Staff
Ann Irr Dagle, President and Executive Director
Ann Irr Dagle is the co-founder and President of the Brian Dagle Foundation and Brian’s Healing Hearts Center for Hope and Healing in Niantic, Connecticut. She leads with an open heart, believing that Brian is her reason for all she does to support and educate others on grief, mental health and suicide awareness.
She is a current board member of the Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board and former member Chapter of The American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. Ann has also recieved a certification in Grief Studies from the Center for Loss in Colorado.
Through trainings on grief, loss, and suicide prevention, Ann has learned to weave her loss into her life and giving herself to feel whatever she needs to feel; to embrace the pain of sorrow but also to find joy and happiness.
Paul T. Dagle, Vice President
Paul is the co-founder of the Brian Dagle Foundation. He graciously wears many hats; bookkeeping, facility manager, and the facilitator of the Men’s Grief group.
Paul retired in 2022 from Electric Boat Corporation in Groton after 40 years of service. His community service activities have included youth baseball, football, and basketball; East Lyme Planning Commission and Board of Assessment Appeals (2 years Chairman) and was a member of the East Lyme Board of Selectman, East Lyme HS Football Coach. He is also a ormer Board Chair of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Connecticut Chapter.
Chelsea Bourn, Assistant Executive Director
Chelsea Bourn joined the Brian Dagle Foundation as Program Coordinator in December 2023. Working solely in non-profit human service organizations since she left graduate school in 2013, Chelsea is passionate about developing wellness focused programming, cultivating community relationships, and connecting healing people with their “tribes”.
Chelsea lives in Wethersfield with her first-responder husband Erich and their rescue pup Lillian. When she’s not at Brian’s Healing Hearts, she is an Adjunct Instructor in the Psychology Department at CT State – Tunxis and manages Factum Equine, a non-profit that provides nature based wellness programming with horses in East Haddam. A lifelong horsewoman, Chelsea is also a mindfulness devotee and interested in all things crunchy granola.
Becky L McCoy, Communications & Outreach Coordinator
Becky L McCoy is a writer and spiritual director who lives on the Connecticut coast with her two precocious and hilarious children. Having struggled with depression and anxiety and experienced several seasons of grief and trauma – including being widowed at 28 – Becky is passionate about finding ways of living that embrace trauma, grief, mental health, and neurodivergence. Becky recently released a book on spiritual practices for grief, mental health, and burnout, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in spiritual formation and soul care.
Becky can be found at BeckyLMcCoy.com, on social media, or at her podcast Sucker Punched.
Jaileen Barber, Administrative Assistant
Jaileen joined the Brian Dagle Foundation in February of 2022 as an intern from Waterford High School. She is the co-chair of the LAX2LIVE® program, coordinates tabling events, and keeps us walking a straight line!! Jaileen graduated as Valedictorian with a BA in Criminal Justice and a minor in Psychology from Mitchell College in 2026. She is attending Quinnipiac University to obtain a Master’s Degree in Social Work.
Jaileen is passionate about mental health and hopes to become an LCSW in correctional facilities in the future. Jaileen is an animal lover and outside of the foundation, she gets plenty of puppy love from dogsitting.
Patty Giannattasio, Therapist
Patty earned her Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Southern CT State University in 2019. She interned with Brian’s Healing Hearts where she facilitated grief support groups and provided individual grief counseling and therapy. Patty believes there is hope and meaning to be found in the grieving process and considers it an honor to companion others on their grief journeys. Before earning her Master’s degree, Patty spent over 25 years as a Head Women’s Volleyball Coach at the high school and collegiate levels. In addition, Patty is Grants Manager for the Doolittle Family Foundation. She has two adult daughters and two grandchildren. Patty was predeceased by her husband in 2012 and lives in Niantic, CT.