Vincent O. Paragone
Mr. Paragone is a co-founding member
of the LINVIN Scholarship Foundation. As a member of several arts communities
in both Huntsville and Mobile, Mr. Paragone has a strong belief that
involvement in the arts is strong motivational force in the development of
children. As so many others were able to influence his children in their
pursuit of the Arts, Mr. Paragone is now dedicating time, treasure and talents
to give back to the Arts community.
Involvement with youth began early in
Mr. Paragone’s life, volunteering as a coach and umpire for CYO baseball and as
a camp counselor during youth summer programs.
In college, Mr. Paragone was involved
with student government volunteering time to insure elections went smoothly.
During Mr. Paragone’s college years, Mr. Paragone was also elected Vice
President of the executive board of the Ozone Park Civic association.
As Mr. Paragone’s career advanced, so
too did a commitment volunteerism. Mr. Paragone co-founded the South Hempstead
Civic Association and served as the organizations Vice-president and President
spearheading efforts to improve the community.
Mr. Paragone also served on the
facilities planning committee for the Rockville Centre School District compiling
recommendations and proposals to renovate and rebuild the school systems
facilities. Mr. Paragone also participated in multiple career day events
bringing technology careers to the Middle School students of the district.
As Mr. Paragone’s family grew and
children became involved in sports, Mr. Paragone volunteered as a coach for
Baseball, Basketball and Soccer taking teams two teams to State titles. Mr.
Paragone was also a Class “B” licensed FIFA referee, and served as a Technical
Advisor to the 4-H club of Nassau County, teaching several electronics courses.
After relocating to Huntsville in
1991, Mr. Paragone continued to volunteer as a coach for Baseball, Basketball
and Soccer and served as the Treasurer for both the North Alabama Soccer League
and the Rocket City Invitational tournament for six years.
In 1997, Mr. Paragone volunteered as
the technical theatre supervisor to take the Grissom Theatre Company to the
International Thespian festival in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Mr. Paragone became involved with the
Huntsville Community Chorus in 1996 and since that time in addition to singing
with the chorus, Mr. Paragone has served as the organizations Finance Committee
Chair, Play Reading Chair, Computer Technologist, Arts Assembly Representative,
Vice President and President. During Mr. Paragone’s tenure as President, he
organized the first Huntsville Community Chorus Festival, creating a three-day
festival of educational workshops concluding with a combined choral performance
of the world renowned, Olaf Choir and the Huntsville Community Chorus.
Mr. Paragone has Technical Directed
many shows in both Huntsville and Mobile and appeared on stage in over twenty
productions for many of the Theatre organizations.
Mr. Paragone volunteered with
multiple schools in the Huntsville City School system as a Technical Theatre
Director, Computer Consultant and chaired a Technical Advisory Committee for
the superintendent.
Mr. Paragone also made keynote
presentations on international business and use of computer tools you already
own to improve classroom management to the Alabama Association of Foreign
Language teachers.
Since 1993, Mr. Paragone has been a
performer, volunteer and committee chair for the Panoply Arts Festival and in
2013, served as the festival chair overseeing 100+ Committee chairs, 40 vendors
and 80 performing groups on 5 stages throughout the park.
Mr Paragone has also served as a
Trumbauer judge for 21+ years at the regional level and 4+ years at the state
level and also served as a Judge for the Alabama Thespian Festival for 3 years.
Mr. Paragone currently serves as a
Board Member at Large for the Mobile Arts Council.
Since 2003, Mr. Paragone has been
awarded five Silver and eight Gold Presidential volunteer awards accumulating
over 9000 hours of volunteer service during that time.
Mr. Paragone holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in
Theoretical Mathematics and additional Certifications in Project Management,
Manufacturing Engineering, and Test Engineering. As a businessman, Mr. Paragone
has both owned businesses and has served in many executive management positions
for multiple Fortune 500 companies where he participated in dozens of product design and
assembly projects, resulting in over 30 Billion dollars in revenue.
Mr. Paragone was also on multiple teams specializing in
acquisitions and mergers of design and manufacturing facilities throughout
Europe, Asia, and both the North and South Americas.
As Vice President, Mr. Paragone oversaw over 400 direct
employees and 8000 consultants on teams at 11 design centers in 7 countries on
3 continents.