Chesapeake Environmental Protection Association

Board of Trustees

CEPA‘s Board of Trustees consists of 15 members who are dedicated to influencing environmental policies that affect the Chesapeake Bay. CEPA’s role in education and public involvement requires experienced, knowledgeable, and committed individuals serving on the Board. Qualifications and experience are considered in the selection and nomination process. Also, since legal interpretation and opinion is a necessary to achieve our objectives, and since participation in legal action is a possible avenue, the Board normally includes at least one lawyer.

Biographies of Trustees

Gary Antonides

Gary was born in Pensacola, Florida, the son of a Navy pilot who moved often while Gary was growing up. Gary went to the Naval Academy, spent four years on sea duty and two as a math instructor at the Academy before becoming a civil servant, working at the Naval Ship R&D Center, dealing mostly with ship vibration. While employed there, he earned a masters degree in Engineering Mechanics from Catholic University. He then worked for a defense contractor, and finally as a consultant before he retired. His last major efforts before retiring were working for the Navy and Coast Guard writing a new set of vibration specifications for ships. Working with 4 different panels of the American National Standards Institute and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers he modified them as necessary to get them approved as industry standards.

Gary has been involved as a volunteer in a number of organizations and has held various offices in the community. The organizations include the Boy Scouts, his church, his community recreation center (swimming pool), in Herndon, VA, and, since moving to Edgewater in 1980, the Loch Haven Civic Association and the Annapolis Sail & Power Squadron as well as CEPA. He was involved in various environmental issues while on the Board of the Loch Haven Civic Association, including those associated with the building of the Mayo Peninsula wastewater system.

He became a Trustee of CEPA in 1998 and has served as President and Vice-President, and is still very involved with many of the issues CEPA is addressing. His primary roles with CEPA now are as treasurer and the editor of CEPA's newsletter.

His main avocation is boating, and, for him, boating means taking a trailerable, trawler type cruising boat to new (to him) rivers, lakes, and coastal areas and exploring those areas and the history associated with them. Various friends and family serve as crew. Next on his list are the California Delta and Columbia River.

David Casnoff

David Casnoff was born and grew up in Philadelphia. He got his B.S. from Pennsylvania State University in Turf Management. His M.S. was also from Penn State, in Soil Physics. He earned a Ph.D. from University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Quantitative Genetics, Statistics and Computer Sciences. While at the University of Nebraska, he was a research assistant working in the corn breeding program where he directed field experiments and the associated statistical analyses.

He was a Post Doctorate Research Associate at Texas A&M University where he developed and directed studies for water use projects funded by the U.S. Golf Association and served on the faculty for undergraduate advanced turfgrass management.

Later he was Director of Turfgrass Research and Development for Northrup King Corporation where he designed and executed studies on water use efficiency and the reclamation of landfill and wetland areas. He also served as a turfgrass consultant to golf courses and sports fields.

He then formed Casnoff Austein Casnoff Associates, where he is now a consultant for agricultural and environmental policies for sports fields, golf courses, and other agricultural systems. He conducts research and provides guidance on soil and water conservation methodologies. He provides technical assistance to local and state government officials, policy experts, political, professional, university and small business organizations as well as farmers and environmentalists. He has expertise in many issues impacting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, including water quality and run off as well as a wide range of agricultural and environmental issues impacting Maryland.

He and his wife, Cheryl, set up an endowment for Turfgrass Science and Landscape Ecology at Penn State. Cheryl has an M.S. in Public Health from Yale and is now working for the Health Resources and Services Administration.

David was recently selected for the Class of 2008 LEGACY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE ON PUBLIC POLICY, established to address the challenges facing the State of Maryland. He received intensive instruction at the University of Maryland in the legislative process; budgets and finance; and public policy. As a Leader, he will be matched with (a) legislator(s) during the legislative session and participate in such activities as conducting research on policy issues, assisting in responses to constituent issues, attending legislative sessions, committees and briefings, and collaborating on special projects. He is now the Special Assistant to the Deputy Treasurer of External Affairs.

David became a Trustee of CEPA in 2003. In addition to CEPA, he is a member of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, and Golf Course Superintendents Society of America.

David and Cheryl live in Davidsonville, where he does a limited amount of turfgrass research on his lawn. David enjoys playing golf and woodworking.

Richard Dunn

Rick got his B.A. cum laude from University of New Hampshire in 1966 (Distinguished Military Graduate), his J.D. from University of Maryland in 1969, and his LL.M. With Highest Honors from George Washington University in 1976.

From 1970 to 1979 he served as a Judge Advocate in the United States Air Force in the United States and in Turkey. His awards include the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal. He was active in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard until 1991.

From 1979 to 1980 he was in private practice with the Washington law firm of Sullivan and Beauregard. From 1980 to 1987 he served in several positions at NASA including Counsel to the Space Commercialization Task Force and Deputy Associate General Counsel.

In 1987 he was appointed as the first General Counsel of DARPA. He organized the office and provided a full range of legal services for the nation's foremost national security research and development agency. Mr. Dunn pioneered innovative techniques to support science and technology projects by championing the enactment of legislation that authorized DARPA to enter into cooperative relationships with commercial companies or "partnerships" of companies and other organizations. Other pioneering efforts involved obtaining authority to conduct prototype projects outside the normal contracting statutes and special authority to recruit and pay scientists and engineers without regard to Civil Service laws. Awards include the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.

From 2000 to 2007 he was Visiting Scholar/Senior Fellow at the University of Maryland. This appointment was in the Department of Logistics, Business and Public Policy, R.H. Smith School of Business. Scholarly research was the primary emphasis of this position as well as teaching and related activities. Research included an eclectic mix of implementation of technology and historical national security studies.

Currently, as an independent consultant, Mr. Dunn provides advice and engages in research and analysis related to the deployment and implementation of technology in the military and civil sectors through partnering and other innovative means; he conducts research in national security operations, technology and their interactions; and, analyzes laws, policies and practices that impact the effective implementation of technology. Pro bono work includes appointment to several study groups of the National Academy of Science and Defense Science Board.

He has taught graduate and continuing education courses at the University of Maryland. He has provided formal testimony before the House Science Committee of Congress. He has been an Invited speaker at conferences of the National Academy of Sciences, National War College and American Bar Association, among other organizations.

Rick has lived near the South River for nearly 30 years and spent many summers of his youth and early adult years on the Eastern Shore's Choptank River. In law school he wrote an influential research paper on water resources conflicts in Dorchester County.

Lee Greenbaum

Leon Jack Greenbaum, Jr. was born in Baltimore in 1923. He got his BS from Loyola College and his MS from the University of Maryland. He also earned a PhD in physiology from the U. of Maryland's School of Medicine in 1962.

He had an unusual 30-year career with the Navy, serving during WWII and the Korean War as a Naval aviator. In 1963, he qualified as a Naval diver, and worked in diving and submarine research at the USN Experimental Diving Unit, and as Chief of Diving Research, Naval Medical Research Inst. He retired from the Navy in 1971 as a Captain.

He worked at the National Institutes of Health, where he was responsible for scientific review of grants in the areas of stroke, head and spinal cord injury, MS, and Parkinson's Disease. He is the author of about 30 scientific publications, co-authored two texts on diving and submarine medicine, and was editor of three texts on diving and undersea warfare.

He and his wife Betty live on Whitemarsh Creek off the Rhode River. He organized the Carr' Wharf Community Association and served as its first president. He was appointed to the Small Area Planning Committee for Edgewater/Mayo. He joined CEPA in 1999, and was served as President from 2005 to 2007.

He has been an avid sailor for many years. He organized and was Commodore of the Chesapeake Tartan 30 Association. He organized the Annapolis Naval Sailing Association and served as its first Commodore. He was Cruising One Design Chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association.

Bob Gallagher

Bob Gallagher and his wife Cate live on the West River in Shady Side. He grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania. He first developed his interest in the water during visits to the New Jersey beaches where he fished and surfed.

Bob went to college and law school in Washington D.C. where he kept a small sailboat on the Potomac River. After graduation he prosecuted civil rights cases with the Department of Justice.

In the mid 1970s he became director of an office of the Micronesian Legal Services Corporation in the Palau Islands of the western Pacific. In Palau he learned scuba diving and spear fishing and traveled to remote islands of the western and south Pacific. In Palau he first became involved as an advocate for the environment when he brought to the attention of the press and the people of Palau secret plans of American and Japanese oil interests to build a large oil transshipment port on the fragile reefs of Palau. The public scrutiny that followed caused the oil interests to abandon their plans.

After returning to Washington, Bob joined a law firm specializing in pension and employee benefits law. He litigated cases in federal courts around the country and eventually became managing partner of the firm.

When Bob and Cate bought their house in Shady Side in 1994, Bob became more interested in competitive sailing. He has raced in Wednesday night races on the West and Rhode Rivers, and weekend races on the Chesapeake ever since. He also became interested in offshore racing and has raced to New England, Bermuda, the Caribbean, across the Atlantic and in regattas in the Caribbean, Ireland and Thailand.

In 2005, Bob retired from his law firm and started West/Rhode Riverkeeper, Inc., becoming one of a dozen Waterkeepers working to protect and restore Maryland rivers. As Riverkeeper, he is engaged in education and restoration efforts around the West and Rhode Rivers and advocacy efforts in Annapolis and Washington to advance our right to clean water. Currently, Bob is board chair of West/Rhode Riverkeeper, co-chair of the Anne Arundel Chapter of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and a member of the board of Scenic Rivers Land Trust.

Jerry Hill

Jerry was born in Washington and resided in Bethesda, Maryland through high school. He went to American University in Washington for a bachelor's degree in Business and then went on to the University of Maryland for a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. He later went back to College Park for a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering.

He has worked in the field of ship design and navy ship survivability for most of his engineering career. He is currently employed by Alion Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia (formerly John J. McMullen Associates, Inc.), a firm of naval architects and marine engineers. He is responsible for a group that designs the structures of ship hulls to meet operational strength requirements. He also oversees a second group that provides aircraft carrier design and maintenance services to the U.S. Navy. Earlier in his career he worked in test and diagnosis of ship structures, propulsion systems, and machinery.

Jerry's affiliation with CEPA goes back to his parents. After moving to the area from Bethesda in 1971, his father, James Hill, joined the CEPA board as a Trustee. Jerry's mother, Nancy, served as recording secretary for many years. Jerry joined in 1994, and over the years has been active in a number of committees including serving as Chairman of the Planning Committee for the past several years.

Jerry is an active pilot and shares ownership of a single engine airplane based at Lee airport in Edgewater. He knows no better way to conceptualize and appreciate the Chesapeake Bay watershed than to fly over it in a small plane. He has flown the West/Rhode Riverkeeper over the watershed several times to check on reports of violations. Jerry and his wife, Ava, use the plane on vacations, both short and long. They have made trips to New York, New England, Canada and Florida.

Jerry and Ava live on Lerch Creek in Galesville, where they keep a boat and a canoe for experiencing the beauties of the Bay from sea level as well as from above.

Anson Hines

Dr. Anson "Tuck" Hines is the Director of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), located on the Chesapeake Bay in Edgewater, MD. He previously served as SERC's Assistant Director for 17 years and as Marine Ecologist and Principal Investigator of the Fish & Invertebrate Ecology Laboratory for 27 years. He is a Co-Principal Investigator in the SERC Invasions Biology Program, the nation's largest and most comprehensive research program on invasive species in marine ecosystems. His responsibilities at SERC include oversight and leadership of research, professional training and public education programs in global change, landscape ecology, ecosystems in coastal regions, and population & community ecology.

Dr. Hines has a B.A. degree in Zoology from Pomona College and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the Univ. of California at Berkeley. He has conducted research on coastal ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay, Florida, California, Alaska, Belize, Japan, and New Zealand. Dr. Hines has been project leader on a diverse array of research programs, such as: effects of thermal discharges of coastal power plants; sea otters and kelp forest ecology; long-term ecological change in Chesapeake Bay; marine food web dynamics; predator-prey interactions; impacts of fisheries, aquaculture and fishery restoration; crustacean life histories; and biological invasions of coastal ecosystems. He has studied the biology of crabs around the world and is an expert on blue crabs, and he serves as a member of the Bi-State Blue Crab Technical Advisory Committee for Chesapeake Bay.

Dr. Hines has published more than 130 articles in technical journals and books, and is the recipient of more than 100 research grant and contract awards. He has advanced SERC's land conservation program, which encompasses nearly 3,000 acres of the Rhode River watershed and shoreline. He promoted establishment of the Smithsonian Marine Science Network for comparative studies of coastal ecosystems at the Institution's four long-term research facilities along the Western Atlantic. He serves as Chair of the Smithsonian Diving Control Board, which oversees the safety of the nation's largest scientific diving program.

He is Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland College Park. He has served as major advisor for 18 Post-doctoral fellows, 12 Ph.D. students and 9 M.S. students, and as mentor for more than 110 undergraduate Interns.

Dr. Hines lives in Severna Park with his wife Linda, who has worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse for 35 years. They have 2 grown children and two grand-children. They enjoy sailing their Ericson 32 sloop on the Bay.

Bill Klepczynski

Dr. William J. Klepczynski became a CEPA Trustee in 2004 and has been instrumental in establishing CEPA's website and in organizing our mailing list. He is serving on the PST Landfill Committee and the Groundwater Committee.

He is an astronomer, having received a Ph.D in Astronomy from Yale University in 1968, an M.A. from Georgetown University in 1964, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.

Bill was formerly head of the Time Service Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory before he retired. There, he managed the USNO Master Clock, timing operations for the Global Positioning System (GPS), and time distribution systems that utilize communications satellites or other navigation systems for high precision synchronization of globally spaced timing centers. While at the USNO, he was involved with minimizing "light pollution" from nearby lights, a form of pollution not yet of much interest to CEPA and the environmental community.

He has been a member of the Institute of Navigation (ION) since 1963, served as Editor of the Journal of the ION, NAVIGATION from 1971 to 1978 and was President from 1987 to 1988. He was elected a Fellow of the ION in 2000.

He was an Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (2005-2006) sponsored by the Institute of Navigation, and was assigned to the Space and Advanced Technology Office of the U.S. State Department. Prior to this he provided consultation for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) architecture and systems design for GPS and analysis of the timing of the WAAS network. He is also Chairperson of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (International Bureau of Weights and Measures) Consultative Committee on Time and Frequency Working Group on two way satellite time and frequency transfer.

He currently lives in Arnold with his wife, Gloria, and spends part of each winter near Portland, Oregon, where their son and his family live. He is also a member of the Annapolis Sail & Power Squadron and teaches public boating courses.

Lloyd Lewis

Lloyd has been heavily involved in environmental issues and has worked with numerous volunteer organizations for many years. His knowledge and experience has benefited CEPA since he became a Trustee in 1999.

His formal education was in Engineering Physics at U.C. Berkeley (B.S.), Physical Oceanograpy at MIT (M.S.), and Ocean Engineering at U. of Rhode Is. (Ph.D.) He worked for the federal Government, including Department of Energy for 30 years, and also spent 10 years with industry as Oceanographer/Ocean Engineer, before retiring in 1995.

He has received many awards for his volunteer activities, including:

• Anne Arundel County Volunteer of the Year, 1996
• Maryland's "Most Beautiful People" Governor's Citation, 1996
• Anne Arundel County Utilities Citizen Volunteer of the Year, 1987
• Chesapeake Bay Foundation Oyster Restoration Volunteer of the Year, 2004
• Chesapeake Bay Foundation Maryland Bay Saver of the Year, 2006

The last award recognizes his contributions to the CBF oyster restoration program. The captain of the CBF oyster restoration vessel Patricia Campbell says that he is an invaluable part of the oyster program. Lloyd especially enjoys this work since it is outside, and many of his other interests, such as gardening and crabbing, are also outside activities.

He has served on the following Anne Arundel County Advisory Committees:

• Edgewater/Mayo Water and Wastewater (Chair)
• Mayo Wastewater Reclamation Subsystem (Chair)
• Beverly-Triton Beach Park Management Plan

In addition to serving as a Trustee (currently as Secretary) of CEPA, he also works with the South River Federation and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Oyster Replenishment, and was active in planning the Patuxent Greenways.
He is a member of the Southern Maryland Chapter, National Audubon Society; Maryland Ornithological Society; Anne Arundel Bird Club; Nature Conservancy; National Resources Defense Fund; and the National Wildlife Federation.

In addition to his environmental interests, he has served in many other community service positions:

• Friends of Arundel Seniors (currently President)
• Commodore Mayo Kiwanis (Chairman of Community Services)
• Marine Technology Society - Anne Arundel County Science Fair Judge
• Mayo Peninsula Action Council
• South County Community Garden (Manager)
  

He resides in Cloverlea on the Rhode River and somehow has time to get involved in sailboat racing.

Mike Lofton

Mike brings to CEPA a wealth of experience in environmental and local governmental matters. He is immediate Past President of the Harwood Civic Association. He was a member of the AA County Spending Affordability Committee, serving as Chairman in 2005. He is also a volunteer for the Rhode & West-River Keeper.

Previously, he was a Board Member of a number of organizations: Leadership Anne Arundel, where he was awarded their Community Trustee Award; United Way; Londontown Foundation, where he was Interim Executive Director; Junior Achievement, Scholarships for Scholars; and University of Maryland-Maryland Industrial Partnerships.

He has also served on numerous committees including the General Development Plan Steering Committee, School Maintenance & Renovation Taskforce, Taskforce on Year-Round Schools, Bob Neall Transition Team (Annapolis), and the Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, where he is in their Hall of Fame.

He was Founding CEO of the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation, Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Economic & Employment Development, and Executive Director of the Maryland Economic Development Association.

He received a B.A. in Economics from Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. He attended the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma. He is certified as an Economic Developer, CEcD, by the International Economic Development Association.

He and his wife, Sherrie have lived in Harwood since the early 1970s. They raised two "wonderful" children, Daniel and Amanda. Sherrie is a regular substitute teacher in all the South County elementary schools. They are both devoted animal lovers with a current population of two dogs and one cat. Mike spends as much time on the water as possible, usually fishing on his Parker 21 center console. He also manages a few trips each year to fish and camp in the Everglades.

Steuart Pittman

Steuart Pittman was one of the founding partners of the law firm of Shaw Pittman and has had a distinguished career in law and government since his graduation from Yale Law School in 1948. His World War II experience was in Africa with Pan American Airways Africa, in India with China National Aviation Corporation and in China with the U.S. Marine Corp (Silver Star).

During over more than forty years of private practice, he has represented a wide range of national and international clients in the full spectrum of investment, lending, and international banking matters. Prior to founding Shaw Pittman in 1954, Mr. Pittman practiced with the New York firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and served as Assistant General Counsel for the Foreign Operations Administration's investment guaranty and lending programs and on the President's interagency committee on methods of increasing private investment and lending in foreign-aid-recipient countries.

From 1954 until 1961, when he was appointed by President Kennedy to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mr. Pittman's practice concentrated on international investment and finance. During that period he held various consultancies: one with the Second Hoover Commission for which he authored a report on international investment and lending; one with the State Department negotiating investment guaranty agreements in seven Latin American countries; and one with the Development Loan Fund establishing precedents for mixed public and private financing methods for third-world projects. He also lectured extensively for the Practicing Law Institute, the Southwestern Legal Foundations, and Harvard Law School.

He returned to Shaw Pittman in 1964 and has continued his representation of international banking and corporate clients and has served as Trustee and on the Executive Committee of the Hudson Institute; on the Board of Overseers and the Executive Committee of the Center for Naval Analyses, as well as on its Marine Corps Advisory committee and its DOD Reorganization Advisory Committee; as a Director of Royal Ordnance, Inc.; on the Advisory Board of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; as a Director of the American Civil Defense Association; and as a Trustee of the Chesapeake Environmental Protection Association.

Rich Romer

Having grown up by the side of San Francisco Bay in Burlingame, California, it is only natural that Rich Romer would settle where he could see water. For the past 16 years, he has lived in the northern Calvert County municipality of North Beach, immediately south of the Anne Arundel County line and is a committed advocate for the Chesapeake Bay.

After graduating from Stanford University, Rich entered the U.S. Air Force for a 25 year career retiring in 1987 as a Colonel. During that period, he served four overseas assignments in the Pacific, including a combat tour in Vietnam, and acquired a Master's Degree in Logistics Management. After his Air Force retirement, Rich spent another 10 years as a Defense consultant which included a two year contract to work in China.

Since fully retiring in 1995, Rich has remained active, reinventing himself in a variety of areas. He is the Contributing Editor of a weekly paper, The VOICE of Southern Maryland, which covers Calvert and Southern Anne Arundel Counties, where he reports on county and municipal government, local politics, human interest, and general news. He appears regularly on the Cambridge, MD radio station WCEM (1240AM) during their daily afternoon show, New School.

In 2006, Rich and one of his neighbors formed the North Beach Publishing Company, LLP. They have written and published the World War II memoirs of two local veterans--Radioman for the Artillery, which recounts Larry Hatch's 33 months of combat in Italy and Three Brothers of the Greatest Generation, Ed Finch's story of his experiences and those of his two older brothers in the U.S. Navy aboard destroyers in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The books go on to describe who these veterans became after, and because of, the War.

An active boater all his life, Rich served as Commander of the 300 member Annapolis Sail and Power Squadron, the local unit of the United States Power Squadrons. He currently owns and operates a 30 foot Wellcraft Express Cruiser which is berthed in Chesapeake Beach. He has been an active oyster farmer and helped bring attention to Dominion Energy's creation of an artificial oyster reef in the Gooses area of the Bay west of the Little Choptank River.

Rich joined the CEPA Board of Trustees in 2005. He serves as a member of the Planning Committee and, chaired the Committee which developed an updated set of By-Laws for the organization. Rich has organized and chaired CEPA's public forums in recent years.

Ron Tate

Ron is an electrical engineer, having graduated from Virginia Tech in 1969 with a BS in Electrical Engineering. He has a broad range of experience in instrumentation and control systems design and development. He spent 35 years with the government doing R&D for the Navy on shipboard automation and control systems. This included supporting the pollution abatement group with instrument and control system issues. He then spent 5 years in private industry working on shipboard pollution abatement systems and has subsequently done some consulting on instrumentation and predictive maintenance systems.

Ron has spent most of his life in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and enjoys canoeing, kayaking and hiking the headwaters as well as sailing, boating and swimming in the Bay and its tributaries. He has seen first hand the decline of this national treasure and its abuses throughout the watershed.

He recently graduated from the CBF Voices - Chesapeake Bay Steward program and the Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center's Watershed Stewards Program where he has gained a better understanding of the problems facing the Chesapeake watershed. He is a volunteer with the CBF Oyster Restoration effort and a South River Riverwatcher, helping to monitor water quality in the South River. He is very concerned with issues regarding a sustainable quality of life for the future.

Al Tucker

Al, a physicist and engineer by training and a naturalist at heart, has lived in Maryland for over 40 years. He has a strong commitment to the preservation of farms and open space. Currently, he operates a 147-acre farm, raising hay for horses, while devoting time to CEPA and the Friends of Jug Bay. He originally heard the call to action 36 years ago over the proposed commercial development of Jug Bay. Through concerted community outreach, political advocacy and legal efforts, Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary was established in 1985.

Al studied physics at University of Massachusetts, engineering mechanics at Penn State and received his doctorate from Catholic University in structural acoustics. His entire career was with the US Navy with assignments to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Defense Research Projects Agency. First he performed research on submarine quieting at David Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center. Then, at the Office of Naval Research, he was a Program Officer and Division Director of Ship Research, where he was responsible for basic and applied research as well as major technology development. In addition, Al has led high-level international cooperative research programs and delegations for the Secretary of Defense and other government agencies.

One particular assignment Al enjoyed was working with Al Gore on the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which led to the development of hybrid car technology.

Al continues his professional interests as a member of the Institute for Electrical & Electronic Engineers, where he is a member of several committees that establish engineering standards for electric power systems. He is also a member of the American Society of Naval Engineers and the Sigma Xi Research Society.

His farming, coupled with his professional experience, made him aware of the critical need to understand the complex interrelationship of nutrients, soil erosion and run-off. Hence, he chose to raise perennial grass crops that build soil and are extremely effective for controlling nitrogen, while preserving large open areas for wildlife. Al's technical and professional career as a program manger and administrator brings CEPA valuable expertise to help deal with the myriad of environmental issues facing Maryland and the Bay.

Dennis Whigham

Dennis Whigham was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Having an interest in biology, he got his B.A. from Wabash College in Indiana in 1966, and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1971, where he also did post-doctorate work. He joined the faculty of the Biology Department at Rider University in New Jersey. Then, in 1977, he joined the staff at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and has been employed there ever since. However, during that time, he took sabbaticals at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and Harvard University. His association at Utrecht led to an appointment as Professor of Landscape Ecology.

He has been active in several national and international professional organizations, including the Ecological Society of America and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, both of which he has served in elected and appointed positions. He is currently the Chair of the Wetland Concerns Committee of the Society of Wetland Sciences. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals and currently serves on the Board of Directors of two non-profit environmental organizations (Maryland/DC chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Wintergreen Nature Foundation) in addition to CEPA. Dennis has also served as a science advisor to the Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage and he has been active in the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary since its inception, currently serving as Chair of the Science Advisory Committee.

At SERC, he has done research on a wide range of plant related topics such as how plants interact with their environment and how that interaction affects ecological processes. He has authored or co-authored approximately 175 papers and edited several books on topics ranging from pollination ecology to nutrient cycling in wetland ecosystems. Among his current interests are interactions between plants and mycorrhizal fungi, invasive species, wetlands, and the ecology of woodland herbs. He served as Deputy Director of SERC from 2005-2010.

He has been a valuable member of CEPA since 1999. A few years ago, he described his studies about the effects of varying amounts of impervious surfaces on the water quality in streams, rivers, and the Bay at a CEPA Forum.

His hobbies involve all sorts of outdoor activities including biking, bird watching, and hiking. He and his wife Jan live in Crofton where he is involved in community activities. They have two grown children who live close to nature in Alaska and Vermont. Two granddaughters in Alaska and one in Vermont are a major focus of their planning and travel activities.

This page was last updated 3/7/11.