MICHELE DICKEY recently joined Dermody, Burke & Brown, CPAs, LLC as a principal in the tax department. She is a CPA with more than 30 years of experience in tax accounting, consulting, financial- statement preparation, and compliance services. Dickey works with closely held businesses within a wide range of industries. She has experience as a certified valuation analyst, providing business valuations for companies involved in buy/sell agreements, charitable contributions, family limited partnerships, and gifting programs. Dickey received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Le Moyne College. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as well as the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and serves on the Upstate Foundation’s Professional Advisory Council for Legacy Giving. She also serves as treasurer for the Estate Planning Council of Central New York.

MICHAEL FRALIX also recently joined Dermody as a principal in the tax department. He is a CPA and has more than 18 years of public accounting experience. Fralix has worked with a wide variety of clients including manufacturing, short-line railroads, small business, and high-net-worth individuals. He comes to the firm with technical expertise in various areas of taxation, including partnership taxation, corporate tax, and sale and use tax. Fralix received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from SUNY Oswego.

CAROLYN LAWLESS also came aboard Dermody, Burke & Brown, CPAs, LLC as principal in the tax department. She is a CPA with more than 30 years of public accounting experience. Lawless specializes in tax-advisory services including tax planning and preparation for various entities, including corporations, partnerships, trusts, estates, and individuals, and also performs reviews and compilations for small businesses in various industries. She received a bachelor’s degree of business administration in accounting from Niagara University. Lawless was past president and is a current board member of the Central New York Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals. She was also past president and a current member of the Estate Planning Council of Central New York. 

JAMES HAYWOOD ROLLING, JR. was recently appointed co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice at Syracuse University. He replaces Marcelle Haddix, whose three-year term is ending, and will begin his three-year term at the start of the fall semester. Rolling, a dual professor of arts education in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University and teaching and leadership in the School of Education, has spent his entire career as an educator focused on developing the next generation of diverse, creative leaders. Kendall Phillips, professor of communication and rhetorical studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, is the other co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice. Phillips’ term is ending next year.

Strategic Financial Services, Inc., an independent, Central New York–based wealth-management firm, has added KATY HEINTZ to its staff as business-development manager. In this newly created role, she will help lead firm growth through the development of all marketing and sales initiatives. Heintz comes to Strategic from PAR Technology, where she served as the company’s director of marketing. She led the PAR Restaurant and Retail Marketing group, which handled branding, public relations, product marketing, social media, digital strategy, and more. Heintz has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northeastern University. 

General surgeon MARK WILLIAMS, M.D. has joined Rome Health Surgical Specialists, located at the Griffiss Business & Technology Park in Rome. With more than 20 years of experience in the Mohawk Valley, Williams is skilled in advanced surgical techniques, including laparoscopic and robotic surgery. In addition, his expertise in breast surgery will complement Rome Health’s Breast Imaging Center of Excellence. As a general surgeon, he will perform a broad range of general surgical procedures at Rome Health, such as minimally invasive surgery for gallbladder disease, appendicitis, and hernia repair, colon resections, thyroid, and breast surgery. Williams earned his bachelor’s degree in biology at the City College of the City University of New York and his medical degree at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn. He completed his five-year general-surgery residency at Staten Island University Hospital, where he was chief surgical resident. Williams left New York City to build a practice in the Mohawk Valley where he could get to know his patients and their families. Board-certified by the American Board of Surgery, he is also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Williams is experienced in medical staff and practice leadership having served as chief of surgery in Utica for 12 years and chaired various medical-staff committees during his career in the Mohawk Valley. Williams is joining surgeons Keneth Hall, M.D., and Samuel Molica, D.O., at Rome Health Surgical Specialists.

Finger Lakes Health has appointed AUDREY TORIO as director of nursing at Huntington Living Center in Waterloo. She has more than 17 years of progressive nursing-leadership experience within the long-term-care community in Central New York and has experience in various settings with a concentration in geriatrics, including skilled nursing, short-term rehabilitation, and managed long-term care. Torio also has a background in acute hospital care and oncology and earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Elmira College. Prior to joining Finger Lakes Health, Torio was the director of nursing/director of clinical services at Van Duyn Center for Rehabilitation in Onondaga, where she oversaw one of the largest facilities in the Syracuse area, consisting of a 500-bed facility that houses skilled nursing as well as post-acute care needs. 

ANNA BROOKS THOMAS has been named director of football operations at Colgate University. She began her post on March 1, becoming just the second woman to hold the football operations’ position in Colgate’s conference, the Patriot League, and one of fewer than 30 women in this position in all of Division I football, Colgate says. Her responsibilities include handling team travel, video operations, career planning, and the life-skills program. Thomas — a native of Tappahannock, Virginia — arrives after one year as the football-operations assistant at the University of Richmond. Before that, she worked as a compliance assistant at the University of Virginia, while completing her graduate degree. Thomas got her start as a student recruitment team member and then football-compliance intern for the University of Alabama football program during her undergraduate days.

RITA ROMANO has been appointed president of the newly created Quadrant Laboratories LLC division at Quadrant Biosciences Inc., a molecular-diagnostics company. She will primarily be responsible for spearheading the growth of Quadrant’s growing laboratory diagnostics business, which includes the opening of a new lab in partnership with SUNY and Upstate Medical University. The company’s Clarifi COVID-19 saliva test, co-developed by Upstate Medical, received emergency-use authorization by the FDA in September 2020. It is currently ranked as the most sensitive COVID-19 saliva test currently on the market, Quadrant Biosciences said. Romano brings 30 years of clinical laboratory experience to Quadrant, most recently as director of the Operations Center at Laboratory Alliance of CNY. In this role, she helped oversee clinical- laboratory services that performed more than 10 million tests a year. Romano earned her bachelor’s degree in medical technology and her master’s degree in strategic leadership from St. Bonaventure University