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December 2013
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BOMA/NY Staffers Maria Kaminskiy and Sylvester Giustino Move on to New Pursuits and Bid Farewell to BOMA/NY
With this issue we say goodbye to Maria Kaminskiy and Sylvester Giustino as they move on to the next phases of their lives. As we wish them good fortune, we take a look back at their years at BOMA/NY and the difference they made.
 Maria Kaminskiy, Director of Membership and Special EventsDuring dress rehearsal break at the Pinnacle show in February 2007, Pinnacle show co-host Tom Krol noticed someone new on stage wiping down the crystal award trophies and lining them up carefully in show order. "It was Maria, on what was probably her first few days on the job, and I knew then, that we were in good hands," he remembers. And we were. Maria’s attention to detail and her ability to balance multiple challenges adroitly and effectively served BOMA/NY well in her dual areas of responsibility—from the fine dining you enjoy at events to the nitty gritty of membership record-keeping. You probably know Maria best from her presence at the registration desk at the events she coordinated, from the Annual Membership Event and Annual Holiday Luncheon, her two largest events, to collaborating with co-workers on seminar arrangements. But she was also essential behind the scenes, maintaining the BOMA/NY membership database (the key to any successful association), assisting the Membership and Pinnacles committees with their myriad of tasks, and much more. Maria came to us after five years at The Building Congress, where she learned the business of associations and real estate. As she returns home to Russia to marry and start a family, she joked that she was interested in working for BOMA Moscow, "but when they heard I was coming, they closed." And even though she is very excited about devoting time to family life, she still has her professional irons in the fire. Her facility with English is exceptional, and she has already cleared the difficult hurdles to qualify for teaching English as a second language. We have no doubt she will not only be successful in that career. And don’t be surprised if we see the resurgence of BOMA Moscow in the future!  Sylvester Giustino, Director of Legislative AffairsSylvester (Sly) Giustino got his love of politics from his grandmother at an early age, and it has never left him. As our Director of Legislative Affairs, he fielded responsibilities from preparing testimony for the dozens of times a year BOMA/NY testified at various codes and regulations hearings, to doing issues briefings and coordinating BOMA/NY’s advocacy teams as they headed to Washington DC to meet with our elected officials. His role also required association duties, such as coordinating the many details of our successful annual Energy Action! Day and Annual Conference, which featured such notable speakers as soon-to-be former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and future Mayor Bill de Blasio. He has also appeared on the Hurricane Sandy Lessons Learned panel presented at BOMA/NY, BOMA New Jersey and at BOMA International as an extension of his role coordinating the Codes & Regulations/Governmental Affairs Committee, the Energy/Sustainability Committee, the Preparedness Committee, and their various subcommittees and task forces. Sly, who joined us in 2008, has weathered elections, the implementation of new laws and many a political advocacy challenge, but he was also the go-to person for emergency alerts—many of the worst blows delivered by Mother Nature. In fact, the accomplishment he is most proud of at BOMA/NY came during the days "before, during and after Superstorm Sandy," he recalls. "It was a stressful time, but I saw the true spirit of our members come through as they worked tirelessly to protect their buildings and recover from the storm."
He also thanks the members who "taught me so much about our industry and truly serves the people of this great city." We wish him well as he moves on to another great city, Washington DC, where as of Jan. 1, he will be the Director of the Building Division at the national headquarters of the Association of General Contractors, once again in legislation—this time, exclusively at the national level.
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