New year, fresh faces. This year, we welcome Tom Vansaghi, PhD. to the MGA Board of Directors! Tom has years of experience in the nonprofit sector and we cannot wait to lean on his skills and expertise to fulfill our mission further. Get to know Tom and why he supports the MGA mission below.
Meet Tom Vansaghi:
What is your name? Where are you from?
My name is Tom Vansaghi, PhD. I’m originally from St. Louis. I worked in Jefferson City for about 8 years before moving to Kansas City in 1999.
What is your role in the MG community?
I was elected to the MGA Board of Directors this past December. My grandfather, Fred Vansaghi, Sr. died of myasthenia gravis on November 21, 1960. I never met him because he died before I was born at 53 years old.
My grandfather was the son of Italian immigrants who settled in Herrin, Illinois. Herrin is a small town in southern Illinois with a large population of Italian Americans. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Italians immigrated from small villages outside of Milan, in the Lombardy region, to Herrin. They came to work in the coal mines, which were dirty and dangerous jobs.
As an adult, my grandfather moved to St. Louis and opened a tavern on Laclede’s Landing, which is now next to the Gateway Arch. He played the mandolin and served sandwiches and poured drinks for workers from the factories on the Landing. In his spare time, my grandfather spent a lot of time on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. He bought what were called clubhouses where he fished and hunted. He once made a bet that he could swim across the Missouri River, which he won. He loved dogs, drawing and building scale models of houses and boats out of scraps of wood. He spent years fighting the disease that eventually killed him as it slowly took away his ability to use his arms and legs. He also spent time in an iron lung to help him breath. I wish I could have known him. I have no doubt that we would have been close, and I would have loved spending time with him. The medical advances that exist today would have enabled him to extend his life and I probably would have known him. I’m grateful to serve on the MGA Board of Directors to honor him and his life.
Pictured: Fred Vansaghi, Sr., a clubhouse Fred Vansaghi bought to fish and hunt.
What do you do for a living/how do you spend your free time outside of serving the MGA?
I’m a professor of Nonprofit Leadership at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. I teach undergraduate students who want to dedicate their lives to causes like MGA, learn about the nonprofit sector, how to fundraise, work with boards of directors, advocate for their cause and create strategic plans. I can best serve MGA by offering my expertise, interns, and class projects.
I enjoy spending time with my wife Lisa and our twin boys Jack and Ben. We recently bought a little house on a river in the Flint Hills where we enjoy hiking in the prairie.
What are you looking forward to as board member of the MGA?
I’m looking forward to working to do whatever I can to help erase this terrible disease and support those who are diagnosed and living with it.