Our Team
Cathy Shalvey, Co-founder and President
Cathy has over 20 years experience as a designer and creative director in both agency and freelance roles. She has worked closely with a large variety of clients and creative contractors and managed accounts of all sizes. For the past 12 years, Cathy has volunteered her time creating promotional campaigns for school and community events and fundraisers. She has been active with leadership or committee roles for numerous non-profit organizations, school fundraising groups and Girl Scouts of the USA. Cathy holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from UMass Dartmouth.
Tim Shalvey, Co-founder and Senior Advisor
Tim brings over 25 years of expertise in business networking and IT communications to MySchoolSwap. Tim is currently acting as partner to My School Swap, LLC while serving as a National Sales Account Manager for Avaya Government Solutions. Tim’s former positions include director of business development for Ericsson Federal and director of strategic alliances for Nortel Government Solutions as well as sales executive positions with Cisco Systems and Verizon. Tim holds a bachelor of information science degree from Johnson & Wales University. Tim and Cathy live in Gainesville, VA with their two daughters.
Lauren Loomis, Public Relations Strategist
Lauren has worked in every facet of the communications field from print-based publishing to public relations, and from marketing to public affairs. She helped shape one of the first successful portal communities on America Online and the Internet, and has expertise in niche-based development of content and community. She has acted as a leader in Quality of Life initiatives for our Armed Forces and their families. She was among the first to serve in a hospital-wide partnership in the Department of Defense, and helped architect the first Patient and Family Medical Resource Center in the military. Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Linguistics, a Master of Business Administration, and has pursued coursework at the doctoral level in Public Administration. Lauren lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children.
Advisory Board
Jeff Smith
Jeff brings extensive experience in search engine optimization (SEO) for consumer-facing websites. Jeff is currently the senior director of SEO for WhaleShark Media, which operates some of the largest online coupon websites in the US, including RetailMeNot.com.
Before WhaleShark, Jeff was with HomeAway.com from the company's founding in 2005 through its successful IPO in 2011. At HomeAway, Jeff provided thought leadership on SEO and drove SEO product development by working closely with the IT, product management, design and development teams. His leadership on HomeAway's global platform enabled implementation of SEO best practices for the company's international websites. Jeff’s efforts resulted in consistent and sustained growth in qualified organic search traffic and revenue for the company.
Prior to HomeAway, Jeff led areas of content development, online marketing and international customer relations roles for CyberRentals.com and was an editor for Eagle Publications, a daily newspaper publisher in Claremont, NH.
Bill Suneson
Bill is cofounder and president of Next Generation Insurance Group, a national specialty insurance business that created GradGuard.com and MassDrive.com and has quickly become a leading authority on insurance for college students and young adults. A seasoned affinity marketing veteran, Suneson has a long history of propelling new ventures and prominent brands into partnership marketing leaders. Before co-founding Next Generation Insurance Group, Suneson served as Senior Vice President at JPMorgan Chase, where he led the student-lending industry's top affinity marketing business.
Prior to JPM, he was the sales leader and part of the senior management team that shaped innovations in education finance through a dynamic marketing company that was sold to Collegiate Funding Services and subsequently became part of JPMorgan Chase. Bill lives in Bridgewater, MA with his wife and two children.
Kathryn Surso
Kathryn specializes in helping web based companies grow. Kathryn, an attorney serving both entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies, has held management and executive roles in legal, business development, online marketing and sales with companies such as Thomson Reuters, Salon.com and she has also provided counsel to a wide variety of start-up companies. Kathryn brings to My School Swap her broad knowledge and expertise in structuring strategic partnerships, licensing, intellectual property, privacy law, and corporate governance and compliance. Kathryn, as the parent of a preschooler, is also equally passionate to the demands of parenthood, including participation in fundraising for schools.
Dr. Mary Ann Wangemann
Mary Ann has a passion around improving education that has grown from having taught for the last 20 years at all levels. She couples this passion with a business sense gained from managing work efforts up through the billion dollar range by serving as a senior executive at EDS, Management Concepts and the start up mySBX (now known as GovWin). Now as President of Dr-In-2-It, she combines these skill sets to provide business training to learners in the way the learners want to learn. She jumped at the chance to serve on the My School Swap Advisory Board because as a Mom, educator, and business owner, she felt it provided the much needed intersection point for parents, teachers, and community business partners to better support our children while demonstrating our collective responsibility to give money directly to our schools.