Board Leadership

TBI President David Cooper

As I think about the upcoming two years as President of TBI I can’t help but be filled with optimism for our Synagogue.  Candidly I am an optimist by nature but in this case my optimism is well grounded: we are coming out of the Pandemic meaning a return to normal Synagogue life is within view;  we are incredibly fortunate to have wonderful professional staff leading our Preschool, Religious School and office; we are blessed with fantastic clergy including both Rabbi Mike and our new interim Cantor Vadim; our Board is comprised of thoughtful and committed lay leadership; we recently completed the final phase of the renovation of the ground floor providing wonderful new and flexible space, combined with our burgeoning preschool, this will be a major step toward achieving financial health.

I can’t thank our outgoing President enough, Rita Shumsky, for guiding us here, especially through the Pandemic. I would remiss if I also did not sincerely thank our Board of Directors and all of you, our wonderful congregants, for standing up and demonstrating such loving support for each other, and the Shul, especially through the hardships of these past 15 months.  Most importantly we need to strategically examine our future as a Conservative Shul to ensure the path we chart continues to provide the spiritual well-being, and educational and social programming, that best engages and inspires our members and learners across all generations.

 All that said let me introduce myself and my family.  I am married for 35 years to my best friend and love Louise and we have two amazing daughters - Leigh who is 32 and supervises education at a charter school for children with autism, and Jessica who is 30 and is an Architect and graphic designer.  Both girls went through TBI Religious School, which prepared them well for their Bat Mitvahs and they followed with Hebrew High.  From a business perspective I am a professional mechanical engineer with a focus on the vertical built environment, working with world renowned Architects helping create high performance sustainable buildings.  I am enjoying a 40-year career - the first half in a private engineering firm in which I became an equity partner and the latter half, after being acquired, with WSP, a publicly held 60,000 person global engineering and environmental consultancy.

I very much look forward to these next two years – building on our successes and further enhancing what TBI offers to its members as a spiritual, educational and social home.  I also very much look forward to connecting with all of you, both those whom I already know as well as those whom I have not yet had the pleasure to meet.  Please do reach out to me at any time via phone, email or text to share your thoughts about TBI.  For it is only with our collective efforts that we will live up to the vision –         

Be Enriched, Be Inspired, Belong.

B’Shalom,

David

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