Three Westchester businesswomen to be honored tonight
- April
- 16
Five Westchester enterprises will be honored this evening at the Business Council of Westchester’s 2008 Business Hall of Fame awards dinner, being held at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle.
Three of the businesses are run by women, representing the first time the business association has recognized so many women in one year, said Marsha Gordon, Business Council president and chief executive.
The winners include Georganne Chapin, president and chief executive of Tarrytown-based Hudson Health Plan, which provides health insurance to low- and moderate-income Hudson Valley residents.
Chapin, an advocate of universal coverage, will be presented the Women in Business award. For her non-profit company to be recognized “as entrepreneurial and influential is just great,” Chapin said.
Sharon Rowe, founder of Eco-Bags Products Inc. in Ossining, a maker of reusable bags and other “green” products, will take home the Business Council’s Entrepreneur award.
“It’s a terrific honor,” she said.
Rowe said it was exciting to be part of a very large movement, still in its infancy that’s embrace environmentally conscious concepts. It’s a movement that’s making the world “a cleaner, better place to live in,” she said.
Other winners include Stacey Cohen, owner of Co-Communications in Mount Kisco, who will be given the Small Business award; and Entergy Nuclear Northeast (now Entergy Nuclear), operator of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, which will receive the Business Council’s Corporate Citizenship award.
Red Oak Transportation, a Harrison-based limousine service, will also get an award. Andy Stoppelmann, who along with brother Edward runs the business, said it “quite fitting” for Red Oak to win the Family Business category, because his family had been in the transportation business since the 1930s.
“To be recognized for maintaining that family philosophy is quite rewarding (and) quite exciting,” Stoppelmann said.
Tonight’s dinner caps the Business Council’s annual Hall of Fame program. The winners were first announced in February.









