William W. Ginsberg, president and chief executive officer of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, will be honored with an associate degree from Gateway Community College (GCC) at the May 23 Commencement Ceremony at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport. 

The degree will be conferred by Aviva Budd, a member of the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education, during the 11:00 a.m. commencement exercises.  Ginsberg has served as president and chief executive officer at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven since 2000.  He devoted his career to community issues, working at both the local and national levels in community economic development, community banking, and philanthropy.  He serves on the boards of numerous organizations, including New Haven Promise, Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Connecticut Council on Education Reform, and the John B. Pierce Laboratory and Foundation.

In 2014, Ginsberg completed a six-year term on the board of the Council on Foundations, the national trade association for the philanthropic sector.  He received the Community Leadership Award from the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce in 2011; the award is considered to be the community’s highest recognition for lifetime civic leadership.

Ginsberg served in the Clinton Administration from 1994 to 2000.  He was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1994 as assistant secretary for economic development in the U.S. Department of Commerce, serving from 1995-1996 as chief of staff to the late Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown.  Following Secretary Brown’s death, he served as managing director and chief operating officer of the Federal Housing Finance Board, the federal regulatory agency for the twelve regional Federal Home Loan Banks, from 1997-2000.

The former development administrator under Mayor DiLieto from 1984 to 1988, he was responsible for all development-related activities of New Haven’s municipal government.  Ginsberg was also president of the Science Park Development Corporation, a non-profit inner-city technology economic development entity, from 1988 to 1994.  A 1976 graduate of Trinity College, Ginsberg earned a law degree in 1980 from Columbia Law School.