Dr. Mark Vargus - Mayor
Term Expires: May 2022
Council Place #6
Mayor Vargus was elected to Town Council in May 2007, and has served as Lakewood Village Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer since January 2008. Dr. Vargus has served as Mayor since June 2014. Mayor Vargus earned his PhD in Accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also holds a MA in Economics and a MBA in Finance. He graduated with honors from The Johns Hopkins University with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. Before his academic career, Dr. Vargus was employed by Lockheed-Martin as a Senior Engineer in the advanced radar systems group. Following his retirement from Drexel University in 2018, Dr. Vargus has continued his research and taught at Rice University. His prior academic appointments include the University of Michigan, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, UT Dallas, Purdue University, Drexel University, GISMA, and Özyeğin Üniversitesi. He has won numerous teaching awards both in the U.S. and internationally and was a finalist for the AAA inaugural Cook Prize for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Vargus has received several national awards for his scholarly research, including the 2007 Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Research Award. Dr. Vargus purchased his Lakewood Village home site in 2003 and has been a resident since 2005.
Darrel West - Mayor Pro-Tem
Term Expires: May 2022
Council Place #2
Councilman Darrell West was elected to Lakewood Village Town Council in May 2018. He has lived in Lakewood Village at two different points in his lifetime. The first was from 1972 to 1976, when he spent his high school years here. He was part of the third graduating class of Little Elm High School in 1976. He has many fond memories of life in this part of North Texas in the “old days”. Councilman West moved back to Lakewood Village in 2008.
Councilman West spent 15 years in the car rental business, achieving the positions of fleet manager and city manager with Thrifty Car Rental. At that time he had full operational and P&L responsibility for a 1500 car rental fleet at 10 locations around DFW, including DFW and Love Field airports. He was then tapped by the corporate office to manage a new project to automate all Thrifty rental operations across the country and Canada. This was the transition to a new career in software development.
Councilman West currently works for a software company that writes the systems that automate many of the large car rental operations, of all brands, in the USA and around the world. He views every project he works on as solving a business problem. He hopes that many of the skills that he has learned in these two diverse careers will make him a valuable asset to the Lakewood Village city council.
Eric Farage - Councilman
Term Expires: May 2023
Council Place #1
Councilman Eric Farage was elected to Lakewood Village Town Council in May 2019. He served on the Municipal Development District (MDD) board from 2016 through his election to Town Council in 2019. Councilman Farage was native to Northeast Ohio when he relocated to Texas in 2014 and moved to Lakewood Village in 2015 with his wife and children. Councilman Farage attended Baldwin-Wallace University in Ohio for both his undergraduate and graduate work. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry followed by an MBA with emphasis in Healthcare. Councilman Farage is honored and excited to serve on the Lakewood Village Town Council.
Matt Bissonnette - Councilman
Term Expires: May 2023
Council Place #3
Councilman Matt Bissonnette was elected to Lakewood Village Town Council in May 2019. Prior to his election, he served on the Municipal Development District (MDD) board from 2017 through election to Town Council in 2019. Councilman Bissonnette is a native Texan who grew up in the Northeastern U.S. and spent many summers bank in Texas. The love of the land and people brought councilman Bissonnette back to Texas permanently in 2014 and moved to Lakewood Village in 2016. Councilman Bissonnette attended The University of Akron in Ohio where he obtained a B.S. in Business Administration and Marketing. Councilman Bissonnette is honored and privileged to serve our neighbors and friends of Lakewood Village.
Serena Leply - Councilwoman
Term Expires: May 2022
Council Place #4
Councilwoman Serena Lepley was elected to Lakewood Village Town Council in May 2018. Councilwoman Lepley relocated to Lakewood Village in 2015, along with over a dozen immediately family members, after a lengthy and exhaustive search of the United States for a community for her and her husband, Matthew, to raise their young family, along with her brother's family, sister and parents. They began their journey to Lakewood Village despite her extended family having deep roots in Ohio since early in the 20th century. Her family now owns four homes in Lakewood Village, making a commitment for the long-term in what they see as the best place to live in America.
Councilwoman Lepley graduated from Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio with a Bachelors degree in Speech & Language Disorders, followed by a Masters Degree in Speech Pathology from the University of Akron. She has won numerous community leadership and athletic awards, having served as a basketball student-athlete in college, helping her team compete in repeated appearances in NCAA.
Councilwoman Lepley is honored to serve her neighbors as a member of the Lakewood Village Town Council.
Clint Bushong - Councilman
Term Expires: May 2023
Council Place #5
Councilman Clint Bushong was appointed to the Town Council in September of 2013 and elected into office in May 2014. A native of Southern California, he has lived in North Texas since 1997 and moved to Lakewood Village with his wife Shannon in 2001. Councilman Bushong earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) at San Luis Obispo, CA. Councilman Bushong has been employed at Peterbilt Motors since 1997 and is currently an Engineering Supervisor for the Advance Design Group.