Board of Directors

  • See my LinkedIn

    Sam's career has been dedicated to sustainability in education.

    He has most recently stepped back from his role as Semester Director at The Island School, an experiential semester school on Eleuthera, Bahamas, which puts sustainability at the forefront of academic and campus life. He spent three years there as Director, having previously been instrumental in its establishment in the late 1990s including all aspects of starting an international program.

    Many years of Sam's career as an educator has been spent at his alma mater, The Lawrenceville School, where he was the inaugural Director of Sustainability for thirteen years. This followed from five years working there as a teacher, admissions associate, coach, and dorm parent. Sam has additional teaching, coaching and administrative experience at a turning point education school in Newark, NJ, as well as at McDonogh School outside Baltimore, MD.

    Sam earned his BA in English from Hamilton College, and his MA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College. He is excited to take on this new role with the Green Schools Alliance to continue to connect schools with opportunities for best practice, learning opportunities for students and communities, and to serve as a conduit for schools and communities to come together to improve our world through education and action.

  • Activist, Social-Capitalist, and Cross Pollinator

    Veronique C. Pittman is an Advisory Board Member of the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, and Board member of The Rainforest Foundation, Global Goods Partners, Bedford2020, and LessCancer. She also serves on Audubon's Rachel Carson Awards Council. She is a community organizer and activist in the areas of indigenous rights, biodiversity conservation, green solutions, waste & recycling, women's reproductive health, and participatory art. A web designer by profession, she is also a writer, mountaineer and professional cook. She graduated with a BS in Cultural Anthropology from University of Pennsylvania.

  • Former Head of Fisheries, US Fish and Wildlife Services

    Mamie Parker is a leader in Nominating and Governance in various nonprofit organizations and serves on the Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy (Virginia Chapter), the National Wildlife Federation, Center for Large Landscape Conservation Board, Duke University NSOE, Northland College, Student Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Brown Advisory Sustainable Investment, Marstel-Day Consulting Company, the Potomac and the Chesapeake Conservancy. As an Aspen Institute Fellow, she was awarded the Council of World Women Leaders' exchange fellowship to work in the Kingdom of Lesotho, and in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. She received great accolades in China while speaking at the World Fisheries Congress on the impacts of climate change and development in coastal cities and communities of color.

  • See my LinkedIn

    Expertise: Teach and Research Green Building, Green Schools, Sustainability; Facilitate Sustainable Integrated Design Processes; Research and develop LENSES (Living Environments in Natural, Social, and Economic Systems).

    Brian Dunbar is Executive Director of the Institute for the Built Environment (IBE) and Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University, where he has taught courses in Construction Management, Interior Architecture, and Sustainability. Brian holds degrees in architecture from the University of Michigan; and is a WELL (AP) and LEED AP. Brian is a Board member for the Center for Living Environments and Regeneration (CLEAR), a non-profit established to disseminate LENSES, a guiding framework for regenerative design.

    Through IBE, Brian has guided project work and facilitated design charrettes for the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, American Institute of Architects, cities, universities, and school districts. Brian is co-author of “Whole School Sustainability” and “147 Tips on Teaching Sustainability”. Brian’s sustainable building teaching and research has been honored by ;AIA, USGBC, the Colorado Governor, communities, businesses and universities. The U.S. Green Building Council recognized Brian with one of its first LEED Fellow since 2004, has annually been selected as a national LEED faculty member by the USGBC.

    Brian is co-author of “147 Tips on Teaching Sustainability” and his sustainable building teaching and research has been honored and recognized by the AIA, the USGBC, the Colorado Governor, the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, communities, businesses and universities. In 2012, Brian was selected as a LEED Fellow by the Green Building Certification Institute.

    Brian created the graduate emphasis in sustainable building for the Department of Construction Management at Colorado State and has taught university and professional courses on sustainable building across the U.S. and in Costa Rica.

  • Jan is President of Blue J Strategies, a strategic advisory business that she founded with Jimmy Chamberlin (Smashing Pumpkins), that provides access, connectivity and strategic direction to companies across the media, entertainment, technology and non-profit sectors, creating opportunities that accelerate growth, time to market, and value. Jan is a partnership builder, focused on harnessing the power of digital media and technology to make the world a better place. She has held senior positions at AOL, Yahoo, Topspin Media (acquired by Apple), The Find (acquired by Facebook) and Backplane. Jan is also a Venture Partner at venture capital firms StudioVC and Correlation Ventures, as well as Savano Capital Partners, providing interim liquidity to founders, employees and former employees at high growth private companies. She speaks frequently on digital media, women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and the intersection thereof. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and her A.B. in English and American Literature from Brown University.

  • Liz Cutler is a whole school sustainability consultant for PK12 schools and is an environmental artist. Her passions of nature and education are her throughline.

    She had what she considered to be the best job in the world, teaching literature, writing, and environmental awareness for years at Princeton Day School, where she also founded a whole school sustainability initiative and served as its director for 20 years. Her most recent teaching role was as the Master Teacher-in-Residence at The Island School in The Bahamas helping the young faculty improve their teaching practice.

    She is the founding Director of OASIS (Organizing Action on Sustainability In Schools), a non-profit consortium of over 40 central Jersey schools and school districts working together to become more environmentally sustainable. She has received awards from The Watershed Institute, Sustainable Princeton, the National Garden Club of America, and most recently, the 2024 Donald B. Jones Award for a lifetime in conservation. She serves on the boards of Sustainable Princeton and the Green Schools Alliance.

    Earlier in life, Liz was a wilderness instructor, the founder of Noazim (a Jewish wilderness camping program for high school students), the publicity manager at both Princeton University Press and the Guggenheim Museum, and a martial artist. She holds a BA from Duke University and an MA from Princeton University.

    She adores cooking, gardening, canoeing, and international folk dance. She is married to a marvelous mate, Tom Kreutz, and they have three children.

  • Gregory Bernstein is a General Partner at Acequia Capital and leads the firm’s strategy for New Industrials and reindustrialization in the national interest. He was previously an investor within EQT’s venture capital arm, focusing on frontier technology in energy, biology, mobility, and computation companies throughout Europe and the U.S. He remains affiliated with EQT as an Executive-in-Residence and serves as Board Director for several of his legacy New Industrial investments.  

    Bernstein also served as a military officer for five years with deployments as a counter-narcotics mission commander throughout Latin America and a decorated tour as a Commanding Officer afloat. He holds a BSc. from the United States Coast Guard Academy, an MSc. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and is an active alumnus of McDonogh School in Maryland. He lives in New York City.

     

  • See my LinkedIn

    Founder & Executive Director at Door Number One (Canada).

    Passionate about helping people find hope and take action on the climate crisis and the many other intersecting crises of our time. Started this not-for-profit to provide practical inspiration for the transition to a just, beautiful and regenerated world.

    Fifteen years working in the corporate sector and another fifteen years in independent school administration have honed my skills in leadership, strategy, communications and organizational transformation.

    I bring experience as a Climate Reality Leader and community organizer, insights as a Living Future Accredited member of the International Living Future Institute, and my deep love of nature.

  • President of Andlinger & Company, Inc., an international private investment and management company founded in 1976.

    Rick serves on and has served on numerous corporate boards (public and private) in the U.S. and Europe in the manufacturing, technology, cleantech, beverage, and service sectors. He is Chairman of Steward Advanced Materials, a producer of precision ceramic and metallic powders for process industries, batteries and defense. He has been Executive Chairman of AgCert International, a developer of farm-based anaerobic digester systems converting manure into tradable carbon credits and electricity.

    Until September 2022, he also was Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Option3 Ventures, a cybersecurity private equity and venture fund.

    Prior to joining Andlinger & Company in 1999, he served as President and CEO of Pure Energy Corporation, a bio-based fuel and chemical company. He began his career as an investment banker specializing in energy and natural resources, first at Salomon Brothers and then at Smith Barney, where he was co-head of the global energy and power group.

    Education, and especially environmental education, is important to Rick. He is a longtime board member and Treasurer at Montclair Kimberley Academy (PK-12), and a member of the Advisory Board at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, as well as a former Adjunct professor at Drew University. Also, he is a corporation member of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

    Andlinger received his A.B. from Princeton University and MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

  • CEO, RePower Inc

    Chris McCutcheon provides sustainable portable power banks at large events, with Certified B Corp RePower.

  • See my LinkedIn

    Katy is the Director of Sustainability at Avon Old Farms School, a 9-12 boarding and day independent school in CT. Her role includes diverse projects like utilizing START, managing the school garden, and diverting food waste from the dining hall to a commercial composting facility. Prior to her role at Avon, Katy ran the Green Cup Challenge (inter-school competitions to reduce energy use and waste), and the Student Climate & Conservation Congress (Sc3) for the Green Schools Alliance.

    M. A. Experimental and Biological Psychology

  • Principal, Upland Road; Founder of LEED™

    Rob Watson is one of the pioneers of the modern Green Building Movement. An international leader in market transformation and green buildings, Watson is known as the “Founding Father of LEED” and was its Founding Chairman through 2006. Under Rob’s direction, LEED became the largest and fastest-growing international standard by which green buildings are measured. Author Thomas Friedman calls Rob "one of the best environmental minds in America." Watson is at the forefront of technical innovation in green buildings, energy efficiency, and circular economy. A Senior Scientist with the NRDC for 21 years, Rob directed the International Energy and Green Building programs and worked extensively on five continents improving the environmental performance of buildings, utilities and transportation.

    Among numerous international awards for his work, Watson was the only foreigner honored for Green Building Innovation by the Chinese Ministry of Construction and received the first lifetime achievement award from the U.S. Green Building Council in 2002. In 2019, Dartmouth College named him one of the 25 Most Influential Alumni in the college’s 250 year history. His work on green buildings and related technology has been featured in numerous publications. Mr. Watson is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has an MBA from Columbia University and a MSc from UC Berkeley.

  • Founder and former President, Green Schools Alliance

    As Founder of the GSA, Peg spearheaded GSA’s  growth to help mitigate climate and conservation challenges through education and action. Formerly a green architect and building materials specialist, in 1993 Peg was selected as one of 60 experts to participate in the 1993 “Greening of the White House” initiative of the Clinton Administration. She has worked with multiple organizations and agencies including the Natural Resources Defense Council and White House Council on Environmental Quality.  In 1994, Peg founded Global Environmental Options (GEO) to transfer and scale green solutions. Through GEO, she launched national and international collaborations that convened regional stakeholders with private and public sector partners for green master planning. This included the Japan Charrette for post-earthquake Kobe, and greening charrettes in the National Parks including Grand Canyon, Denali and Yellowstone where she lived intermittently during the Greening of Yellowstone. She also participated in the Habitat for Humanity, Mississippi Flood Plains, and Presidio greening projects. The conservation ethos of the Parks and US Fish and Wildlife Service inspires her to activate the next generation of stewards.  She has a BA from Smith College and an MARCH from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. 

Strategic & Educational Advisors

Supporters & Champions