Leadership

Michael Rubin
Chairman
Mike Rubin has an active interest in equestrian activities, farming and land preservation. He has worked with public and private land/farm preservation programs and institutions to preserve over 3,000 acres of land in Montgomery County, Maryland. He also works with local historic preservation boards to repair and maintain historic structures on properties he controls both in Montgomery County and in Aiken, South Carolina. He is Founding Chairman of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance.

Mike is founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capitol Investment Associates Corporation, a company with assets exceeding $500 million and a portfolio of properties across the United States and in France. For more than a decade preceding his establishment of Capitol Investment Associates, Mr. Rubin engaged in numerous development and construction activities. He was a principal in the acquisition and redevelopment of many high profile Washington, D.C. area residential and commercial projects and directed the renovation and sale of more than 1,000 condominium and rental apartments.

Mike holds a degree in Business Administration with concentrations in finance and economics from the University of Maryland.

David Tobin
President & Treasurer
David Tobin is an equestrian trail rider and community organizer who has been riding since he moved to Colorado in 1989. He has over thirty years of experience in public affairs, conservation, nonprofit management and fundraising, and public lands policy. He has worked on the national level as a director of development, lobbyist, chief executive officer, program director, founding director, and development adviser. He currently works for Montgomery (County) Parks as its Equine Resources Coordinator.

He has a master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Wallace School of Community Service and Public Affairs at the University of Oregon (1978). David has traveled extensively and lived in Austria, Germany, Yugoslavia, Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico, and Maryland. He lives in Boyds (in the Agricultural Reserve) with his wife Maria and assorted horses and dogs and one barn cat.

Jay Cinque
Vice President
Jay Cinque is a Scientific Review Administrator for the National Institutes of Health. He and his wife Anne have been a long time residents of Upper Montgomery County, moving to Boyds in 1973. Jay has been very active in land preservation and community organizations for many years. He has served as the President of the Boyds Civic Association, the Sugarloaf Citizens Association, the Northern Montgomery County Alliance and the Peachtree Civic Association. He has also serve as President of the Sugarloaf Riding Club, and is currently a Board member and treasurer for the Sugarloaf Countryside Conservancy.

Tom Gutierrez
Secretary
Tom Gutierrez is an active equestrian who resides in Poolesville, Maryland, with his wife, daughter and son. He holds a Juries Doctor degree from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and both an MBA and BS from the University of Maryland. He has been practicing telecommunications law with LNG&S for 21 years and is a founding and senior partner in the law firm of Lukas, Nace, Gutierrez and Sachs, Chartered Prior to that, he was an attorney with the Federal Communications Commission following receipt of his law degree.

Tom has been active in a number of ways, and for a number of years, in various efforts to maintain open space and in protect the environment. He is a Montgomery Countryside Alliance advisory committee member.

Naomi Manders
Naomi Manders was born and raised on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley of where she acquired her love of horses and open space. As a transplant to the East Coast she rode extensively in many States and received a BA from Manhattanville College in 1959. Marriage brought her to Potomac, Maryland, where she currently resides with her husband Buzz and family of six children and nine grandchildren. Naomi owned and operated a riding school at Hunting Hill on Travilah Road for 20 years until joining the Potomac Hunt in 1986.

From 1986 to 1992 as President of Potomac Bridle & Hiking Trails Association and Montgomery County Coordinator of TROT (Trail Riders of Today) Naomi successfully negotiated many public bridle easements putting together the Travilah Loop, a four-mile trail around Potomac composed of thirteen participating subdivisions linking stables and parklands to preserve equestrian presence in suburbia. From 1993 to 2005 she was employed by MNCPPC in the Department of Park Planning and Development as a trail planner and was instrumental in setting up the Natural Surface Trails Program.

Naomi was the 2010 recipient of the Maryland Horse Council Anne & Gilbert Pumphrey Memorial Award in recognition of and grateful appreciation for her dedication to the equestrian trails of Montgomery County and Maryland.

Allan Noble
Allan Noble is an attorney, currently president and managing partner of Budow and Noble, P.C. He and his wife Kathy live in Boyds and have been residents of the Upper County for the past 35 years. He is past president of the Boyds Civic Association and current president of the Boyds Federal Credit Union. Alan and Kathy have been active and avid trail riders for over 35 years. They currently have one Arabian and two Quarter horses. They are members of the Sugarloaf Riding Club (both past presidents), TROT, and Potomac Hunt (social members). Alan is also a member of the American Endurance Riding Conference (AERC) and the Eastern Competitive Trail Riders Association (ECTRA). He competes his Arabian in both competitive trail riding and endurance riding.

Neil Agate
Neil Agate is the principle of Four Gates, LLC, a business and technology services firm. He is a former board member and co-chair of the British American Business Association communications committee, a founding member of the Capitol Polo Club in Poolesville and an avid polo player. He serves as the announcer for the annual Green Cup of Polo tournament that serves as a benefit for EPIC as well as other nonprofit organizations. Originally from England, Neil has lived with his wife Kathy and two daughters in Darnestown for the last 20 years.

Susan Lange Smith
Susan Lange Smith is a Senior Managing Director in Frank Crystal & Company’s Risk Management Practice. She has more than 25 years of finance, risk management and corporate property and casualty insurance experience. Prior to joining Frank Crystal, she served as a Senior Vice President and Construction Practice Leader for the Capital Region at Willis. Susan has also served as a Senior Vice President and Washington, DC and Baltimore area Practice Leader in Real Estate and Construction and National Accounts at Marsh & McLennan. She previously owned her own risk management consulting firm, Beacon Solutions, LLC.

Susan began her career with The Vanguard Group in investment and portfolio analysis. Susan has specialized risk management expertise in professional sports, government contracting, commercial real estate development, international financial institutions, railroad transportation/construction and the oil & gas industry. She received her Bachelor of Science in Economics and Finance from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and her Master of Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University. She also completed graduate level courses at Johns Hopkins University. Susan was previously a board member of Goodwill International, for which she served on the Executive and Finance committees.

In addition to riding horses, Susan enjoys sailing and playing tennis and golf.