Former BankRI exec. on Chafee’s transition team

PROVIDENCE – Former Bank Rhode Island marketing and communications chief Stephen Hourahan has been named to the transition team of Gov.-elect Lincoln D. Chafee.
Hourahan, who was senior vice president of marketing and communications at the Providence-based bank for eight months until September 2009, will serve as Chafee’s transition director. He is part of a five-member transition leadership team.
The announcement reunites Hourahan with Chafee. Hourahan had been communications director for Chafee when he was a U.S. senator, and previously had been an aide to Chafee’s father, the late Sen. John H. Chafee.
Hourahan resigned from Bank Rhode Island to become executive director of AIDS Project Rhode Island.
He became the head of marketing and communications at Bancorp Rhode Island, Bank Rhode Island’s parent, in January 2009, when he left a position as public affairs director at the public relations and advertising firm Duffy & Shanley Inc.
The man Hourahan replaced at BancorpRI, William DeWitt, was recently appointed a partner at East Providence marketing and communications firm Hurley Chandler & Chaffer.