New Jersey
Ryan of First Bank installed as chair of New Jersey Bankers Association | ROI-NJ
The New Jersey Bankers Association recently installed a new slate of officers for its 2024-2025 fiscal year, including Patrick Ryan of First Bank as chair, Craig Montanaro of Kearny Bank as first vice chair and Elizabeth Magennis of ConnectOne Bank as second vice chair.
Ryan said he is eager for the opportunity.
“I’m very excited for the coming year as chair of the New Jersey Bankers Association,” he said. “This is an exciting and challenging time in our industry.
“NJBankers is in a great position to help member banks navigate these turbulent waters. And, more importantly, the association can help drive meaningful change as we move forward. We have an amazing team of leaders at the association. I’m proud to have this opportunity to do my small part to help the industry grow and prosper in the next year and beyond.”
Ryan is the founder, director, CEO and president of First Bank, and is responsible for the strategic direction and overall performance of the company. Since the bank’s inception in 2008, it has grown to 26 locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, with $3.59 billion in assets and 288 employees.
First Bank has been named one of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Top 100 Best-Performing Community Banks in the nation for record growth and profitability.
Montanaro is the CEO of Kearny Bank. He was appointed to serve on the board of directors of Kearny Financial Corp. and the board of directors of Kearny Bank in 2010. He joined Kearny Bank in 2003 when Kearny acquired West Essex Bank, where he served as chief operating officer. He was appointed CEO of Kearny Financial and Kearny Bank in April 2011.
Magennis is the president of ConnectOne Bank, the bank subsidiary of ConnectOne Bancorp Inc. ConnectOne is a leading commercial bank, with over $9 billion in assets, serving the New Jersey, New York and South Florida markets.
Magennis holds over 30 years of experience in the banking industry. As president of ConnectOne, she is responsible for the growth, function and strategic direction of the bank. She joined ConnectOne Bank in 2006 and has played an integral role in growing the company to a top-performing bank with industry-leading metrics.
Steven Klein, chair and CEO of Northfield Bank, will serve as immediate former chair.
In addition, new members serving on the NJBankers board of directors for the 2024-2025 year include:
- John Borelli, Jr.: CEO, Newfield National Bank;
- Matthew Carcich: CEO, Freedom Bank;
- John DeSclafani: senior vice president/commercial banking leader, Wells Fargo Bank;
- Edward Dietzler: CEO, Bank of Princeton;
- Catherine Franzoni: Chief operating officer, Manasquan Bank;
- Donald Mindiak: CEO, First Commerce Bank;
- Michael Shriner: CEO, BCB Bank.
NEWARK, N.J. — Nico Hischier scored his second goal of the game on a breakaway at 3:42 of overtime to give the New Jersey Devils a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday night.
Hischier took a pass from Jack Hughes and broke in on goalie Philipp Grubauer. As Seattle’s Matty Beniers caught up, Hischier turned to to his backhand to shield Beniers and put a shot past Grubauer. The New Jersey captain leads the team with 15 goals.
Cody Glass also scored for New Jersey, and Jacob Markstrom made 15 saves. The Devils built on a 5-2 victory Monday night in Minnesota that ended a four-game losing streak.
Jared McCann and defenseman Adam Larsson scored for Seattle, and Grubauer stopped 23 shots. The Kraken have two games left on a trip that opened with a loss at Carolina and a victory over the New York Rangers.
McCann tied it on a power play at 5:06 of the second period, scoring off a rebound just 1:33 after Hischier gave New Jersey the lead on a power play with a shot from the top of the right circle to the far side.
Glass opened the scoring at 54 seconds of the first period. He won a faceoff, then scored off a rebound of Dougie Hamilton’s shot. Larson tied it at 8:55 of the period, stepping up between he circles for a shot to the far side.
Up next
Kraken: At Boston on Thursday night.
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Devils: Host Carolina on Saturday night.
New Jersey
Governor-elect Sherrill Nominates Tom Hauck to Serve as Director of Homeland Security – Insider NJ
Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill announced today that she will appoint Marine Corps Veteran Tom Hauck to serve as New Jersey’s Director of Homeland Security. Hauck is currently serving as the Director of Intelligence and Operations of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security, where he leads the state’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts, works in coordination with the FBI and local law enforcement, and implements intelligence collection and outreach programs to keep communities safe.
“I’m on a mission to deliver for New Jersey, and that means first and foremost keeping our residents safe. Tom brings decades of professional law enforcement experience that will help us do just that. As Director of Homeland Security, Tom will help us protect houses of worship, run the nation’s first state-level cyber information-sharing and incident response center, and be a key part of our preparations to welcome the world to celebrate both the FIFA World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary,” said Governor-elect Sherrill.
“I am honored to continue to serve the State of New Jersey as Director of Homeland Security. I look forward to working alongside the Governor-elect to lead the Office in our mission to intercept and mitigate threats before they reach communities. Together, we will continue to run the nation’s premier cyber information sharing center, work with state and local law enforcement to protect communities, and be a partner in preparing New Jersey to safely host world-class events this summer,” said Tom Hauck.
Thomas Hauck joined the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) in July 2022 as the Director of the Intelligence and Operations Division. Mr. Hauck oversees the activities of three bureaus that work in close collaboration with federal, State, and local partners: Operations Bureau, Intelligence and Analysis Bureau, and Mission Support Bureau. He leads NJOHSP’s collaboration efforts on counterterrorism, domestic terrorism, counterintelligence, and other specific criminal matters with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and other law enforcement entities. He also implements intelligence collection and outreach programs and resources to help NJOHSP meet its mission of helping to keep the residents and visitors in New Jersey safe. Mr. Hauck brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the agency, having served the FBI for two decades, most recently as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge and Compliance Officer at the FBI’s Newark Field Office. Prior to the FBI, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as an Intelligence Officer/Captain.
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3-minute read
Charter schools explained. What is a Charter School?
What exactly is a Charter School? Let’s break down the basics: what they are, where they came from and how they work.
Paul Wood Jr, NorthJersey.com
New K-12 bills aimed at curbing inflated salaries and nepotism by improving transparency in the state’s public charter schools are headed to Gov. Phil Murphy for signing, coinciding with a state comptroller’s report that accuses a prominent South Jersey charter school of violating state laws.
The school installed a private vendor to oversee its management without due process, with the school superintendent appointing herself as the vendor’s CEO and naming other family members to key leadership positions, the report said.
The new proposals address transparency, governance, athletics, budgets and salaries for top leadership, said Harry Lee, head of the state’s charter school lobby, the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
They also reward high-performing charter schools by making it easier for schools to consolidate, and introduces a 10-year-renewal clause, up from a five-year renewal, through the state Department of Education.
Story continues below photo gallery.
“These bipartisan bills modernize New Jersey’s 30-year-old charter school law by strengthening transparency, accountability and oversight, while continuing to support high-performing charter schools,” said the bills’ sponsor, state Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth. “Public dollars deserve public accountability, and New Jersey’s students and families deserve nothing less.”
The comptroller’s report targeted CAPS Greater Asbury Park Charter School. News reports detailed the charter school executive director’s husband renting out school property and receiving cash for uniform sales that were not documented.
School staff members called attention to corrupt practices for three years, ending in the board of trustees firing the executive director and her husband in 2024, the comptroller’s report said.
The state has also identified other murky practices, such as school authorities installing CAPS Inc. as its charter management association through a contract process that bypassed competitors and gave it “sweeping authority.”
Several high-performing charter schools in the state, including in Plainfield and Paterson, operate under the umbrella of CAPS, or College Achieve Public Schools.
While many charter schools in the state have been compliant with the law, there were outliers that made it necessary for legislators to act and update the state’s charter schools law, which dates back to 1995, Lee said.
“This bill provides consistency and will require more transparency around school leader contracts,” Lee told NorthJersey.com. “We had issues of a couple of school leader salaries that were out of control. This will absolutely clamp down on that.
“This also improves governance,” Lee said. “So there’s now new requirements for governance around qualifications, residency, where one-third of school trustees have to live or work in the district or region in which the charter school is located, as well as new training requirements.”
Prevents athletic ‘super teams’
The bills will also prevent the creation of “super teams” in high school athletics, after CAPS Greater Asbury Park faced allegations that it built a winning basketball team that won a state title with players recruited from all over the state, including Trenton and Irvington, who were motivated to transfer to CAPS to train under a reputed coach.
If the bills become law, every charter school will also have to post all board of trustees meeting notices, meeting dates and the minutes of each meeting on the charter school’s website in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act. A second bill prohibits charter schools from imposing further criteria that would narrow the pool of students already selected by lottery, bars them from advising or counseling enrolled students to leave the school, and lays out rules for interscholastic athletics participation.
The proposals have the support of two parties that have historically opposed each other — the powerful public school teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, and the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
Critics and many public school advocates have long accused charters of siphoning off public funds from public districts, while serving selective populations. The NJEA, which opposed them for years on the grounds that they adhered to fewer accountability measures, views the new bills as a step toward addressing this.
Public charters, on the other hand, are viewed by many as a solution for underserved students, as evidenced in improved test scores and student performance in the state’s six urban districts where most of the 85 schools are. An analysis of 2025 test scores on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment showed that 71% of charter school students in six urban districts, Camden, Jersey City, Plainfield, Trenton, Paterson and Newark, were more likely to read at grade level and 65% more likely to do math at grade level compared with their district peers, the state charter association said.
Charter schools enroll students through a free lottery entered by parents. The schools’ chargers, or “contracts,” can be revoked at any time by the governor’s office if they do not meet key benchmarks of student performance and fiscal and organizational sustainability. However, like public schools, charters are free of cost and are run primarily using taxpayer money from sending school districts, based on the number of students the districts send.
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