Mayor, James M. Gaughan

Mayor James M. Gaughan, a native of Massachusetts, has lived in New York since 1971; the last twenty-two years of which he has resided in Altamont with his partner Keith Lee. 

Before elected as Mayor, he spent his entire career in the public education sector, serving as New York State’s Title I Coordinator and Chief for School Improvement at the New York State Education Department, retiring from there in 2003.

Mayor Gaughan holds a Doctor of Education degree from Teachers College Columbia University and is licensed as a school district administrator and supervisor.   He has taught courses at Marymount College, the College of the Virgin Islands, primary school in the Caribbean, and Math and English as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa.