Elizabeth Skinner was appointed by Mayor John Ramos as the new treasurer of the Village of Walden at the village board meeting last Tuesday. She will fill a vacancy that was left by Kelly A. Kelly who resigned effective July 27.

Skinner graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey in 1996. Securing her first accounting position in 2000, Elizabeth worked her way up to a controller level by 2005. In 2009, Elizabeth received her MBA from Marist College with an Advanced Certificate in Executive Leadership. When the economy took a turn for the worst, and after two layoffs, Skinner was offered an opportunity to provide Controller level services on an outsourced basis to a previous employer. Skinner used this opportunity to create The Virtual BackOffice, LLC (VBO) in 2010.

Skinner’s company provides outsourced back office services to small businesses utilizing the cloud. They were able to find a remote server, which can provide the same service for multiple small businesses. Right Networks is a remote “QuickBooks Desktop” providing not only QuickBooks, but also Microsoft Office. Right Networks allows clients to create Microsoft Word and Excel documents, save them to a shared folder and more. As time went by, new products started to emerge for cloud computing. Today, VBO employees manage the day to day activities 100% remotely. Elizabeth oversees all client activity to ensure complete satisfaction. Elizabeth also utilizes her time by attending classes and partnering with new products that will be detrimental to the growth of VBO.

Skinner also served as the voluntary treasurer of the Hudson Valley Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention from 2011 to 2014. This is an organization that helps raise awareness about suicide. They provide educational materials to the local schools and provide support groups to those who lost someone to suicide. The foundation also funds scientific research for mental health problems that lead to suicide.

Although serving as village treasurer is not necessarily on the corporate path, Skinner believes her previous work experience has prepared her for the position.

“I strongly believe that I can use the experience that I have had from my past to help the village maintain its course,” she said. “I understand Kelly Kelly did an awesome job as treasurer, so I’m hoping to pick up where she left off and keep things moving full steam ahead.”

Skinner also applied for the position because she wanted to work closer to home. For the past year she commuted over an hour to her job as an accounting manager at BioHiTech Global in Chestnut Ridge. In addition, Skinner wanted to become treasurer to give back to her community. She is a lifelong Orange County resident and has lived in the village the past 17 years.
Friday was Skinner’s last day of work at BioHiTech Global. She started the Walden treasurer position on Monday.

“I’m very excited to get started and get things rolling,” Skinner said.

At last Tuesday’s village board meeting, Brenda Adams, a resident of Walden, pleaded with the board to postpone the appointment of treasurer. She felt that the board should interview more people to increase the pool of qualified candidates. As of the previous board meeting, only two candidates had been interviewed for the position.

“I understand interviewing is not my favorite thing to do,” Adams said. “It’s time consuming, it’s frustrating and when an applicant is a neighbor or a friend, it can be emotionally draining. Quitting a search with just two applicants is the easy way out and irresponsible.”