Alan Sheiness

Alan Sheiness retired in 2015 as an executive of the global human resource company ADP after a 30-year career that included tours around the USA and Europe. He and his wife Jeanne finally made their home in Lyme, CT in 2011, seeking the open spaces and calm remoteness after years of the urban and suburban hustle-bustle. In Lyme, Alan serves as an elected member of the Board of Finance and on several other town boards and committees. He is also active on the board of several nonprofits including a regional volunteer pilot organization he co-founded in 2010 called PALS SkyHope which arranges 2,000-3,000 free flights a year for those in need of transportation to distant medical care and for other humanitarian purposes. Locally, he is the recently appointed Chair of Friends of Lymes’ Senior Center, a local 501(c)(3) that raises funds to support the center’s programs.

Alan also is the Treasurer of Lyme Land Trust. (LLT). As an extension of his LLT responsibilities, Alan channeled his life-long passion for astronomy into an Astronomy and Dark Skies program. Over the last three years, he and a team of cohorts have hosted monthly public observing sessions at an exclusive dark sky site that includes a permanently installed 14” telescope housed in a roll-off-roof observatory along with several other telescopes that are set up for each session. The team has conducted private sessions at the local elementary school and at Cub Scout retreats as well. Alan believes one of the best ways to promote dark skies is to expose and engage the public directly in the beauty of the universe through these observing sessions.