MORRISTOWN — The Morris County Board Chosen Freeholders on January 2 selected Kathryn A. DeFillippo to be the board’s director in 2015. The freeholders then elected John Cesaro as the board’s deputy director.
The actions came during the freeholder board’s Stated Annual Meeting in Morristown, during which incumbent Hank Lyon was sworn in for his first full three-year term as a freeholder.
DeFillippo joined the freeholder board in January 2014. She was a councilwoman in Roxbury Township from 2006 through December 2013. She served as mayor in 2009 and deputy mayor in 2012-13 and was also a member of the town’s Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Freeholder DeFillippo has a long history of public and community service. She is a past president of the Roxbury Area Chamber of Commerce and is currently on the board of the NJ Metro Chapter of the National MS Society. She was the driving force behind bringing the Walk MS to Roxbury in 2006 and has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help find a cure and to raise awareness for people afflicted with this devastating disease.
A graduate of SUNY New Paltz with a BA in education and special education, Freeholder DeFillippo is a retired Certified Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. She was the director of a sheltered workshop for physically and mentally handicapped adults in New York before working in the insurance industry in the Washington, D.C., area, providing medical management and vocational rehabilitation services to injured workers.
Kathy and her husband, Bob, have lived in Roxbury since 1994 with their three children, Scott, Laura Jean and Rob.
Cesaro, a former Parsippany councilman, has been on the board since June 2012.
He is a former Parsippany-Troy Hills councilman who served on that governing body from January 2006 until mid-June 2012. While he was on the township council he held the position of council president from 2008 to 2009.
Cesaro is a strong proponent of transparency in government and serves as a member of the freeholder Transparency Work Group as he has since becoming a freeholder.
Freeholder Cesaro is a member of the Sons of Italy, the Parsippany Republican Club and the Parsippany Republican Committee.
A resident of Parsippany-Troy Hills for more than 20 years, Cesaro is an attorney. He and his wife, Melissa, have two young children.
Lyon, of Montville, joined the freeholder board in March 2012, and was then elected to fill a two-year unexpired term on the board in November 2012.
Also, during the meeting, John Pecoraro took the oath of office as Morris County Surrogate, beginning his fifth term in that position.
