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vol. 34 No. 52
HERALD PERSON oF THE YEAR Kevin McGilloway
Decades of giving back to others Former trustee, Kevin McGilloway, continues to volunteer, help the community, in the Village of Sea Cliff By Will Sheeline
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Kevin McGilloway has spent decades quietly supporting Sea Cliff through a steady accumulation of service, leadership, and an unwavering belief in community. McGilloway, a longtime Sea Cliff resident and former village trustee, has served in a wide range of volunteer and official roles, from land use boards and civic committees to education and public health organizations. For that body of work, the Sea Cliff/Glen Head Herald has named McGilloway its 2025 Person of the Year. He emphasized that what he does is not atypical in the village; there are many people at work behind the variea Cliff ous events and good works that take place throughout the village. is unique “There are so many people in Sea Cliff that volunteer,” McGilloway said. in that it truly “Every single aspect of Sea Cliff life is a village of has a bunch of volunteers.” volunteers. Born in 1949, McGilloway built a successful professional career before KEviN devoting increasing amounts of his McGilloWay time to volunteer service. He grew up in Jamaica, Queens, where he also attended Queens College on a fellowship, studied computers, earned a master’s degree at New York University, and later returned to school at night to earn an MBA. His career in information technology eventually led him to senior leadership roles, including chief information officer positions at Equitable Insurance and Lehman Brothers. “When I got my master’s in computer science, it was literally the first-year NYU had a computer science department,” he said. “Before that it was considered engineering.” Over the last forty years, he and his wife, Jane, lived in Sea Cliff, where they raised four daughters. He said they found the North Shore area while they were searching for a midway point between Manhattan, where Jane taught, and Smithtown, where McGilloway worked. The couple, who met as teenagers in college in 1968, eventually settled in Glen Head before moving to Sea Cliff after their first two children were born. Jane ended up teaching for several years at Sea Cliff Elementary School, and was also involved in the school community, serving as PTA president at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Volunteer service, McGilloway said, grew naturally out of family life and casual conversations rather than a grand plan.
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Before his long tenure in village government, McGilloway spent nearly a decade volunteering with the Henry Viscardi School in Albertson, New York, now known as the National Center for Disability Services. He served on its board for almost a decade, twice as chairman. The school serves children with severe physical disabilities and also operates adult retraining programs. “It was what I would call a working board,” McGilloway said. “Aside from trying to help raise some funds, we met and got involved in the strategy and execution reality of getting into the classroom level.” That pattern of engagement carried over into his service in Sea Cliff. McGilloway was first invited to serve on village committees and later joined the Sea Cliff Zoning Board of Appeals, where he spent eight years, including several as chairman. He then ran for village trustee, winning the position four times starting in 2014 and serving eight years. Mayor Elena Villafane said she has known McGilloway and Continued on page 2 Courtesy Kevin McGilloway
Photo: The Queens native raised four daughters with his wife Jane, who was a teacher and Parent Teacher Association president in the North Shore School District.