Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is ultimately responsible for the financial management of all activities of The Woman's Club. It meets the third Monday of every month. Board members are elected to two-year terms. Board officers (President, President Elect, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer) are elected to one-year terms. 

Patti Kopach has been a member of the Woman's Club of Albany since 2015 and has served in a variety of capacities over the years including co-chairing the Rental Committee for 9-1/2 years and co-chairing the Governance and Archives Committees. She also chaired or co-chaired the 100 Years of Homeownership celebration in 2019, the Roaring 20s party in 2020 and the Mardi Gras party in 2025. She served as WCA president from July 2020 through June 2022 and oversaw a major roof repair in 2020, the installation of the new furnace in 2021 and the installation of the new porch and accessibility ramp. She and her Rental Committee co-chair worked with Hey Day Productions to bring about the use of our house as a filming location for the second season of the HBO miniseries "The Gilded Age." Patti has worked for many years as a paralegal and after two attempts at retirement, now works two days a week for a law firm in Albany. When not working at the law firm or being active at the WCA, she serves on the Outreach Committee at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Loudonville and is its Faith Formation team leader. Patti has two grown daughters (Aimee and Kate), two nearly grown granddaughters (Mia and Grace), one great-grandson (Leo), one husband (Matt) and one cat (Leonard). She is not ashamed to admit that Leo and Leonard are the loves of her life. Matt is a close second. Patti is convinced that her daughters and granddaughters are responsible for her unusually high stress level. The spinning wheel she gifted herself upon her second retirement sits unused in her living room. She has promised herself to start using it "someday soon."

For most of her working life, Debbie was a professor of engineering at RPI. It was a demanding job, requiring frequent presentations and proposal writing, both skills that are useful in the WCA. She also served on numerous committees and filled leadership roles, such as President of the Faculty Senate and Director of Core Engineering.

She joined the WCA about eight years ago. She served on the Board for four years and was Treasurer for three of those years. She currently participates in several committees, including Finance, Development, Archives and Rentals. In Archives, she drafted the text that we included on the Pillars website pages.

In Development, she spearheaded an effort to win a grant for air conditioning, and with the help of many members, submitted a winning proposal. She enjoys working with the outstanding people she has met at the WCA and wishes to continue to work with them by serving on the Board.

Pattie Beeler has been involved with the WCA since 2003. She was president from 2013 to 2015, subsequently served as treasurer and termed off the Board in 2020.

She completed a short-term director’s seat created by an unexpected vacancy and was elected to full terms in June 2022 and 2024. Pattie serves on the Governance and Rental committees and chairs the Building Committee.

Previously chief clerk of Rensselaer County Family Court, Pattie is involved in many Town of Bethlehem issues, including open space and farmland and forest preservation work. She co-leads Bethlehem Tomorrow, a community advocacy organization, and serves on Bethlehem’s Conservation Easement Review Board.

JoLynn has been a member of the Woman's Club of Albany for just over two years. She is part of the Program Committee, the Memoir Writing Group, as well as Book Club for Writers. She has been in the victim advocacy field for 25 years, currently a Crime Victim Specialist I for the NYS Office of Victim Services. She loves working to help and support others, brings passion and heart to every project she tackles, and hopes to bring that energy to the board. 

Judy joined the WCA in January 2025. She has been involved in many fundraisers and events and has just completed her first year as co-chair of Membership. After 30 years managing all daily operations for three family-owned businesses, Judy retired in 2017. No stranger to multi-tasking, she spent several years as den leader and homeroom mom for her children. Judy currently works a few days a week at her daughter’s hair salon, volunteers at Proctors and helps with her three beautiful grandchildren any chance she gets! She is creative, energetic and an avid reader. She is excited to serve her first two-year term on the WCA Board of Directors.

Susan has been a Woman’s Club of Albany member since 2016 and previously served as a board member and co-chair of the Community Service Committee. Being an active part of the tea committees and Finance Committee are her current contributions to the WCA.

Pat was born and raised in Central New York where lake effect snow is a thing. She got her bachelor's degree at SUNY Albany (1979-1983) where there is way less snow and much more sun, so she made her home here after college, also because her sister lives here. 

She briefly taught high school English then began working for New York State as a typist and worked her way up to computer programmer which she did for 26 years for Higher Education Services. She supervised on occasion and ended her career as the head of two units that were combined into one. 

She is single, having lost her partner, Jeff, in 2018. She enjoys traveling and theater, especially Broadway musicals. Her craft room has way more supplies than she will probably ever use but one can never have too much paper or rubber stamps or any of the tools that go with them. Her kitty recently went over the rainbow bridge, so she is looking into fostering cats/kittens for Kitten Angels. She works out with a trainer at the JCC twice a week for mental and physical health. She considers it a privilege that she has seen her nieces and nephews grow up and now gets to spoil their children.