Thornton Academy Postscripts Alumni Magazine Summer 2007 | Page 6

www.thorntonacademy.org

Coffman Leaves Post and Looks to New
Challenges Leading up to Bicentennial
Cathy Coffman is ready for
some time on the beach.
To be sure, the former Director
of Finance and Advancement has
enjoyed her 19 years at Thornton,
and she looks forward to working
on a part-time basis to help prepare
for TA’s bicentennial celebration in
2011. But the switch will be a welcome change as Coffman can enjoy
more down time—whether she’s
gardening, cooking a gourmet meal
or visiting the seashore—and she
can be with family in the Midwest
more frequently.
The change also allows Coffman to continue developing her
professional interests.
“I’ve been given so many opportunities to expand on what I’m doing and to take on new responsibilities and projects,” she says. “Before
coming here, I always found myself
bored after two years on the job.
The nice thing about Thornton is
that I’ve been able to get interested
and stay interested in my work, to
take on more leadership roles, and
to really be supported professionally in a way that I think is unique
at such an institution.”
Coffman and her husband
moved to Maine in 1984—after
vacationing in the state—and she
started off working for the Portland
School Department when the Maine
Educational Assessment was first
established. Other editing positions

followed, and Coffman spent a few
years heading up a real estate trade
journal before joining Thornton’s
staff in April 1988 to lead advancement efforts.
“I knew that I wanted to work
for a nonprofit,” she says, “And I
had an affinity for education. I also
saw that schools needed better advocates to tell the public the kind of
good work that teachers are doing.”
Coffman recalls how different
it was at TA during that time, when
she didn’t even have a computer in
her office, the campus was significantly smaller, and school’s development, alumni relations and communication efforts were in their
infancy. Since then, Coffman has
push ed for many changes, though
she points out that fellow administrators, staff and volunteers were
critical to making the initiatives
successful.
She advocated for using software that made it easier to print
and distribute Postscripts, Previews and other publications. She
reinstated the Alumni Association,
ran the 1994 capital campaign
that resulted in a new theater and
fine arts wing at the high school,
expanded the range and impact of
Thornton’s annual fund, oversaw
the middle school construction and
helped establish the use of laptops
in Thornton classrooms. Coffman
has more recently led a commit-

tee that developed a
marketing campaign to
draw additional students to Thornton, and
has overseen the conversion to new accounting software. In 1998,
she added the responsibilities of Director of
Finance to her duties.
But in some ways—
despite how life has
changed with renovated buildings and the
advent of E-mail, iPods
and cellular phones—
Coffman believes life at
Thornton has remained
much the same.
“To my mind, a
lot of things haven’t
changed over the years,
including the culture
on campus, the climate,
Photo by Lloyd Hunt
the traditions, the
Cathy Coffman, speaking here at a retirement celalumni pride and dediebration, worked for 19 years at Thornton Acadcation that staff, faculty emy. She led TA’s alumni relations, communicaand students have to
tions, marketing and development efforts and
the school,” she says.
served as finance director.
Coffman’s new position will allow her to
will appear there in 2011. Coffexplore and organize the school’s
man hopes to engage teachers in a
historical archives and help crevariety of disciplines to see where
ate curriculum aimed at raising
information about Thornton might
awareness about Thornton’s past.
be used in the classroom, and the
Working with the Saco Museum,
former yearbook and newspaper
she aims to draw public attention
advisor looks forward to engaging
to exhibits created by students that
Thornton’s many bright students.

Advancing the TA’s School Mission is
Important to New Chief Financial Officer
Kelly makes the
move from a public
to a private school
Ensuring that young people
get a solid education means a lot
more than counting beans, and
few know that better than Paul
Kelly.
Thornton Academy’s new
chief financial officer says that
balancing the books—and planning a school’s fiscal future—involves taking on a whole host of
duties. It’s about ensuring support for a variety of educational
and extra-curricular programs,
making contingency plans based
on projected enrollment, planning for current and future facilities use, and figuring out what
impact state initiatives such as
district regionalization may have
on daily operations. In short,
heading up Thornton Academy’s
financial department is crucial
to supporting our mission to give
students many different opportunities for the future.
“It’s an exciting time to be
coming on board here, and it will
be rewarding to help maneuver
the ship into the harbor as we’re
approaching Thornton’s bicen-



bachelor’s degree
in accounting from
Stonehill College
in Easton, Mass. He
worked 20 years for
Unum Life Insurance Company in a
variety of roles, most
recently as director of mortgage and
real estate accounting and service. He
earned his master’s
degree in business
administration at the
University of Southern Maine in 1984
and went on to become business manager of School Union
7, or Saco/Dayton
Schools. In 2000,
he became business
manager for the Gorham School DepartPhoto by Jennifer Hass
ment.
Paul Kelly recently took the helm as Thornton
“Paul brings a lot
Academy’s chief financial officer.
of private sector experience to the position, including a long and distintennial,” Kelly said, referring to
guished career with Unum. He’s
the historic occasion that will
familiar with various accounting
take place in 2011.
systems, knows about making
A Maine native, Kelly gradugood investments and—with his
ated from Cheverus High School
MBA—we know he understands
in Portland and received a

POSTSCRIPTS * SUMMER 2007

finance,” says Headmaster Carl J.
Stasio Jr.
Stasio adds that given his
experience with Saco and Dayton
schools, Kelly also understands
Thornton’s unique character as
an independent school that fills
both private and public educational needs. While working for
School Union #7, Kelly helped negotiate the contract between the
district and, which allows Saco
and Dayton students to attend its
high school program.
A longtime Little League
coach and married father of
two grown children, Kelly says
it’s exhilarating to take on the
new position. Moving from a
corporate position into school
finance was a switch for him in
the late 1990s, and he is looking
forward to this new professional
challenge, moving from a public
school to a private one.
“It’s a different type of challenge on the private side. In
public schools, once your budget
is approved, you know how much
is in your checkbook,” Kelly says.
“As a private school, we need to
be able to tap into a variety of
sources of revenue in order to
maintain the breadth of our educational programs.”