Kathleen Gilbert is an experienced financial services professional with a background as a Client Associate at Merrill Lynch, where she provided comprehensive administrative and client support in a fast-paced wealth-management environment. She is deeply committed to community engagement and education, having volunteered in various roles at her children’s schools and serves on a Meals on Wheels delivery team, helping provide support and connection to homebound community members. Kathleen also volunteers with SEEDS, a New Jersey–based education nonprofit, supporting its mission to expand educational opportunities for motivated students. Across her professional and volunteer work, she brings strong organizational skills, compassion, and a dedication to meaningful service.

Barbara Gomes is a New Jersey Highlands resident for more than two decades. She has more than 20 years of nonprofit management experience with an emphasis on communications, donor development, and project management. She volunteers for Sparta Responsible Development which is currently opposing an 800,000 square foot mega warehouse application proposed to be built over the Germany Flats Aquifer in Sparta Township.

Her passion for helping others has led her to work with nonprofit organizations to build their capacities and grow their support base.  Barbara is a Fundraising Consultant for Match Nonprofit Consulting. Before her work at Match NPC, she worked for NJ SHARES from the time it was a start-up organization until it celebrated its 20th anniversary, which gave her the unique experience of working with utilities, government, and social service agencies throughout New Jersey and nationally.

Barbara has served on the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition Board of Trustees, the Center for Non-Profits Board in New Jersey, and the Sparta Township Communications Committee.  She adheres to the Association of Fundraising Professionals Code of Ethics.  Barbara earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Public Relations from Kean University.

Wynnie-Fred Victor Hinds has over twenty-five years of experience working with private, public, grassroots organizations, and businesses. She has collaborated and done consultancy work on Environmental, Sustainability, Health, Economic, Recreation, and other issues and events, with various organizations, local officials, and stakeholders. She does community outreach and organizing to get people involved in the decision-making process to find tangible solutions to issues that affect our environment, health, and quality of life. She was appointed by the Mayor of Newark, NJ and the Municipal City Council to the Board of the Newark Environmental Commission on October 2015. She also serves on the Boards of Clean Water Action (National and New Jersey.) She is currently the Executive Director of the Weequahic Park Association.

Edward “Ned” Kirby is currently Professor Emeritus of Plant Biology, Department of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University-Newark. He received his undergraduate degree in zoology from The University of Michigan and Ph.D. in botany from the University of Florida. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in forest genetics at the Oregon Research Center in Portland and was awarded an international research fellowship in plant physiology for study at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. At Rutgers University, Ned served as chair of the Department of Biological Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His research interests, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research have centered on the genetics of forest trees. He is author of over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Ned has been a visiting scientist, consultant, and technical advisor to national forestry research institutes in Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, New Zealand, and Brazil. He was awarded an International Research Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education for study at the University of Málaga. Ned has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Great Swamp Watershed Association

Aaron Kleinbaum brings more than forty years of diverse experience in environmental law and engineering. His career spans work with both state and federal agencies, including the Hackensack Meadowlands Commission, the US Forest Service, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. He has also contributed his expertise in private law firms such as Sills Cummis and Dewey Ballantine, served a global corporation (Ingersoll Rand Co.), and played a vital role in a public interest law firm (Eastern Environmental Law Center) as well as the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.

Throughout his career, Mr. Kleinbaum has guided federal, state, and administrative court actions for both private and public clients. His work has focused on enforcing a broad spectrum of environmental laws with the goal of protecting public health and safety. He has overseen litigation compelling the remediation of contaminated sites and addressing damage to natural resources. His enforcement actions have also targeted the clean-up of new and emerging contaminants, always grounded in the principles of environmental justice. He has led efforts in communities that have suffered from prolonged neglect, ensuring that environmental laws serve those most affected.

Mr. Kleinbaum has participated in multistate environmental litigation and regulatory initiatives designed to safeguard residents of New Jersey from regional and nationwide environmental threats. These efforts have been pursued under federal statutes to guarantee robust protection for state and local communities.

For nearly six years, Mr. Kleinbaum led the New Jersey Attorney General’s affirmative environmental legal initiatives for the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. In this leadership role, he supervised litigation under CERCLA, the New Jersey Spill Act among many other federal and state statutes. His office also engaged outside counsel to support cost recovery efforts and supervised their work in other New Jersey civil and criminal cases handled by the Attorney General’s Office.

Jim Lyons was born in New Jersey and developed his passion for the outdoors and interest in natural resource policy and management from spending much of his youth in the NJ Highlands. Jim and his wife, Jennifer Palmieri, split their time between the home Jim and his father built in the Upper Greenwood Lake region of West Milford, NJ and a home in Edgewater, Maryland.

Jim stepped down as a visiting professor and lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (now the Yale School of the Environment) in 2020. Under President Clinton, Jim was USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment (1993-2000) where he oversaw the Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service and dealt with issues ranging from the President’s Northwest Forest Plan to updating national wildland firefighting policy. Under President Obama, Jim was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management in the Interior Department (2013-2017) where he oversaw initial development of renewable energy projects on public lands and helped lead the effort to
protect the Greater sage grouse across 11 western states. Earlier in his career, Jim served as Policy Director for the Society of American Foresters and as senior staff to the House Committee on Agriculture where he helped develop the conservation title and the first forestry title of the 1990 Farm Bill. Jim has been recognized as a distinguished alum by Rutgers University (1995) and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (2019) for his contributions to the fields of conservation and natural resource management. He currently serves on the Board of the NJ Conservation Foundation and volunteers on several committees for West Milford township.

Timothy McKenna was born in Paterson, grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and has spent most of his life in the state. He began exploring the woods, hills and hiking trails of the state at an early age and never stopped. He held his first job at the Paterson News, a daily newspaper, covering local, county and state government as well as working as a movie and theater critic for the paper. After four years he transitioned into corporate communications work in order to make enough money to raise a family.

He eventually served as a senior executive for four stock exchange listed companies involved in natural resources, serving as head of government relations and investor relations. His experience included 25 years in the forest products industry and twelve years in the lithium business. He has been actively involved in conservation activities throughout his career.

He has been a member of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference for over 40 years and now serves as the Trail Conference representative to the Highlands Coalition and is also head of the Trail Conference Government Advocacy Committee. He lives in Wayne, NJ.

October 14, 2025

Jean Rich is a trustee of the Morristown Green and sits on the Morris Township Historic Preservation Commission. She is also a former trustee of the Great Swamp Watershed Association, a former president of the Washington Valley Community Association, and she spent many years as a trustee of Jewish Family Service of Metrowest. She holds a doctorate in History. Jean lives in Morris Township.

John Thonet is President of Thonet Associates, an environmental planning and engineering consulting firm, which he founded in 1980. He is licensed as a Professional Engineer and Professional Planner in New Jersey with more than 40 years of professional experience working in the NJ Highlands.  He serves on Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Environmental Lobby (NJEL) and from 1992 through 2011, served as a member, and later as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Herley Industries, Inc., an international manufacturer of electronic components, systems and subsystems for the U.S. and allied militaries.  John lives in Pittstown.

Ashwani Vasishth, PhD is Professor of Sustainability and Director of the Center for Sustainability at Ramapo College of New Jersey.  He is the founding Chair of the President’s Committee on Campus Sustainability, which has the mission of promoting sustainable practices throughout the campus and of building a deeply pervasive culture of sustainability within the community.  He is President of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS).  His pedagogy is focused on taking a systems approach to depicting complex problems, and on Education for Sustainability (EfS) from within an interdisciplinary framework.

Sara Webb, Ph.D., is a forest ecologist, environmental scientist, and Professor emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Drew University, where she was founding director of the Environmental Studies and Sustainability program and previously served as Biology Department Chair.  She continues as director of the Drew Forest Preserve and its ecological restoration project.  She has taught courses and given presentations on Environmental Science, Forest Ecology, Plant Identification, Ecology and Evolution, Biological Invasions, and Restoration Ecology.  Her areas of research expertise include forest disturbance by wind and fire, paleoecology of postglacial tree migrations, the extinct passenger pigeon, the invasive Norway maple tree, forest fragmentation, and old growth forests.  She received her PhD in Ecology and M.S. in Ecology and Forest Resources from the University of Minnesota, with a B.A. from Macalester College.