The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association will celebrate environmental achievement and welcome three new members to its Board of Trustees at its 62nd Annual Meeting on Monday, April 25.

The event, which begins with refreshments at 5:30 p.m. at the Buttinger Nature Center on the Watershed Reserve (31 Titus Mill Road, Pennington NJ) is open to Watershed Association members and friends. The Annual Meeting will begin at 6 p.m. and be followed at 7:30 p.m. by a special hike with Education Director Jeff Hoagland.

The event will celebrate the environmental award won by Liz Cutler of Princeton Township.

Cutler is the 2011 recipient of the Richard Rotter Award for Excellence in Environmental Education. This award is named in honor of the late Richard Rotter, a high school teacher in Montgomery who was a committed environmentalist in his own community. Each year the award is given to an area teacher whom demonstrates a high level of enthusiasm and commitment to environmental education.

Cutler, a faculty member at Princeton Day School for more than 20 years, advocates for sustainability efforts. She brought environmental education in to the PDS curriculum and fosters student involvement in environmental issues as the faculty advisor to the EnAct Club (Environmental Action). She also hosted an eco-conference for area schools this spring and started a PDS tradition of an annual Harvest Dinner featuring food grown, prepared and served entirely by PDS students.
The event will also welcome new trustees to the board.

Daniel J. Dart, of Princeton Township, spent the majority of his career as a senior business leader in the investment management industry. Now retired, he most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Non-Proprietary Group. Previously he was Executive Vice President and Head of U.S. Sales at Pioneer Investments in Boston, and Senior Vice President and National Sales Manager at Alliance/Bernstein in New York. He began his career at State Street Bank & Trust Company in Boston and later founded Blackstone Bank & Trust Company in Boston where he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Since retiring from Merrill Lynch, Mr. Dart is now focused on environmental issues that impact neurological development in children and chronic disease in adults. He enjoys long distance running, golf and investing, and is a member of Hopewell Investors group. Mr. Dart resides in Princeton Township his wife Tracy and daughters Ashley and Sophie.

The second new board member is Sophie Glovier, of Princeton Township. After serving on the board of D&R Greenway Land Trust for eight years, Glovier joined the staff as Director of Philanthropic Support, helping to successfully preserve the 340-acre St. Michael’s Property in Hopewell. She left D&R Greenway in 2008 and working with photographer Bentley Drezner created “Walk the Trails In and Around Princeton,” an innovative book highlighting local trails in the Princeton region – two Watershed Reserve trails included. She has also developed an interest in the sustainability movement and is working to shape how our schools educate children to be responsible lifelong environmental stewards. She is the founding parent leader of Princeton Day School’s PDSSEEDS (Supporting Environmental Education and Discovery for Sustainabiltiy) initiative. She also recently received a leadership award from Sustainable Princeton for her work in the community.

A member of the Garden Club of Princeton, she graduated from Princeton University and started her career in advertising. She later earned a master’s degree from Columbia Business School and joined Y&R Inc., one of the world’s largest media conglomerates. She lives in Princeton Township with her husband and three children.

The third new board member is Gregory Vafis, of Hopewell Borough

Vafis is the Executive Director for National Assessment of Educational Progress at Educational Testing Service in Lawrence Township. Previously, he served as Executive Director for the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and Executive Director of R&D for College Board Programs at ETS and has taught political science at the university level, and middle school science and writing.

An active member of the Watershed Association’s Education Committee for the past two years, he is an enthusiastic supporter of the organization’s activities and mission. A native of northern California, Vafis now calls Hopewell Borough home where he resides with his wife Lisa and sons Ben and Joe.

The Watershed Association will also acknowledge and thank outgoing Board Member John Ellis, of Pennington, for his hard work and dedication. He served six years on the board, one term as board chair and four as vice chair. He also chaired the board’s Nominating Committee and served on the board’s Campus Planning Committee.