CHARLES A. LEFKOWITZ, Chairman, term as member expires in May 2028. Mr. Lefkowitz is a Setauket resident and has been the president of CALCO Development and Louis Lefkowitz Realty, Inc. since 1994. In total, Mr. Lefkowitz now leads five companies that own and manage millions of square feet of commercial properties and oversee a portfolio of more than 3,000 multi-family units. The companies combined have an estimated value of more than one billion dollars.
A Brookhaven Town councilman from 2000-2003, Mr. Lefkowitz as a councilman helped attract hundreds of jobs to the town’s Empire Zone, led the upgrade of the town’s website and technological capabilities and played a key role in the relocation of Town Hall to a modern facility. He currently serves as president of the Three Village Chamber of Commerce and has served on the boards of various community organizations, including the Three Village Civic Association and the Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce. He was named Person of the Year by the Three Village Historical Society in 2015 and by The Village Times/Beacon in 2017 as well as Member of the Year by the Three Village Chamber of Commerce in 2015.
A 1980 graduate of Ward Melville High School, Mr. Lefkowitz went on to earn an A.A.S. in hospitality management from SUNY Delhi, a Bachelor of Science degree in management from Florida International University and a graduate degree in real estate studies from New York University.
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, Secretary, term as member expires in May of 2025. Mr. Bishop is a Southampton resident and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 2003-2015 representing New York's 1st congressional district. As a congressman, Mr. Bishop served on the Education and Workforce Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, supported numerous pieces of landmark legislation and sponsored legislation that blocked a plan to dump twenty million cubic yards of contaminated dredge waste in the Long Island Sound. For the period 2011-2015 Mr. Bishop served as the Senior Democrat on the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee of the House of Representatives. This Committee has oversight responsibilities for the EPA’s obligations under the Clean Water Act.
Prior to his service in the House, Mr. Bishop served as provost of Southampton College for 16 years. As provost, Mr. Bishop served as chief executive officer in charge of the campus' day-to-day management. During his tenure at the college, Mr. Bishop oversaw the addition of four graduate programs, construction of a new academic center and development of the award-winning Cooperative Education and Freshman Programs. Mr. Bishop is also a Principal with Envisioned Strategy, a Washington D.C. and Albany based government relations firm. He also serves as a distinguished visiting professor at the College of the Holy Cross.
Mr. Bishop received a bachelor's degree in History from The College of the Holy Cross and a master's degree in Public Administration from Long Island University.
ELIZABETH MERCADO, term as member expires in March of 2026. Ms. Mercado is a Brentwood resident and is currently employed as a customer care representative for Verizon, a position she’s held for more than 20 years. Ms. Mercado also served as Business Agent on the Executive Board Communications Workers of America Local 1105, where she represented members in offices between Brooklyn and Suffolk County. Ms. Mercado is currently a staff representative for CWA local 1101, and also serves on CWA’s National Women’s Committee.
As former president of the Brentwood Union Free School District Board of Education, Ms. Mercado collaborated with other trustees to establish the district’s vision and goals and oversaw an annual budget of approximately $400 million. She is a member of the Islip Town branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and the National Association for Latino Elected Officials (NALEO). Ms. Mercado received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from SUNY College at Old Westbury and an associate of applied science degree in Business Administration from Suffolk County Community College’s Grant Campus in Brentwood.
JACQUELINE A. GORDON, term as member expires in March 2024. Ms. Gordon is a Copiague resident, a 13-year former Babylon Town Board member, long-time school counselor and U.S. Army veteran. Even while serving as an elected town board member, Gordon also served her country in the U.S. Army Reserves as a military police officer from 1984 to 2014. She was deployed four times--serving in Germany during Operation Desert Storm; as an operations officer at Guantanamo Bay; as a battle captain in Baghdad during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq; and as commander of the 310th Military Police Battalion in Afghanistan in 2012.
Gordon also spent a quarter century as a school counselor for Western Suffolk BOCES in Farmingdale, where she helped students and provided crisis intervention when social or behavioral issues affected their educational and vocational aspirations. She graduated from CUNY Hunter College with a B.A.in health education in 1987, a M.S. degree in counselor education in 1997 and a professional diploma in educational leadership in 2006.
The appointment of Gordon was a historic one, as it created the first female majority board in SCWA’s 70-year history.
JOHN M. PORCHIA, has built and managed a very healthy and successful practice representing those who have sustained serious injuries through the fault of others for over 20 years. He specializes in motor vehicle accidents, premises liability, and job-site accidents. John has personally recovered tens of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts on behalf of his clients. In one year alone, he was honored with an award for having negotiated 3 of the highest 50 settlements in the entire State of New York for his clients.
Before becoming a personal injury attorney, Mr. Porchia graduated both with Honors and as the Class President of North Babylon High School in 1996.
In 2000, he graduated Cum Laude from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance.
He then graduated Cum Laude from Touro Law School in 2003. He passed the Bar in that same year and immediately went into private practice at the Law Office of Lite & Russell, where he concentrated on representing plaintiffs who were the victims of all types of personal injuries.
Mr. Porchia is a member of the Suffolk County Bar Association and the Suffolk County Plaintiff’s Bar Association. He is admitted to practice in all the New York State Courts and in the Eastern District of the United States Federal Court system.
Mr. Porchia is married to his wife, Michelle, and they have two sons. Mr. Porchia grew up in the Township of Babylon, then lived in Massapequa for several years and now lives in Wading River on the North Fork of Eastern Long Island.
He is proud of the fact that he has built and maintained a very healthy personal injury practice, without having ever advertised. His client base has developed through personal recommendation of satisfied clients, friends, family, and other attorneys which he believes is a testament to the quality of representation he continues to provide.