Wooster welcomes three new Board of Trustee members
The College of Wooster announced three new members to its Board of Trustees for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Kim Patton ’85 and Sandeep Bhatia ’89 join the board as standard trustees, while Mark Sutherland ’76 joins as an Alumni Trustee serving both the Board of Trustees and Alumni Board.
Kim Patton ’85, photo provided by Patton
Patton is the president of Elevar Design Group, an architecture and planning firm established in Cincinnati, Ohio. Patton previously worked as the chief operating officer for the company, operating at the time as SFA Architects, Inc., before merging with Elevar. He has been with the company for over 12 years and completed multiple projects both in the U.S. and China, including the FC Cincinnati Stadium Covington City Building, and Dayton’s Five Rivers Health Center. He also served as local and state president for the Kentucky Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture. For more than thirty years, he has been active with Kentucky Educational Television network, holding both local and state-wide positions. Graduating from Wooster with an urban studies degree, Patton continued his education at the University of Cincinnati to get a bachelor’s degree in architecture. While at Wooster, he participated in the Wooster in Vienna program, played on the football team, and was a member of Phi Sigma Alpha. Patton hosted a TREK in his city for students to tour Elevar. He has volunteered as a reunion committee member, served on a Cincinnati/Dayton leadership group, and contributes to The Wooster Fund. Both his wife and daughter graduated from Wooster along with 38 members of their extended family.
Sandeep Bhatia ’89
Bhatia is the president of Om Consulting Group, LLC., an IT consulting firm focusing on gas, electric, and water utilities across the United States. He started the business in 2004. He has volunteered with College Now Greater Cleveland, was formerly on the board for Shaker Family Center, and is currently on the Board of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes and the Dougbe River School of Liberia. An economics graduate from Wooster, Bhatia was an active member of Campus Council, the Hans H. Jenny Investment Club, and worked a variety of campus jobs. Post graduation, he served as the class president, volunteered for the Alumni Association in Cleveland, and mentored current students. The recipient of the McKee Volunteer Award in 2024, Bhatia was also on the Alumni Board beginning in 1999 and in 2009-2015 as an Alumni Trustee before serving as the Alumni Board President and Alumni Trustee from 2021-2023. Bhatia supports The Wooster Fund.
Mark Sutherland ’76, photo by Wetzler Studios (Cleveland)
Also serving as an alumni trustee for Wooster’s Alumni Board, Sutherland is the retired corporate vice president of global communications and public affairs at The Lubrizol Corporation, a global manufacturer of specialty chemicals and performance materials. In this role from 2014-2020, Sutherland was also the president of The Lubrizol Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm. Joining Lubrizol in 1981, his experience consisted of various marketing, sales, and business management assignments, as well as investor relations. He was later the vice president of investor relations at W.R. Grace & Co., a chemical manufacturing company that supplies specialty chemicals to industries, before returning to Lubrizol in 2014. Sutherland earned his Wooster degree in chemistry before completing a MBA at Case Western Reserve University in 1981. While at Wooster he was a swimmer, a member of Second Section and an international summer student at Sophia University in Tokyo. Since graduation he has focused on giving back to the College as an active contributor to The Wooster Fund as well as participating in the Cleveland Leadership Group and as a Class of 2020 mentor.
Posted in News on August 29, 2025.
