Paul Schaffer - President
Paul is the new President of the Danbury Westerners, an organization he has been associated with since 2004.  During the day Paul is the CFO for Alterna Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm concentrated on investing in long-lived physical assets or resources that are essential to logistics, operations and production in the transportation, industrial and energy sectors.  Prior to joining Alterna, Paul spent 19 years at Citigroup, most recently as Executive Vice-President/ Controller of Citigroup’s Commercial Business Group. 

Paul is a CPA and CMA, and he holds a Bachelor of Science from the State University of New York- Albany (where he serves as Class Councilor), and a MBA from Fordham University, where he was awarded the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence.

Paul resides in Danbury, CT with his wife Brigid and two daughters Sarah (12) and Amber (10).  He is a parishioner at St. Joseph's Church in Danbury, and has previously volunteered with the American Red Cross and Danbury Athletic Youth Organization (DAYO).


Terry Whalen - VP and General Manager
Terry has been an active, volunteer youth sports coach for the past 45 years starting with Parochial and Pop Warner League teams. Arriving in Danbury in 1979 he was able to continue youth coaching in City Youth Basketball, St. Joseph‘s basketball, DAYO baseball, Pop Warner Football and in 1991 assisted Dan Curtin, along with Carl Bock and Jack Margres, in coaching the Junior Midgets to the National Championship.

In the early 1990’s, Terry was Commissioner for the Danbury Babe Ruth 13 year olds and later moved on to be President of the Candlewood Valley Senior Babe Ruth League from 1999 to 2004. Since 2005 Terry has been the Vice President and General Manager of the Danbury Westerners in the prestigious New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)


Mike Malone - Chief Operating Officer
Mike recently decided to step down as President of the Westerners to concentrate more on fundraising and sales and is now the team’s COO.  He has been affiliated with the organization since 1999.  He is a sales representative with Candlewood Marketing and recently launched a new business, The Soda Pop, private labeled soda and wine.  Formally, he was Director of Development for the American Red Cross and the University of Hartford.

Previously he severed several schools as athletics director, teacher and coach. He coached high school basketball for over 20 years and college and high school baseball for 15 years. He has also coached and played professionally in independent baseball.
 
Mike is a certified teacher and holds a Masters degree in education as well as a school’s supervisor’s certificate. A graduate of Upsala College and Seton Hall University, he resides in New Milford with his wife, Susan a pediatric physical therapist. They have two married children, Katie, an art teacher and Matt, a Danbury policeman. 


Shelley Pitser - Treasurer
Shelley has been actively involved with the Danbury Westerners since the 2008 season where she and her family began serving as a host family.  For the 2010 season Shelley expanded her role within the organization to include serving on the Host Family Committee where she was responsible for host family communications and player assignments. 

Shelley is employed by Cartus Corporation where she is the Director of Client Finance.  She holds a Bachelors Degree in Corporate Financial Management from Ball State University and a Masters Degree in Organizational Communications from Fairfield University.  Shelley is married to Jon Pitser who also serves on our Board of Directors and they have two sons, Jake and Alex, who thoroughly enjoy their “brothers for the summer” during baseball season here in Danbury.


Chris Miller - Secretary
As Secretary of the Westerners, Chris has been affiliated with the team for 16 years.  He closely tracks the performance of Danbury Westerner players during the season and their subsequent achievements. In addition, Chris does the PA for Danbury Westerners home games and is also the PA announcer for Western Connecticut State University men’s and women’s basketball games.  A retired teacher, Chris is a member of the Danbury Exchange Club and is a Past District President for Connecticut.