Board of Trustees

Board of Trustees of the Waterfront Alliance

Paul Balser, Co-Chair - IronWood Manufacturing Fund
John H. Watts, Co-Chair - Fischer Francis Trees & Watts
Paige C. Sutherland, Treasurer - Consultant
Kent L. Barwick, Secretary - Municipal Art Society of New York
Margaret C. Ayers - Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
Laurie Beckelman - Beckelman & Capalino, LLC
Stephen Culhane - Linklaters LLP
Dr. Emlyn Koster - Liberty Science Center
John Neu - Hugo Neu Corporation
Peggy Shepard - West Harlem Environmental Action
John Solomon - In Case of Emergency, LLC

Roland Lewis, President and CEO

BIOGRAPHIES

Paul Balser is a founding partner of Ironwood Manufacturing Fund and Ironwood Partners, private equity firms in New York, N.Y. since 2001. In 1996, Mr. Balser co-founded Generation Partners, a $325 million private equity firm with offices in Greenwich, CT and San Francisco. Prior to co-founding Generation Partners, Mr. Balser was a founding Partner of Centre Partners, L.P., the managing general partner of Centre Capital Investors L.P., a $150 million investment fund affiliated with Lazard Freres & Co. LLC. Mr. Balser is a graduate of Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and attended New York University Graduate Business School. He has served on 23 boards and currently serves on the Boards of Janus Capital Group Inc. (NYSE: JNS) and Tweedy, Browne Funds, Inc. Mr. Balser is Chairman of the Board of the Hudson Guild and co-chairman of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. He is a board member of United Neighborhood Houses, a trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission and the National Maritime Historical Society, Chairman of the John C. Green Society and a Director of the Hale Foundation. He serves as a class agent for The Lawrenceville School, and is a member of Business Executives for National Security.
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John Watts is Chairman Emeritus, and Senior Advisor, at Fischer Francis Trees & Watts. He served from 2005 to 2007 as Vice Chairman of BNP Paribas Asset Management Group, where he now is Senior Advisor.

From 1967 until founding FFTW in 1972, Mr. Watts was Deputy Manager; responsible for banking, foreign exchange and global bond advisory services at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and later deputy to the Managing Partner. From 1964 to 1965, he was a consultant in the business and applied mathematics group at Arthur D Little Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. and in Mexico City. From 1960 through 1964, Mr. Watts was the missile division officer on the US 7th Fleet Flagship, and later served as a missile test officer at the Naval Weapons Lab.

Mr. Watts is a member of the boards of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp., the World Policy Institute (co-chair), Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (co-chair), and Sparkman and Stevens, Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was co-founder of its European Program.

Mr. Watts served on the boards of Hampshire College (as Chair), National Park Foundation (as Treasurer), League of Conservation Voters (as Treasurer), Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy (now Chair Emeritus and Advisory Board), Salzburg Seminar, Synergos Institute, Florence V Burden Foundation, Packer Collegiate Institute and Governors Island Alliance (Founding Board Member, now Advisory Board) Robert College of Istanbul.

He also served as a member of the Visiting Committee to Harvard's Economics Department and has lectured at the graduate business schools of the University of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and Texas.

Mr. Watts received an MBA with high distinction from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar and completed the course work for a PhD in business economics. He holds BS and MS degrees in engineering from the University of Texas, where he served on the faculty. He is an avid sailor, environmentalist, and park advocate.
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Paige C. Sutherland is a consultant pursuing a variety of fiduciary and advisory roles in finance, investments and real estate.

She spent 10 years on Wall Street in real estate finance at Kidder, Peabody and PaineWebber. Her experience included the sale and financing of large commercial properties, portfolios and leisure properties including trophy golf and ski resorts; real estate bankruptcy, workouts and securitizations for the Resolution Trust Corporation; and investment banking services for real estate companies, primarily real estate investment trusts (REITs). Prior to Kidder, Peabody, Ms. Sutherland was with Security Pacific Realty Advisory Services where she evaluated reuse and redevelopment plans for "white elephant" real estate owned by Fortune 500 companies. She began her career working on tax-exempt bond financings in the public finance group at Warburg, Paribas, Becker.

Following the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, Ms. Sutherland served as executive director of ReSTART Central, an economic development group formed to help lower Manhattan's small businesses reopen and recover from the devastation of the events. She was awarded a Harvard Business School Class of 1985 Courage and Valor Award for this work. Previously, she had been a member of the team that founded The Franklin Report: The Insider's Guide to Home Services, a book series and website which evaluate home renovation and maintenance service providers.

Ms. Sutherland has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Politics from Princeton University. At Princeton she authored an independent research paper on the politics behind the construction of the World Trade Center by the Port of New York Authority.

Ms. Sutherland serves on the Board of Advisors of the Harvard Business School Club of New York's Community Partners program, which conducts pro bono business consulting projects for area nonprofits. She was co-leader of a team that conducted a three-year strategic study for the Municipal Art Society on the future direction of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Following the presentation of the final report and recommendations to the MAS Board, Ms. Sutherland and her co-leader, John Solomon, worked closely with MAS and MWA to implement the successful launch of MWA as a stand-alone nonprofit organization.

Ms. Sutherland is also on the program committee of the Association of Real Estate Women (AREW), where she was formerly a Board member, and is a member of the Urban Land Institute.

Ms. Sutherland has lived in New York City for over 20 years and is inspired by the incredible improvement in the quality of life in the City over that period. As a native of Long Island's North Shore, she grew up swimming, boating and water-skiing in the Long Island Sound and later participated in other water sports including competitive swimming, water polo and crew, where she was a coxswain. She would like to see the NY/NJ waterfront have an abundance of water-related recreational activities as well as numerous opportunities to experience nature and the outdoors.
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Kent L. Barwick is a civic activist involved in urban planning, design and preservation issues in New York. He has been president of the Municipal Art Society of New York since January 1999. Mr. Barwick had previously served the Society as its president from 1983 to 1995 and as its executive director from 1970 to 1975. From 1995 to 1997, he was president of the New York State Historical Association, having previously served as its vice chairman from 1993 through 1995. In 1998, Mr. Barwick became the first director of "The Waterfront Project," a reconnaissance effort organized by a coalition of leading New York and New Jersey foundations, which was originally housed at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Waterfront Project burgeoned into the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance under the banner of the Municipal Art Society and was launched as an independent nonprofit organization in the Spring of 2007. From 1978 to 1983, Mr. Barwick was chairman of New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission and, in 1977, was administrator of the Adopt-A-Station program to improve New York City's subways. Prior to that, he was director of the New York State Council on the Arts (1975-1976). An early organizer of the South Street Seaport, he was also co-chairman of the Architectural and Engineering Committee for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island. From 1981 to 1987, Mr. Barwick was as an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its north-east regional chairman from 1988 to 1990. In 2001, he served on the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Governors Island. Mr. Barwick is currently chairman of the State Council on Waterways, vice president of Riverside South Planning Corporation, and serves on the boards of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, the Clark Foundation, Historic HudsonValley, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, North River Historic Ship Society, Otsego 2000, Parks & Trails New York, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial and the Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy. Mr. Barwick played a leading role in establishing theTribute in Light temporary memorial to the World Trade Center victims and was actively involved in the Municipal Art Society's Imagine New York: Giving Voice to the People's Visions project. A graduate of Syracuse University, Mr. Barwick also attended Harvard University as a Loeb Fellow. A founder of the Preservation League of New York State, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council, he is also the recipient of a number of awards for his civic works from, among others, the AIA, the Parks Council (now New Yorkers for Parks) and the American Planning Association.
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Margaret C. Ayers is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation where she has served since 1979. Under her leadership, the Foundation has awarded more than $100 million to organizations that promote reproductive rights nationally, government accountability and child welfare reform in New York State, and improved management of cultural organizations in New York City. Margaret Ayers also serves on the Board of the New York Foundation for the Arts where, in the past, she served as President. Past board affiliations include the Alliance of Resident Theaters/NY (ART/NY), and the New York Council for the Humanities. Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Ms. Ayers worked with the New York Foundation for the Arts to create the New York Arts Recovery Fund through which some $5 million was made available to individual artists and small arts organizations located in Lower Manhattan. Ms. Ayers is a graduate of Douglass College, Rutgers University, where she majored in political science. She has been recognized by the University for her various contributions and has been inducted into the Douglass Society and the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni.
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Laurie Beckelman is a leading expert in the fields of cultural organization development and landmarks preservation. Her firm, Beckelman+Capalino, provides a wide range of project management and strategic advisory services to cultural, not-for-profit and historic preservation clients. Some of her current projects include such diverse aspects as the development of new museums and a mixed use waterfront projects. Recently she served as Director, New Building Program for the Museum of Arts & Design, directing the $70 million Capital Campaign and developing the new facility at Two Columbus Circle (formerly the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art). Previously she was the Guggenheim Museum's Deputy Director for Special Projects, directing development of a new 500,000 square foot, Frank Gehry-designed museum that was planed to be built on the East River.

Ms. Beckelman was Vice President of the World Monuments Fund, where she directed the marketing, fundraising, communications, and strategic planning. She also served as Executive Director for The Joseph Papp Public Theater, where she was responsible for development, marketing, and securing more than $12 million in new city funds.

While serving as Vice President at La Salle Partners, International Development Corporation she had a leadership role in the redevelopment of Grand Central Terminal. She also advised the Empire State Development Corporation on the redevelopment of 42nd Street, including the restoration of the New Amsterdam Theater, owned and operated by the Disney Corporation. Ms. Beckelman served as Chair and Commissioner of the City of New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission, from 1990-1994

Ms. Beckelman is extensively involved in cultural affairs and serves on a wide variety of boards, including: Alliance for the Arts (Board of Directors); American Institute of Architects, NY Chapter;); The Municipal Art Society (Board of Directors); Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare (Honorary Board); and the Regional Plan Association (Board of Directors). She has served on numerous design panels at the National Endowment for the Arts and is a member of design studios at Harvard, Yale and Pratt. Ms. Beckelman also served on the Jury of the Oklahoma Memorial Commission, which was responsible for selecting and awarding the winning design.

Ms. Beckelman was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and now serves as a member of the GSD's Alumni Council. She studied for a Master's degree from New York University's Graduate School of Public Administration, and her Bachelor of Arts and Science from Boston University.
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Stephen Culhane is a life-long New Yorker, dedicated sailor and father of three increasingly not-so-young children, two of whom capsized dinghies in the Hudson without incident during the summer of 2009. Long fascinated by local history, Stephen Culhane is a member of the board of trustees and executive committee of the Brooklyn Historical Society. He is also involved with a number of parks and waterfront organizations.

Mr. Culhane is a partner in the investment management group of the global law firm Linklaters LLP. His practice focuses primarily on representing sponsors of private-equity, real-estate, special situation, and hedge funds with respect to the structuring, formation and operation of such fund products. Prior to joining Linklaters, Stephen Culhane led the New York funds practice at King & Spalding. Before that, he was a member of the Goldman Sachs' legal department, where he served as the legal director to the firm's private equity group, one of the world's largest private equity fund of funds complexes, and also worked as the senior attorney covering Goldman Sachs Asset Management's direct hedge funds.

Stephen Culhane has specialized in private-investment funds matters since the early 1990s and is a frequent speaker on issues relating to private investment funds. He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s private funds committee and the private funds sub-committee of the International Bar Association. Mr. Culhane graduated from Princeton University, received an MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford, and his JD from the New York University School of Law.
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Dr. Emlyn Koster, a science museum CEO for the past two decades, is currently at the helm of one of the museum field's most relevancy-minded renewal projects. Internationally experienced and dedicated to improving the links between science and society, he is a prominent writer and speaker about the external responsibilities of science museums as well as an active contributor to their main professional bodies.

President and CEO of Liberty Science Center since 1996, he is leading the institution in a demand-driven $110m capital project under the banner of Connections: Our Community, Our World. In partnership with the region's public and private sectors, this encompasses major expansion and renovation as well as extensive exhibition and program enhancement. New Jersey's most visited museum and one of the New York City metro region's top-rated cultural destinations, Liberty Science Center is in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, next to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Opened in 1993 and expanded by mid-2007, its innovative benchmarks for the science museum field feature inclusive approaches to audience, regional relevancy of onsite, offsite and online content, extensive involvement with preK -12 education and teacher professional development, and instructive applications of videoconferencing and cell phones. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Center assisted in a wide variety of emergency roles that went on to shape thinking in the museum field about different roles when disaster strikes.

Born in Egypt's Suez Canal Zone and then moving to England, he earned a BSc in geology at the University of Sheffield. In 1971, he immigrated to Canada and earned his PhD in geology at the University of Ottawa. Faculty positions in Montreal and Saskatchewan followed. After coal exploration and dinosaur fieldwork in a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Alberta and in China's Gobi Desert, his career focus shifted to the public's view of science. From 1986-91, he directed a new natural history museum near Calgary with Queen Elizabeth II bestowing royal appellation upon it in 1989. From 1991-96 as CEO at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, a pioneer among interactive museums, he led a major facility and exhibition renewal program. In 1994, he was honored by the Government of France with a Chevalier Medal in the l'Ordre des Palmes Academique and in 1996 was elected by the Geological Association of Canada as its 50th anniversary president.

His learning experiences include travel to over 50 countries on all continents. Past and present appointments include the International Council of Museums board of the American Association of Museums, Committee on Public Understanding of Science and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the boards of the Giant Screen Cinema Association, Institute for Learning Innovation, Challenger Center for Space Science Education and Association of Science-Technology Centers. His 45 publications in the museum field address topics he believes ought to be at the forefront of its leadership thinking - namely, relevancy to social and environmental opportunities and challenges. The latest contributions are an invited essay entitled "The Relevant Museum: a Reflection on Sustainability" in the centennial issue of Museum News of the American Association of Museums and an invited opening article for a special commemorative issue of Curator: The Museum Journal. Recent invitations for speaking engagements have brought him to Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Japan. Invited facilitation and resource roles in strategic planning recently include museums in Australia, Canada, Japan, UK and the USA.
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John Neu is Chairman of the Board and CEO (since 1985) of Hugo Neu Corporation (“HNC”), a privately owned firm headquartered in New York and founded in 1947 by his father, the late Hugo Neu. The company is principally active in the recycling business and industrial and commercial real estate development. Mr. Neu has been active in the business for 40 years. His wife, Wendy K. Neu, is Vice President in charge of environmental and public affairs. Mr. Neu is also actively involved in a number of nonprofit organizations with strong commitments to local communities, the environment, and social welfare. Mr. and Ms. Neu are active members of the NY/NJ Baykeeper, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and E-2, which promotes entrepreneurial activity in “green” businesses. In line with this commitment, they are helping to fund a major effort to clean up the Passaic River. For more than ten years, Mr. Neu was a Board member and Chairman of the Program Committee for Catholic Community Services in Newark, the largest nonprofit in the northern NJ counties, he serves on the Board of the Liberty Humane Society. He and Ms. Neu are major funders of several animal rescue organizations.
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Peggy Shepard is executive director and co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Founded in 1988, WE ACT was New York’s first environmental justice organization created to improve environmental health and quality of life in communities of color. A recipient of the 10th Annual Heinz Award For the Environment and the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Achievement, she is a former Democratic District Leader, who represented West Harlem from 1985 to April 1993, and served as President of the National Women’s Political Caucus-Manhattan from 1993-1997.
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John D. Solomon is currently working on a book about terror preparedness and the public, In Case of Emergency: Preparing for Terrorism, Natural Disasters and Other 21st Century Crises. He is an Adjunct Instructor in Emergency Medicine at the State University of New York College of Medicine and a member of New York City's Citizen Emergency Response Team Program. Solomon contributes to publications, including The Washington Post, New York Times and USA Today, as well as to National Public Radio on homeland security and other public policy topics.

He began his career as the Press Secretary for U.S. Congressman Philip Sharp before joining New York City's homeless housing development unit. He also worked at Lifetime Television managing the network's news and public service campaigns. Solomon is presently Vice Chair of the Trauma and Family Violence Division of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services and is a trustee of the Collegiate School.

He holds a B.A. from Harvard College and a M.B.A. from Harvard's Graduate School of Business. As part of the Harvard Business School Club of New York's Community Partners Program, he was co-leader of a team that conducted a three-year strategic study for the Municipal Art Society on the future direction of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Following the presentation of the final report and recommendations to the MAS Board, Solomon and his co-leader, Paige Sutherland, worked with MAS and MWA to implement the successful launch of MWA as a stand-alone nonprofit organization.

Though he can barely swim, the lifelong New Yorker loves to take advantage of activities on the New York/New Jersey waterfront with his wife and two young children.
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