Board of Directors Biographies
Mary Frances leMat has been the chair of the Board of Directors since 2007. She served as the vice chair after retiring from her position as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2006. She is the former CEO and president of Social & Scientific Systems and is one of the company's founders. Ms. leMat formerly served on the boards of directors at IMPACT Silver Spring, Easter Seals, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Career Transition Center, A Greater Washington, and the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce. She also was a member of the Federal City Council. She was an active participant for several years in the Potomac Conference and is a graduate of Leadership Washington's Class of 2001. Among Ms. leMat's honors are the Women Business Owners of Montgomery County's Athena Award (2000); the Community Service Award from the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and Business Gazette (2001); Volunteer of the Year, Technology Council of Maryland (2001); Executive of the Year, Business Gazette (2001); one of the Washington Business Journal's "Women Who Mean Business" (2004); the Small Business Council of America Humanitarian of the Year (2005); Greater Washington Government Contractor Midsize Company Executive of the Year (2005); and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Social Awareness (2006). Ms. leMat earned a B.A. in mathematics from the American University, after completing 3 years at the College of William and Mary.
Denis Ables, director emeritus, is the former executive vice president of Social & Scientific Systems and one of the company's founders. He is a former trustee of the company's ESOP Trust. During his employment with the company, Mr. Ables served as senior vice president (1978-1998) and as executive vice president (1998-2000). He served unofficially as chief financial officer (CFO) and chief technology officer (CTO), overseeing all financial and technology operations for the company. He programmed and maintained the in-house accounting system that the company used successfully from 1978 to 2000. He also provided administrative and technical oversight for a number of early programming contracts, the Infinibyte® group, and the Worldwide Meetings & Communications® division. Mr. Ables was the primary driving force in the establishment and administration of the company's profit-sharing and ESOP plans. Although he retired in the fall of 2000, Mr. Ables continues to play an active role as a director.
Kathleen M. Adams is the former senior vice president and director of the Civil Government Sector at SRA International, where she was responsible for the management, performance, and growth of all of SRA’s civil and health business. Under her leadership, this business sector attained increased profitability. Prior to her promotion as the director of the Civil Sector in 2004, Ms. Adams ran SRA’s Health Business, which she led to steady growth and profitability each year. Before joining SRA in 1999, Ms. Adams was the assistant deputy commissioner for systems at the Social Security Administration (SSA), where she was responsible for overseeing all information technology to support Social Security’s programs. Before serving in this capacity, she was the associate commissioner for systems design and development. Throughout her Federal Government career, she held a variety of technical and managerial positions in information systems, operations, and budget components in SSA and the Health Care Financing Administration. Ms. Adams is a principal at the Council for Excellence in Government and worked on the Council’s e-Government initiative to create a vision and blueprint for electronic Government in America. She served on the Enterprise Systems Board of Directors for the Information Technology Association of America and served as the chair of the e-Gov Task Group of the Information Technology Association of America. She was a member of the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion and was the chair of the Year 2000 Committee of the Federal Chief Information Officer’s Council. She served on the Information Technology Resource Board from 1996 to 1998. Ms. Adams was also a member of the Harvard Policy Group, which addressed ways to use technology to improve delivery of services at all levels of government. Ms. Adams has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executive, SSA Commissioner’s Citations, and awards from Government Computer News, the Federal Executive Board, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Senior Executives Association Achievement Award. She was selected by Federal Computer Week to the Federal 100 in 1996 and 1997 and was a judge in 1998 and 1999. She also received the prestigious Eagle Award in 1997 from Federal Computer Week and was Government Computer News’ Executive of the Year in 1999. In 1996, she received the Leadership Award from Government Executive Magazine. Ms. Adams was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received her B.A. from the University of Maryland. She completed the Program for Senior Managers at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Tony Barclay, Ph.D., is president of the newly created Development Practitioners Forum. Active in the international development field for almost 40 years, he is a proponent of rigorous and innovative development practices that stimulate learning and enhance sustainability. From April 1999 to December 2008, Dr. Barclay served as CEO of DAI, an employee-owned project management and consulting firm. DAI has delivered sustainable development in some 150 countries since it was founded in 1970. He joined DAI in 1977, after living and working in East Africa for seven years. As the firm began to grow, Dr. Barclay moved into a general management role, initially as vice president of Operations and later as president and CEO. His commitment to DAI's mission guided the firm along a path of steady growth. He gave DAI a global vision, and nurtured its core values of excellence, respect, integrity, and collaboration—an ethic that will transfer seamlessly to the Development Practitioners Forum. Dr. Barclay has served on numerous boards and coalitions in the international development community. He is a spokesman for reform and realignment of U.S. foreign assistance programs, and for processes that increase country ownership of development programs. Dr. Barclay was a founding Board member of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign (USGLC)—a nonpartisan coalition of 400 companies, NGOs, and faith-based organizations that advocates for increased development and diplomacy budgets—and is the founding president of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, the USGLC's educational arm. A past president of the Washington Chapter of the Society for International Development, he was also founding chair of the Professional Services Council's International Development Task Force. In 2008, he was honored as Greater Washington's Government Contractor Executive of the Year in the large company category. Dr. Barclay earned a B.A. in history at Yale University and a Ph.D. in applied anthropology at Columbia University.
W. Lyles Carr III has been with the McCormick Group for more than 30 years and currently serves as the company's senior vice president. In addition to serving on Social & Scientific Systems' board, he is active on the board of directors or advisory committee of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, Federal City Council, Economic Club of Washington, Alexandria Community Trust, Workforce Organizations for Regional Collaboration, Virginia Early Childhood Foundation, Community Wealth Ventures, Helen Hayes Awards, Heart of America Foundation, and Catalogue of Philanthropy. He also chairs Spring for Alexandria, a 3-day celebration of service and giving in Alexandria. Mr. Carr has been widely recognized for his leadership and community contributions. A past president of Leadership Greater Washington, he has been recognized as the organization's "Volunteer of the Year," and he has been honored by the Greater Washington Board of Trade as both its 2008 Leader of the Years and a recipient of its Golden Links Award. Mr. Carr was recognized as an "Outstanding Fundraising Volunteer" by the association of Fundraising Professionals and was named a 2002 "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian magazine.
James J. Lynch, Ph.D., is the president and CEO of Social & Scientific Systems and a member of its Board of Directors. When he came to SSS in 1988, Dr. Lynch served as proposal manager, later as vice president for Business Development, and finally as executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO) before being appointed president and COO in 2005. In 2006, Dr. Lynch was appointed chief executive officer (CEO), succeeding Mary Frances leMat, one of the company's founders. Dr. Lynch is on the Board of Directors of Hager Sharp and the Board of Directors of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce (GSSCC). He has also served on the Boards of Directors of the Professional Services Council (PSC), the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and Hearts & Homes for Youth. Dr. Lynch also served on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Technology Council of Maryland. He received PSC's Outstanding Service Award in 2003 and is a graduate of Leadership Washington's Class of 2004. Dr. Lynch holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas. He taught writing at the university level for 13 years and is the author of several publications.
Lyle Munroe, ex-officio member, began his career at SSS in 2003 as a travel coordinator, making domestic and international travel arrangements and ensuring the operation of the reservations and ticketing system. Mr. Munroe then worked as a project coordinator on SSS’ proteomics project, where he was responsible for ensuring that information flowed properly between the SSS Administration Center, the nine research centers, and NIAID and that all project deliverables were met. Currently, Mr. Munroe is a contracts administrator; he is responsible for executing contracts and subcontracts, purchase orders, and various types of work agreements. Mr. Munroe served as the vice chair, chair, and chair emeritus, and has been very active on the EOCC in other capacities since he joined SSS. Mr. Munroe is scheduled to receive a bachelor’s degree in business management in 2010 from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
Carol A. Nacy, Ph.D., is founder, CEO, and chair of Sequella, Inc., a biotechnology company based in Rockville, Maryland, that develops products for tuberculosis. Prior to founding Sequella, Dr. Nacy served as executive vice president and chief scientific officer of EntreMed, Inc. She has an extensive background in academic biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. She also has been involved in the development and management of biotechnology companies since 1993.
Mary Tondreau was one of the founders of TvT Associates, Inc., in 1981, and served as president and CEO from 1986 until 2002. In 2002, Social & Scientific Systems acquired TvT and integrated it as a division. Ms. Tondreau served as senior vice president and division director until 2004. In 2005, she became the company's first CAO, and served in that role until her retirement at the end of 2006. For many years, she has been active in the Global Health Council and is a member of the Washington 100 leadership group of the Washington Area Women's Foundation. She holds a bachelor's degree from Smith College and pursued graduate studies in economics at Boston University.
Stephen L. Waechter is the former executive vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer for CACI International, a position he held from 1999 to 2007. During his tenure at CACI, the company successfully completed 21 acquisitions, including the Defense and Intelligence Group of AMS, the company's largest acquisition to date. Prior to CACI, Mr. Waechter held chief financial officer positions at Government Technology Services, Inc. (GTSI); Vincam Group, Inc.; and Applied Bioscience International, Inc. He began his career at General Electric in 1974, and progressed through their financial organization, where he became vice president of Finance for GE Information Services from 1989 to 1993. In June 2002, Mr. Waechter was honored at the 6th Annual Greater Washington Technology Chief Financial Officer awards, winning the CFO Community Service Award. He is also a director of Strategic Diagnostics, Inc., a provider of test products for the food safety and water quality markets. More recently, Mr. Waechter has been working with a Northern Virginia company on the sale of part of a Federal business they own, in addition to serving as chairman of the Finance Committee for the Choral Arts Society of Washington's Holiday Gala at the Kennedy Center. The Committee raised more than $600,000 for their Arts Access Program, which introduces the arts to children in several Washington, D.C., schools.