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Rosario Palmieri began serving as BHMA®'s Executive Director in January 2023. He spent more than a decade at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) as vice president, charged with managing broad areas of legal and regulatory policy, including consumer product safety, labor and OSHA, transportation and infrastructure, food and agriculture, antitrust, product liability, energy and environment. Prior to NAM, he served on congressional committees in the U.S. House of Representatives overseeing regulatory policy. A lawyer by training, Palmieri also serves on the leadership council for the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association.

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Clarissa Russell is an association executive with a broad background in strategic planning, operations, finance, business management and operations. Recognized as a Certified Association Executive by the American Society of Association Executives, The Center for Excellence in Washington, DC, Clarissa applies best practices and ASAE Foresight Works to professional associations and societies.

She has served as the Executive Director for the Society of Toxicology, the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, and others. She earned an MBA from Johns Hopkins University Carey School and BS from James Madison University. Being a lifelong learner and a leader advocating for the diversity of access and inclusive policies in the workplace; she earned a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certification from the University of South Florida, Miami, FL.

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After serving as BHMA® Executive Director for more than 15 years, Ralph Vasami, Esq now serves the organization as Treasurer.  Ralph has a broad background in engineering, business management, operations, finance, strategic planning and law. He is actively involved with leading clients’ efforts to modify and enhance national building codes, and is regularly called upon to facilitate client strategic planning meetings.

Ralph is a pioneer in the vinyl window and door industry. As chairman of the Vinyl Window & Door Institute, he was responsible for gaining model building code acceptance for vinyl as a fenestration product. He was also instrumental in setting up testing and standards for the products as well as the current industry certification program.

Ralph received a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University and a law degree from Pace University. He is a member of the New York State Bar.

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Larry McClean joined BHMA® in 2015 as the Program Manager. He now serves as the Membership Manager Larry came to BHMA after working in the field of Intellectual Disabilities, having managed multiple classrooms and staff. He brings to BHMA the valuable skills that he mastered in the educational setting to help classrooms run effectively and to meet expectations set by government guidelines and regulations.

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For more than 20 years, Michael has served as the Product Standards Director for BMHA®, where he coordinated the development and revision of the BHMA performance standards for building hardware products.

Michael came to BHMA following a 20-year career in manufacturing management at United Technologies, Honeywell, Black and Decker and Yale Security. He is a principal member on technical committees for the National Fire Protection Association; the A117.1 Committee for Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities, and ASTM.

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John Woestman is of Director of Codes & Regulatory Affairs. In this capacity, he provides building codes, advocacy and technical services on behalf of BHMA®. He has almost two decades of involvement in ICC’s codes and standards development processes and over 15 years of involvement in NFPA’s codes and standards development processes. Advocacy on behalf of BHMA has resulted in revisions and updates to locking arrangements in the means of egress and corresponding requirements in the ICC IBC and IFC, and in NFPA 101.

John has a mechanical engineering degree from Iowa State University and an MBA from the University of Iowa. He is a member of the International Code Council (ICC), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and ASTM International.

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Karen has extensive technical and managerial experience in the commercial openings industry. Before joining BHMA®, Karen served as a senior engineer for product certification, development and testing at the Allegion Hollow Metal Group.

She also served as a senior engineer for new product development at Steelcraft. Karen has held leadership roles at several associations, including Steel Door Institute and National Association of Architectural Metal Manufacturers, among others.

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Heather Currier has worked with a variety of building, design and construction clients during her 17+ years in association marketing and communications. The depth and variety of her experience means she can create innovative solutions for her clients’ communications programming. As Director of Communications, Heather manages marketing strategy, annual meeting promotion, website strategy and redesign, rebranding and logo designs, and social media strategy and implementation. She has extensive experience in editorial and publications management, antitrust related issues and statistical data collection. Heather graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband, and dog Ferris.