BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jessica brings a deep commitment to the sport, having been a coxswain in high school and team captain of the Villanova women’s rowing team in college. Jessica continued to compete in regattas while simultaneously serving in the Army, and in 2007, founded the club with her father to bring the joy and opportunities of rowing to Palm Beach County’s youth. Her military career culminated with serving as a Director on the National Security Council within the White House, where she led stakeholders from across our government to solve some of the most complex and urgent national security issues of our times. Jessica is the principal founding member and president of the club. She has helped to guide NPBRC’s programs and strategic direction through the club’s 19 years of successful growth and expansion.

Beth Eisenman is a retired attorney, specializing in civil litigation, and an accomplished multi-sport athlete. Beth came to rowing later in life but has fully embraced the sport and North Palm Beach Rowing Club. Within three years of joining the NPBRC, Beth began serving on the Board of Directors and has offered her legal perspective to the Board continuously for the subsequent ten years. In her time with the Club, Beth has always demonstrated a willingness to step up, financially or physically, by filling several additional roles, including assistant coach, social chair, and apparel manager. Beth’s passion for rowing led to her participation in local regattas and the 2017 Masters World Championships.

Lauren brings her multi-faceted background to the club with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in Biology and Systems Engineering and varied professional experience from mergers and acquisitions and equity research at Lehman Brothers, the expansion of OpenTable to London, to starting her own shoe company. Currently, she manages her four children and is a board member for her homeowner association. Her love of rowing began in college where she walked on to the Smith College crew team. She rowed there for two years and then transferred to the University of Virginia, eventually winning an NCAA Championship. After taking 20 years off from the sport, she is now an active masters member at NPBRC, parent liaison to the club’s youth team, and hoping to use her breadth of experience and passion for rowing to usher the club into its next chapter.

Jock is a retired army officer, a former project manager and executive at a major national engineering firm, and a former Deputy Executive Director at the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). A 1968 graduate of West Point, Vietnam vet, and career field artillery officer, he served in a variety of assignments here and abroad. Following advanced civil schooling, he served on the faculty at West Point in the late ’70s before assuming battalion command. In his 25-year post-army professional life, he was a senior project manager and executive at a large national engineering firm where he oversaw complex, multi-year engineering projects and culminated his career at the SFWMD. Jock began rowing at the spry age of 60 and now counts it as his favorite athletic pursuit - a low-impact sport that he can continue for years to come.

Jock Jones brings over 25 years of experience in financial services and investment management and currently serves in a senior leadership capacity at a local investment management firm. His experience navigating complex business environments, managing strategic initiatives, and supporting organizational decision-making has informed his approach to long-term planning and governance within the club. In addition to his professional background, Jock is an active rower and a USRowing Level 2 certified coach. He began rowing as a member of MIT's men’s lightweight team and has continued to pursue the sport throughout his adult life. Over the years, he has trained and competed at numerous facilities across the country, gaining firsthand familiarity with a wide range of rowing programs and operational models. This combination of leadership experience and personal commitment to the sport enables him to contribute thoughtfully to the club’s ongoing development and strategic direction.

Dick Czlapinski has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Detroit plus two graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These include a master’s degree and a post-master’s degree in ocean engineering. His professional career started with his service in Vietnam in the US Naval Civil Engineer Corps as a lieutenant. His service included a tour as a staff officer with a Naval Mobile Construction Battalion in Danang and a second tour as an officer-in-charge of a Seabee Team at various sites in the Mekong Delta. He then worked as a coastal engineer in several large engineering consulting firms and one small one in which he was a partner. Since 2001, he has worked for Tetra Tech in various south Florida offices. During that time, he was a senior coastal engineer, and senior project manager. He led several multi-million dollar projects with some of them earning regional, national, and international project excellence awards for engineering design and/or environmental performance. He recently retired from engineering practice, closing out a 51-year professional career.

Janna Ronert is the Founder and Chairwoman of IMAGE Skincare, which she built into one of the world’s leading professional skincare companies, distributed in more than 60 countries. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, she brings over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience and a proven record of transforming vision into reality and scaling organizations with global impact. Her dedication to rowing was inspired by her son’s commitment to the sport, which deepened her appreciation for the discipline, teamwork, and resilience it fosters. She sees rowing as a lifelong pursuit—opening pathways for high school athletes to collegiate opportunities, challenging collegiate rowers to excel, and giving master rowers continued ways to compete and connect. At NPBRC, Janna contributes her leadership and vision to the creation of a world-class boathouse that will expand opportunities for athletes, unite the rowing community, and position Palm Beach County as a premier destination with international reach in rowing and sport.

Matt Valle is President of NextEra Energy Transmission, a leading high voltage electric transmission company with operating utilities and development projects across North America representing more than $10 billion in investments. Prior to joining NextEra Energy, he worked at Boston Consulting Group in the energy and technology practice and previously served five years as a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer. Matt holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and an MBA from Harvard Business School. A lifelong rower, he competed in high school and at the Naval Academy and is now a master rower with NPBRC where his son is on the high school team. He is deeply committed to the development of a world class boathouse and rowing program for NPBRC.