The Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region named members of its 2021 board of directors during a virtual meeting last month.

Mark Oefinger, retired Groton town manager, was named chairman. Sean Nugent, chairman of the Preston Redevelopment Agency, and Chris Jewell, chief financial officer and principal of Collins & Jewell Co., were named first and second vice chairman, respectively. Donna Simpson, retired marketing executive for the Town of Stonington, was named secretary, and Charles Seeman, president and chief executive officer of United Community and Family Services, was named treasurer.

Michael Carey, an attorney with Suisman Shapiro, is the board's immediate past chairman.

Inducted as new board members were state Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, executive director of the Niantic Children’s Museum; Mark Hill, president and CEO of the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board, or EWIB; and Jason Vincent, president of the Norwich Community Development Corporation.

During the meeting, produced live from the studios of Creative Konnection on Bank Street in New London, Cowser reported that despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, seCTer, a designated, private, nonprofit economic development organization, has loaned nearly $6 million to small- and medium-sized businesses in the region. In addition, CT Procurement Technical Assistance Center clients received more than $200 million in contracts last year, and for the fourth straight year, seCTer finished the fiscal year ahead of budget.

Cowser and Oefinger honored John Beauregard, retiring CEO and president of EWIB, for his years of service on the seCTer board and his leadership in establishing the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative, which has placed more than 1,600 individuals in jobs since 2016.

The meeting featured four seCTer clients who demonstrated exceptional entrepreneurial resilience during the pandemic: AGCT-CORP, Beer’d Brewing, Genesys Diagnostics and Gilman Gear. Their stories and the entire meeting are available online at bit.ly/secter2020meeting.