Achieve Portal
Board of Trustees

Gulf Stream School is a nonprofit institution governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees.

Our Board of Trustees Directors

J.D. Dickenson

President

J.D. Dickenson graduated from Gulf Stream School in 1987, and has been a Board of Trustees member since 2015. J.D. chairs the Legal/Risk Management Committee, and the Development Committee, and serves on the Executive Committee, Finance Committee, and Committee on Trustees.

J.D. is an attorney and shareholder at Cozen O’Connor, and has practiced law in South Florida for nearly 20 years. An avid outdoorsman and conservationist, J.D. was State Chairman of the Coastal Conservation Association Florida, founder of its South Palm Beach Chapter, and a founder of its Statewide Habitat Restoration Committee.

J.D. and his wife, Maggie, have two children: Sophia (Gulf Stream School class of 2018) and Henry (class of 2022).

Pat Donovan

VP

Patrick Donovan has been a Board of Trustee member since 2018 and currently chairs the Finance Committee and serves on the Executive Committee, DEIB Committee, and Committee on Trustees.

Patrick is the founder and managing partner of Lokahi Capital, a private equity firm out of Delray Beach, FL.

Patrick has been in the financial industry in the US and Europe over the past 22 years. He also serves on the Board of the Delray Beach Boys and Girls Club and the Board of the Delray Beach Youth Tennis Foundation.

Patrick and his wife, Abi, have three children: Leilani (Gulf Stream School class of 2021), Nathaniel (class of 2024), and Parker (class of 2026).

Anna Shannon

Secretary

Anna Shannon has been a Board member since 2017.  Anna has served on the Executive Committee, Marketing Committee, Committee on Trustees, and the Strategic Planning Committee.

Anna worked for an entertainment company as Vice President of Communications & Product Development that developed and produced entertainment products for the mass retail market. She currently volunteers at her local hospital.

Anna and her late husband Bill have five children: William (Gulf Stream School class of 2010), Chris (class of 2013), Nick (class of 2015), Charlie (class of 2017), and Finn (class of 2025).

TJ Glanfield

Treasurer

TJ Glanfield has been on the Board of Trustees since 2020. He serves on the Executive Committee, Finance Committee, and Development Committee.

TJ is a founding partner and portfolio manager at Quantix Commodities, an asset management firm.  Previously, TJ was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in both New York and London.  For the past 6 years, TJ has also served on the board for Lwala Community Alliance, an NGO in Western Kenya, and was previously the Board Chair.

TJ and his wife, Seran, live in Delray Beach and have three young children.

Dr. Gray Smith

Head of School

Growing up outside of Baltimore, Maryland, I first learned about Gulf Stream School because my cousins were among its students. Once, during a family visit to Delray Beach, we drove by the campus and my mom said, “If we lived here, that’s where you’d go to school.” St. Paul’s in Baltimore was great, but going to school across the street from the beach made me wish for a family relocation.

I later moved to Florida and worked at Pine Crest School as an English teacher and varsity lacrosse coach. I visited Gulf Stream School and got to know it better during those years and, at the time, began thinking, “This is where I want to be.” I am very grateful and feel extremely fortunate and honored for the opportunity to fulfill that dream as both Gulf Stream School’s eighth Head of School, and also as a parent of two GSS students.

Our Board of Trustees Members

  • Charles Hagy, Jr.

    Charles Hagy, Jr. has been a Board of Trustees member since 2016 and chairs the DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) Committee and serves on the Strategic Planning Committee.

    A teacher for nearly three decades, Charles is currently in his 27th year at The Benjamin School. He is currently Head of Middle School, a role he assumed in 2003. Along with his administrative duties, Charles continues to teach U.S. History, coach basketball, and lead an advisory group.

    Charles also serves as Education Committee Co-Chair for the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and is a member of the Vestry at Bethesda by the Sea.

    Charles and his wife, Deborah, have three children.

  • Dr. Sami Dagher

    Dr. Sami Dagher has been on the Board since 2015. Sami serves on the Committee on Trustees and Finance Committee.

    Sami is an interventional pain management physician and has been practicing in Palm Beach County since 1996. He is married to Norma Dagher, who served as President of the Gulf Stream School Auxiliary Board.

    Sami and Norma have three children: Alex (Gulf Stream School class of 2017), Andrew (class of 2019), and Ella (class of 2025).

  • Paul Zarcadoolas

    Paul Zarcadoolas has been on the Board of Trustees since 2017 and serves on the Development, Marketing and Building & Grounds Committees.

    Paul is the founder and President of Z Management Services Inc., a software-company consulting firm that he started 25 years ago. Paul is very active in philanthropy, both here in the United States and in Costa Rica. He also serves on the Board of the James Jr. Fund, a Broward County nonprofit organization that helps children with cancer and special needs.

    Paul and his wife, Nancy, have three children: Dorothea (Gulf Stream School class of 2019), Athena (class of 2022) and Paulina (class of 2025).

  • Tom Stanley

    Tom Stanley has been a Board of Trustees member since 2019, and he serves on the Legal/Risk Management Committee.

    Tom is an attorney at MacMillan & Stanley, PLLC in Delray Beach and has practiced law for 17 years. Tom is a Town Commissioner for the town of Gulf Stream and a current Board member of the Boys and Girls Club of Delray Beach.

    Tom and his wife, Kristen, enjoy horseback riding and playing tennis.

  • John Backer

    John Backer graduated from Gulf Stream School in 2000 and has been a Board of Trustees member since 2021.

    John is an owner of Gracey-Backer, Inc., an independent insurance agency founded in 1925 in Delray Beach. He is also a current Board member of the Boys and Girls Club of Delray Beach.

    John and his wife, Tracy, have two children: Jack (Gulf Stream School class of 2030), and William.

  • Carly Bellis

    Carly Bellis joined the board in 2021 and is a Gulf Stream School alumna (’93). A former lawyer, Carly spent the last 15 years growing businesses in the digital and e-commerce spaces in the US and Latin America. Currently, she owns and manages Not My Mama’s and Swinton Pickleball.

    Carly and her husband Javier have two daughters, Caroline (class of 2029) and Penny (class of 2031).

  • Karen Sweetapple

    Karen Sweetapple returned to the board in 2021, bringing the experience of being a GSS parent of four over a span of 19 years. (Berkley “03, Langley “06, David “09, Kendall “12)

    She was a member of the GSS Board of Trustees for 9 of those years, serving as Vice President, Secretary, chair of the Development Committee, Co-chair of the Annual Fund (with her husband Bob), and other committees.

    She is active in the community – a Past President of Impact 100 Palm Beach County ( current Advisory Council chair), Treasurer of the Antique Club of Boca Raton, and VP of the Women’s Club of Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club.

  • Nicholas Kaleel

    Nicholas Kaleel joined the Gulf Stream School Board of Trustees in 2022 after graduating GSS in 2009.

    Nicholas is an Assistant State Attorney at the State Attorney’s Office for Florida’s 15th Judicial Circuit (Palm Beach County), where he has worked since graduating from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2020. He ran Division I Track/Field and Cross Country at the University of Miami, where he earned his biomedical engineering degree.

    Nicholas attended GSS with his sister and cousin: Alex (Class of 2012) and Kristi (Class of 2009).

  • Rashmi Kar

    Rashmi Kar joined the Gulf Stream School Board of Trustees in 2022.

    A lifelong passion for helping others, coupled with a strong lineage of doctors as role models in my family, led me down the path of medicine and a career path that allows me to provide high-quality and compassionate healthcare.

    I graduated at the top of my class in medical school at MGM Medical College in India and completed my residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology from UMDNJ-NJMS in 2006. I am board certified in OB-GYN since 2010 and currently have been in practice for the past 16 years.

    Through the years, I have been involved in leading healthcare services for women leading as the Director of Womens Health program at Hudson River Healthcare, and FQHC providing
    quality healthcare services to underserved women in Westchester, NY. This experience led me to pursue my Master’s in public health from Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

    I moved to Florida in 2016 and worked with Healthcare District of Palm Beach, helping start a Womens Health program in Boca in 2017-19, and again since 2019, I have teamed up to help start and build up the Womens Health Program at Foundcare, an FQHC in Palm beach. I simultaneously started my own practice in 2019 in Boca, offering a more personalized healthcare service for women along with mentoring medical students from the University of Miami as an Affiliate Professor in
    Medicine.

    I live in Boca Raton, Florida with my husband Pinaki and our three girls Anya, (currently a sophomore in Pinecrest) Arya and Anu (GSS class of 2026) and very happy to be part of the GSS
    family since 2016.

  • Mitch Sinberg

    Mitch Sinberg joined the Gulf Stream School Board of Trustees in 2022.

    He serves as Senior Managing Director – Florida Leader for Berkadia, managing the state of Florida for the firm. In this role, Mitch provides strategic vision and leadership to a team of investment sales and commercial finance professionals in the company’s top-producing region. Since joining the firm in 2013, Mitch has increased the annual volume of Berkadia’s
    Florida region from approximately $200 million to in excess of $6 billion in 2021, consistently making it one of the largest commercial and multi-family lenders in the state. Additionally,
    Mitch has helped the firm establish an investment sales team that sold more than $3 billion of multifamily assets in 2021.

    Prior to joining Berkadia, Mitch opened and served as co-manager of Beech Street Capital’s Florida offices, where he established a presence for the firm in Florida and obtained a Freddie Mac Seller-Servicer license for the firm within the state of Florida. The partners of Beech Street Capital sold the firm to Capital One in 2013.

    Mitch graduated Cum Laude from the University of Florida while dual majoring in Finance and International Economics in 2001. He earned his MBA from the University of Florida in 2006. He has been an occasional adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University, teaching real estate finance and investment in the school’s MS in Real Estate program. Other achievements include
    being named one of South Florida’s 40 under 40 by the South Florida Business Journal in 2017.

    Mitch, his beautiful wife Gina, and their two children (Dylan class of 2025, and Chase class of 2027) reside in Gulf Stream, FL; Mitch is an avid golfer, and boater and enjoys coaching his son’s baseball team.