Bethpage Federal chief named new LIA chairman

Kevin Law, president of the Long Island Association, is to announce a new chairman and broad changes to the leadership and structure of the region's largest business and civic organization at its annual meeting in Woodbury Wednesday morning.

Law, a former LIPA chief executive who took over as LIA president in September 2010, is to announce that Kirk Kordeleski, president and chief executive of Bethpage Federal Credit Union, is to be named the organization's new chairman, replacing Brian C. Cullen, who is co-chief operating officer of Westbury-based King Kullen Grocery Co. Inc. Cullen has completed his three-year term.

The LIA board must approve Kordeleski's appointment at the annual meeting. Kordeleski has been first vice chairman for the last several years.

Law will also announce a new look to the 85-year-old LIA: a new logo and a refreshed website. The new logo was designed by Austin & Williams, a Hauppauge ad agency.

The LIA's structure will be streamlined, going from 18 standing committees to five, each co-chaired by two people.

A key committee will be focused on economic development and infrastructure and will be co-chaired by Stephen C. Savage, a senior vice president at Islandia-based software giant CA Inc., and Tracey Edwards, Verizon Communications region president for New York.

Other committees will be: energy/environment; health, education and nonprofits; financial services; and small business.

Law was preceded by Matt Crosson, who had been LIA president from 1993 until 2010, when he left to become head of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. (Crosson, 61, suffered a stroke in late 2010 and died soon after, just as he was beginning his new post in Nevada.)

Law said that after more than a year as head of the LIA, he needed to invigorate the organization. It has taken a leading role under Law in economic development, organizing Accelerate Long Island, a group that seeks to develop commercial businesses from the Island's research labs and universities.

"I think the LIA over the years was trying to be an umbrella group for a lot of different causes," Law said. "But first and foremost we're a business organization, and we need to be a business advisory organization," he added, referring to the new emphasis on economic development.