Meet The Board Members

  Jeffrey Venter is the President/CEO of Rising Stars Inc. Jeffrey founded Rising Stars with intentions of supporting our youth and providing a platform for them to reach their highest potential using academic competition, athletics, and social justice initiatives as a vehicle.

Jeffrey started his Journey graduating from Lincoln- Sudbury class of 1988. He was a student of the Metco busing program for 12 years traveling from the inner-city of Mattapan out to the suburbs of Sudbury Massachusetts. Jeffrey was a former Student Athlete playing varsity football and basketball. Jeffrey developed lifelong friendships not realizing how important that it would be giving the social challenges in today’s world. Jeffrey graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Communications and minored in African American History.

Jeffrey began his career working in the Non- profit Sector as an Employment Training Councilor for ABCD Head Start.  He assisted low income parents with their Job search. Following Head Start, Jeffrey wanted to be more connected to the inner city youth. He had an opportunity to change his career and become the Phys Ed teacher for the Donald McKay School (Boston Public Schools). At the same time, Jeffrey became the Head High School Football Coach for the John D. O’Bryant. The first order of business as a football coach was to field a competitive team. Some of his players were not able to play because of being academically ineligible. To solve this problem, Jeffrey partnered up with the National Football Foundation which provided his players with an Academic Coach. Jeff Implemented a study hall program before practice.  Installing an academics first mentality brought a winning culture to the football program. This new culture he created for his players helped him to receive the Boston Globe football Coach of the year award in 2004. Jeffrey realized that he wanted to touch more lives than just the 60 players on the team.  Jeffrey thought of an idea to implement all of his passed life experiences and founded Student Athletes Rising a non- profit youth organization that focused on the  same “Student First Athletes second” mentality.  He ran different programs throughout his 12 years of service, math competitions between schools, AAU Basketball programs, Etc. Jeffrey Left STARS due to feeling the need to recharge the batteries. Two years later, the Fire in Jeffrey started to burn again; in 2018 he founded Rising Stars Inc. once again providing platforms for our youth to become successful leaders in our society.

 Andrew Surwilo is the CEO Broadstone Technologies, a technology company focused on creating useful solutions to augment human capabilities in the cybersecurity, FinTech, and Augmented Reality fields.  Mr. Surwilo was the CEO of Atlantic Coast Brands, a beauty products company whose brands have generated sales of nearly $2 billion since its founding in 2005.  Previously, Mr. Surwilo was the Co-founder of Mercanti Systems, the pioneer of “buy online and picking-up in-store” technology.  Mercanti’s proprietary and patented software application was the first to fulfill online orders through physical stores revolutionizing how consumers shop online.

A board member of FreedomUnited.org and the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina, Mr. Surwilo is a veteran of the US Army and holds a BA in Economics from the University of Richmond and MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Brendan Mahoney is a Senior Vice President and the Head of Insurance and Intermediary Sold Retirement Plan Sales at American Funds Distributors, Inc. part of the Capital Group. He began his career in the investment industry in 1992 and has been with American Funds since 2000. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth College.
He is passionate about supporting veteran's based charities and was one of the founders of Sudbury for Wounded Warriors (SWW) and other charities including being on the board of STARS (Student Athletes Rising) and is part of the fundraising committee for Rising STARS of Today.  He is also active in local youth athletic programs in his home town of Sudbury, MA coaching every one of his son's athletic teams, serving on the LS Youth Baseball Board, the Sudbury Youth Soccer Board and starting the AAU baseball team, the Sudbury Ravens, in 2016.
He enjoys spending time with his family especially skiing with his wife, Lauren, and his son, Michael.

 Lauren Mahoney is a lifelong resident of Sudbury, MA. She attended the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and graduated with a bachelor's degree in marketing.  Upon graduation, she began a career in sales at a subsidiary of Osaka, Japan based Settsu Corporation where she was routinely ranked as one of the top performers in the US among over 1000 sales people. She moved on to help run Nemschoff of New England, a healthcare furniture distributor, based in Boston, MA.

She has been actively involved with the veteran's based charity, Sudbury for Wounded Warriors (SWW), since its inception in addition to helping many other local charities including the Haynes Parent Teacher Organization.  She is part of the fundraising committee for Rising STARS of Today.She enjoys spending time with her family especially skiing with her son, Michael, and husband, Brendan. One of her favorite pastimes is going for hikes with her family and the family dog, Duffy.
 

Tyrone CroomCroART Inc, Dorchester, President and founder of innovative recreational sports consulting, participation and marketing company designed to provide meaningful skills development and healthy competition for athletes and fitness seekers ages 3-63.
Tyrone has over 20 years of sales, marketing and coaching experience from the youth to collegiate-level. In the Workforce Croom has served in various Marketing, Sales and Management Roles for Martignettis/United Liquors. While residing in Fort Worth Texas he was the Manager of Contests, Awards and Incentives for RadioShack Corporation. Early in his career he worked for Deleware North Companies under the Boston Bruins/Fleetcenter as a Promotions and Gameday Operations Coordinator. 
He was the Varsity Boys basketball coach at Falmouth Academy for the 2017-2018 season. Croom has supported youth sports in his hometown of Falmouth. He helped in the return of the Pop Warner Program, serving as the President of Falmouth Youth Football and  Vice President for Falmouth Girls Youth Lacrosse. He also coached multiple Town Recreation sports seasons for both boys and girls Town Rec sports. He has also developed after school sports programs for Falmouth Elementary and Middle Schools and a variety of public and private schools in other towns.
He has served as the Interim Athletic Director for Wheelock College (2000-2002) and served as the volunteer coach for the Wheelock College Women’s Field Hockey team.He coached middle school football, basketball and lacrosse at The Fay School in Southborough. Croom served as an assistant Women’s Lacrosse coach at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania also serving as Head Coach and player for the Mens Club program for four years.
Croom is a 1997 graduate of Susquehanna University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a minor In Sociology.  Croom played one season of basketball at Susquehanna University. He was a four-year starter, preseason All-American, All Region, All-Conference Running Back and Returner for the Crusader Football team and stands at the top of a few program records.  He was also a four year member of the club Lacrosse program. During his preparatory year he played football, basketball and lacrosse for the Salisbury School in Salisbury, Connecticut and received State and League honors in football and lacrosse. He attended High School at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional in Sudbury Massachusetts, where he played football and lacrosse receiving All State and League honors in both sports.
Tyrone and his wife, Ginger, live in Falmouth and have two children, Leah and Mason.

Todd Faber is a principal with The Faber Group, which he founded almost 20 years ago, where he focuses his entrepreneurial activities on commercial real estate and business consulting. Prior to starting his company, Todd spent several years as a Guardian Ad Litem, a child abuse prosecutor in Miami-Dade County and ran the largest truancy intervention program in the country. The time spent advocating on behalf of children fueled his interest throughout his career on working with non-profits including the MSPCC, YearUp, Sudbury For Wounded Warriors and most recently, Safe and Sound Schools. Additionally, Todd spent the last 12 years as the chairperson of the New England Innovation Awards. He received his undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Miami School of Law.