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\u201cMore than anything, it\u2019s probably just a coincidence,\u201d said Madden, who served as mayor from 2016 to 2023.<\/p>\n
HVCC spokesperson Dennis Kennedy confirmed that this is the first time that two former Troy mayors sat on the Board of Trustees at the same time. The Times Union independently verified it.<\/p>\n
Overall, it\u2019s rare for the mostly Troy-based college to be represented by past elected leaders of the city. Before Madden and Tutunjian came on board, Robert Conway Jr. was the last Troy mayor to sit on HVCC\u2019s 10-member board. He served from 1975 to 1994.<\/p>\n
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HVCC\u2019s governing structure differs from that of nearby\u00a0Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where sitting mayors are automatically granted an ex officio seat on the board. HVCC\u2019s board is also considerably smaller than RPI\u2019s 19-member decision-making panel.<\/p>\n
In a statement, current Troy Mayor\u00a0Carmella Mantello said that she is proud to see two mayors on the HVCC board.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir experience as former city CEOs brings a deep understanding of our community\u2019s needs and perspective that is invaluable (when) important decisions are being made,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to argue against having that level of institutional knowledge in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tutunjian, a 1989 HVCC alumnus who went on to run his family\u2019s auto shop before becoming mayor, has thought about serving on the HVCC board for several years. He said he often thinks back to 2009, during his second term as mayor, when President Barack Obama spoke to him during a visit to the college.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m really proud to be a part of the college alumni and the board now to try to get as many people to see that it is a possibility that someday you can be on stage with the president and recognized for what you did at Hudson Valley Community College,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tutunjian is one of four Board of Trustees appointments from the Rensselaer County Legislature, where he also serves as an aide to the GOP majority. Four other trustees, including Madden, were appointed by a mix of Democratic governors over the last 16 years.<\/p>\n
A wide variety of local officials have been asked to serve on the board over the years, including former Rensselaer County Legislature Chairman Neil Kelleher, former Troy City Manager Steve Dworsky and former county Legislator William Fagan.<\/p>\n
Madden, a former executive director of Troy Rehabilitation and Improvement Program Inc. from 1987 to 2015, who has served on a bevy of nonprofit boards, hopes that more than elected experience was taken into account when Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed him in October.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a great board,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I hope that I wasn\u2019t chosen just because my credentials included being mayor, but because of a breadth of knowledge that was developed over a career that would be useful to the college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madden, an alumnus of the University at Albany and Farmingdale State College, never attended HVCC. That is a big perk of having Tutunjian on the panel, according to Madden.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarry brings a perspective as having been a student there \u2014 and that\u2019s important,\u201d Madden said. \u201cDespite all of the things we need to look at and focus on, whether it be investments, new buildings, new programs, new policies, you have to keep the focus on, \u2018How does this impact the student?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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Prior to joining the board, Tutunjian said he\u2019d see Madden from \u201ctime to time.\u201d But overall, he doesn\u2019t typically encounter past mayors.<\/p>\n
Madden, on the other hand, regularly runs into longtime friend and neighbor Mark Pattison, who in 1996 became the first full-time mayor in about three decades to serve Troy after the city dissolved its city manager form of government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Madden, when he was mayor of Troy in 2023, speaks during a swearing-in ceremony for the Troy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[844,610,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,35844],"class_list":["post-195457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-rensco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}