small town’s newspaper in Charlotte, Vermont. She served for 10 years on the Lane Series board, a chamber music organization affiliated with the University of Vermont, and spent several years volunteering with Local Motion, a cycling advocacy group. Robbie chaired the Woman’s Club Communications Committee for the past six years and is an active RPP participant as well as past board member. Robbie, John, and their two corgis spend summers in Vermont.
Bayne Stevenson
Graduated from Yale University, B.A., 1968. Commercial real estate developer, NH, VT, FL, including several Restoration Projects; Founding General Partner Centerra Park with Dartmouth College; Founding Board Member, Ledyard National Bank and Ledyard Financial Advisors; Board Membership: Director, Dartmouth Savings Bank, 1984 - 1989. Director, Ledyard National Bank 1989 – 2020. Trustee, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital; Chairperson, Boca Grande Community Planning Panel 2003 – 2007; Commodore Boca Grande Pass Yacht Club 2006 – 2008; Board Member Gulf Coast Community Foundation 2010 – 2019; Founding Chairperson Island School Foundation 2009 – 2013; President, Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association 2013 – 2020. Boca Grande Woman’s Club 2020 Pandemic Task Force Member.