February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Ray O’Hanlon
The organizers of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade now has an army general to bolster their ranks.
Gen. Paul X. Kelley, retired commander of the U.S. Marine Corps, has been made a trustee of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Celebration Committee.
Kelley is one of six new trustees who will be honored at the Millennium St. Patrick’s Day Dinner Dance on the evening of March 17.
The other five are Dennis Swanson, president of WNBC, the New York NBC affiliate that broadcasts the parade; James O’Connor of the Ford Motor Company, a major sponsor of the parade; Edward Malloy, president of the New York City Building and Trades Council; Brian Leeney, executive vice president of Allied Irish Bank, and Joseph Quinlivan, investment officer at Brown Bros. Harriman.
The addition of the trustees further shores up the financial and commercial strength of the parade, the oldest of the many parades that dot New York City’s calendar.
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Meanwhile, the parade committee has also minted a new award. The St. Patrick’s Parade Medal will be presented at the millennium dinner to former parade grand marshals Cardinal John O’Connor and Bill Flynn of the Mutual of America insurance company.
"They are role models for the Irish-American community in New York and throughout the United States," parade committee chairman John Dunleavy told the weekly Catholic New York.