The Sachem Alumni Association inducted the 2022 Sachem Hall of Honor Class on Saturday, June 4, 2022. This was the first Hall of Honor ceremony in two years due to the pandemic.
On Friday, six of the inductees spoke with more than 750 students.
Jonathan Brown attended SUNY Cortland, Yale University for his Master’s in religion, and the University of the Pacific in Sacramento for law school. He has operated his own general civil practice since 1983 concentrating in commercial real estate and construction litigation and representation. He has served this community as a former Sachem School Board Trustee from 1985 to 1995 and held president and vice president positions on the board. He is also a volunteer firefighter with the Davis Park Fire Department since 1984, and served as trustee on the Board of Fire Commissioners from 2005 to 2015. As a student at Sachem he was elected student body president as a junior and senior.
Todd Costello is Vice President of Sales at P.C. Richard & Son where he runs day-to-day operations of a multi-billion dollar enterprise. He was originally hired as a Sales Counselor at P.C. and was meritoriously promoted to the positions of Assistant Manager, Store Manager, District Manager, Director of Sales and eventually Vice President. During his 35-year career at P.C., Todd has hired and mentored over 250 Sachem graduates. Many of them had fruitful and prosperous careers becoming managers and team leaders of the P.C.Richard company. Todd proudly graduated from Sachem a year ahead of his class to attend Indiana State University to play baseball. He returned to Long Island to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams by opening a successful local delicatessen. Once again nearly the entire staff were Sachem graduates. He has championed many Charities, most notably The P.C. Richard Foundation, The Marty Lyons Foundation, The State Trooper Foundation, The Joe Namath Foundation, and countless others. In 2019 he orchestrated a drive to bring thousands of pounds of food to a local Long Island Food Pantry. He and his brother Stephen are now the first sibling duo to be inducted to the Hall of Honor. Stephen was an inaugural inductee in 2017.
Jeff Derosa is a decorated U.S. Army Master Sergeant and author. His military awards include a Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with one campaign star, Iraq Campaign Medal with two campaign stars, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal with two campaign stars, Global War on Terrorism Medal, Korean Defense medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, NATO Medal, Drill Sergeant Badge and Combat Action Badge. He served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kuwait and was stationed in Germany, South Korea, Texas, New York, Missouri, and California. His responsibilities included being a Combat Engineer, Team leader, Squad Leader, Platoon Sergeant, Company Operations Sergeant, Company First Sergeant, Battalion Operations Sergeant, Battalion Intelligence Sergeant, Drill Sergeant and Military Science Instructor. He is a former Post Commander of VFW Post 9456 in Lake Ronkonkoma and a Charter Member of American Veterans (AMVETS) Post 1174 in Holbrook/Holtsville. Jeff works as an administrative services technician in the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District. He is the author of several works related to military vehicles on combat engineering vehicles, including his most recent work in 2022 about combat engineering vehicles, which spearhead armored attacks, breach obstacles, and prepare defenses.
- Amy Engel is an experienced and innovative leader skilled at cultivating strategic partnerships at the federal, state and local level and building high performing, results-oriented teams. Her skills extend to community engagement, environmental advocacy, proposal development, risk management, budget and so much more in public policy. Serves as Manager of Environmental and Community Engagement at Brookhaven National Lab where she is responsible for supporting the Lab’s Community Advisory Council, promoting the Lab’s environmental programs, and facilitating community engagement activities led by the Lab’s Stakeholder & Community Relations Office and Environmental Protection Division. Prior to Brookhaven Lab, Amy was Director of corporate and foundation relations and institutional advancement at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue. She served as Executive Director of Sustainable Long Island where she worked on advancing economic development, environmental health and social equity across the region. Her time in government was spent in the office of the Suffolk County Executive as a senior management analyst for the Executive Budget Office and as the county executive assistant to the chief deputy county executive. Amy was consultant of community development for KeySpan, an executive director of the Greater Long Island Clean Cities Coalition and a deputy director of government affairs with the Long Island Association. While at Sachem, she was part of the chamber orchestra and played violin under Joe Cavalea and they won the national championship three out of the four years she participated. Her co-curriculars extended to marching band and the alto saxophone under Rich Cruz. She is a second generation Sachem grad as her mom graduated from Sachem in 1963 and her three boys are third generation Sachem.
Jill Gallagher-Huggett is CEO of Bridgepath Career Advisors, LLC and a Certified Executive and Career Coach. After graduating from Sachem, she received her B.S. degree from East Carolina University, and later earned an MBA from the Boston College Carroll School of Management. During her 20-year corporate career, she spent 17 years in the Financial Services industry as an Associate in the Institutional Sales Division for JP Morgan, and a Vice President in the Asset Management Division for Fidelity Investments. In 2011, she founded Bridgepath, a full service, global executive career management firm. Jill’s firm has worked with such notable organizations as, MD Anderson, Hess Corporation, Hong Kong University Business School, Fidelity Investments, and Boston Children’s Hospital, to name a few. Based out of Boston, for many years, Jill was ranked as one of the top executive coaches in the northeast. Jill works intimately with Harvard Business School (HBS), as a career coach developing program curriculum, supporting the HBS alumni network around the world with career challenges, and working with HBS MBA students with resume and interview preparation. Jill is also a member of the esteemed Forbes Coaches Council, an elite network of leading business and career coaches. As a thought leader, she regularly contributes expert career management content for Forbes.com. At Sachem she was a varsity diver and team captain, and a member of the varsity cheerleading and volleyball teams. She was in the skiing club and participated in gymnastics in seventh, eighth and ninth grades.
Laura Gentile has been an integral part in ESPN’s success as a world wide leader in media nad marketing for the last 20 years. She is Senior Vice President at ESPN, overseeing Marketing, Social Media, the espnW business and expanding ESPN’s presence in the lives of women who love sports. Gentile is the founder of espnW, which launched in Dec. 2010 as a blog. espnW is now a multimedia business encompassing digital, social, television, films and events such as The espnW: Women + Sports Summit. Prior to envisioning, researching and launching espnW, Gentile served as vice president, assistant to the president at ESPN. In that role, Gentile worked directly with George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN and ABC Sports, on all aspects of the company’s business. Before working in the office of the president, Gentile was senior director of brand management within ESPN’s consumer marketing department. And prior to ESPN, she honed her marketing and advertising skills as a senior partner, management supervisor at Ogilvy & Mather. Gentile was appointed to the U.S. Department of State’s Council to Empower Women and Girls Through Sports, developed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She was a fellow of WICT’s Betsy Magness Leadership Institute Class XVII, and was named to Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal Forty Under 40 Class of 2012 and an SBJ Game-Changer. A graduate of Duke University with a double major in English and Political Science, she earned an MBA in Marketing and Organizational Behavior from Boston College’s Carroll Graduate School of Management in 1996. While an undergraduate, Gentile garnered All-America and All-ACC honors in field hockey and was a two-time team captain. She led Duke to their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament and was named to the ACC’s 50th Anniversary field hockey team. Gentile was named to the Forbes “Most Powerful Women in U.S. Sports” list in 2018, ranked No. 22. In 2017, Gentile was named one of the 2017 Multichannel News Wonder Women, and in 2016 was named a Women in Cable Television (WICT) “Woman to Watch.” She is also an inductee of the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame and Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame.
Lori Hewlett was a 35-year veteran educator of Sachem Schools. She was the longtime Chairperson for Secondary Health Education. Outside of class she was vice president of the Suffolk Zone for the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance for six years. She was also a National spokesperson for the American Heart Association. Lori educated thousands of Sachem students in lifesaving skills utilizing her vast number of first-aid instructor certifications. In 2018 she was named Secondary Health Teacher of the Year by New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance for six years.
Arthur Kropp was President of People for the American Way from 1987-1995. He passed away at the age 37 but in his too short life, he achieved a great deal on the national stage. With a good deal of political experience under his belt, Arthur made his way to the 300,000 member People for the American Way in 1984 and quickly moved through its ranks to become president of the liberal advocacy group in 1987. He was a well known political figure who was respected on both ends of the ideological spectrum. Under Arthur’s leadership, the group grew in membership, clout and influence. The following appeared in a Washington Post article after his death in 1995… “As the group’s president, Kropp appeared frequently on national television and radio programs, and his opinion articles have been published in nearly every major American newspaper.” Kropp led People for the American Way through a number of congressional battles in the 1980s and early 1990s. He expanded the group’s work to include voter registration, race relations, support for reproductive rights and protection of civil rights for LGBTQ. Norman Lear, the group’s founder, said Kropp led it “through a remarkable period and he did it with grace, wisdom, courage and vision. His work improved the lives and strengthened the liberties of millions of Americans in communities across the nation.”
Moira Noriega is an Executive Producer and two time International Emmy nominee. She has over twenty years of wide-ranging experience in entertainment related television productions based in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and more. Following a start at Nickelodeon, growth in responsibility at both MTV Networks and FUSE, and becoming further in demand with the rise of unscripted television, Noriega now boasts extensive domestic and international production credits driven by her bilingual language capabilities, a passion for music, and a deep understanding of multiculturalism. Her production and supervisor projects and jobs include Ultimate Beastmaster (Netflix), Funny or Die, La Voz (NBC), MasterChef, Dick Clark Productions and much more. She attended Florida International University. In Sachem she was a member of the choir, band, orchestra, marching band and theatrical productions since elementary school – the first was Fiddler on the roof at Tamarac Elementary! She credits Sachem’s music department with her development that prepped her for the entertainment industry.
John Venturo has led a life of service in both military and law enforcement. He is a retired from the Suffolk County Police Department and U.S. Navy and is the form CEO and Founder of Titan Global Security. He served on the Eastport Police Department before going to the NYPD and later Suffolk where he was a Search and Rescue Pilot before retiring in 2019. John is owner and CEO of Titan Global, LLC, a New York based advanced security provider. The company helped product some of the most well known locations including hospitals and health systems like New York Presbyterian and Northwell; entertainment shows like the Oscars; venues like Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum, Barclays; Sports teams or events like the Islanders, Rangers, Hampton Classic Horse Show; and politicians on the East End and NYC like President 45, 44, 43 and 42. At Sachem he was a three-sport athlete and three-sport captain in football, wrestling and lacrosse. He credits Sachem football coach Fred Fusaro as his single greatest influence and still reflects on conversations he had with him almost 30 years ago.