Ian Agranat
Board Chair

Ian is the husband of Carol Hani (current Program Coordinator with the Nature Connection).  Ian is a successful serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and non-profit board member.  Ian is presently the founder/CEO of Wildlife Acoustics, the leading provider of acoustic monitoring equipment and software tools used by biologists, ecologists, and land managers around the globe for monitoring vocal wildlife like birds, frogs, and bats for conservation and research. 

Prior to Wildlife Acoustics, Ian was the founder/CEO of Agranat Systems, a technology company, which he sold in a $33 million transaction to a publicly traded Fortune 500 semiconductor business in 2000.  After the acquisition, Ian served as the General Manager and member of the executive team of the parent company.  Ian has successfully raised capital for, invested in and advised dozens of start-up companies.  Ian is a limited partner in three venture capital funds (Backstage Capital, Bright Ventures, and Visible Hands) dedicated to financing diverse entrepreneurs. 

On the non-profit side, Ian was a founding board member of People Making a Difference in the 1990s, and presently serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of REACH, a domestic violence prevention agency.  Ian and Carol are committed to The Nature Connection and are prepared to make significant financial contributions toward this effort.  More information can be found on his public linked-in profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/agranat.  

 

Alan Jay Rom
President/Treasurer

Alan has been a civil rights lawyer for over 50 years, litigating employment, education, housing and voting rights law reform cases. They can be found on his website, www.romlawoffice.com. He was co-counsel on the Massachusetts school finance litigation and wrote two published law review articles, available on his website. He has been an adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law and Tufts University and lectured at various law schools and undergraduate colleges and universities.

Alan is an original founder and incorporator of the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project (PAIR) in 1989 and the only original founder still on the board. He served as treasurer of PAIR at the beginning and then as Board president for some 16 years. Alan has been on the Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) Board and another legal services organization that merged with GBLS continuously since 1980. He is a member of the Board of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty, Inc. and a predecessor organization since 1979 and the President/Treasurer of its sister tax-exempt educational organization, Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty Fund, Inc. since its founding in 1983.

In addition to Alan’s employment law practice, he is a volunteer attorney for Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy, Inc. (META) and serves as META’s corporate clerk. META is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization providing legal services to parents of children of limited English proficiency in public schools across the country. Over the years he has provided advice to many non-profit organizations on all kinds of matters, such as by-law revisions, programs, and other legal issues they face.

 

Jennifer (Jenn) Albanese
Clerk

Jenn has volunteered with The Nature Connection since 2012, holding both board and committee positions. She brings 30 years of project and operations management experience in the educational publishing, high tech, and non-profit fields, and is the current Managing Director of Concord Youth Theatre in West Concord.

She has a passion for grant writing and increased awards of foundation grants by 300% during her recent tenure at Concord Prison Outreach. Jenn has served on many community boards and is clerk for the Carlisle Cultural Council and the Savoyard Light Opera Company. She never ceases to be amazed by what can be done when neighbors share creative and practical talents, and is delighted to support The Nature Connection in its work connecting human and animal neighbors with the more isolated members of our communities. Jenn believes deeply in the transformational power of nature and the importance of nature to our mental and physical health.

 

Lisa Brukilacchio

Lisa has been connected with The Nature Connection since 1994, when a mutual friend introduced her to Rebecca Reynolds Weil. In addition to working with Rebecca to develop related academic curricula, they taught at Tufts and Lisa served on the board for years. In addition to her clinical experience as an Occupational Therapist in multiple settings, Lisa has also worked in academics and municipal roles focused on community engagement on environmental and social justice issues. 

As the former Director of the Somerville Community Health Agenda, working in Community Health Improvement at Cambridge Health Alliance, she continued to focus on community building and social inclusion across systems working towards more just, equitable communities. She has also been involved in developing community-based programs and non-profits to increase access to environmental education programs for urban youth & families, food security, access to nature and greenspace, urban gardens & forestry, public art, and watershed management. These experiences have provided opportunities to develop skills in grant writing, project and volunteer management, and advocacy related to equitable access to nature for health and wellbeing.

 

Nancy Stillman

Nancy has been involved with The Nature Connection for 22+ years. Starting in January 1999, Nancy worked as a volunteer and a Program Coordinator, served on the Advisory Board, and is now on the Board of Directors. Having grown up with a mother who was a wildlife rehabilitator, she was raised to love and care for animals and the natural world. Nancy did her first “programs” when she was in Junior High School and her mom would let her stay home to help show the local kindergarten students the animals in our care.

Nancy is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and serves as a Deacon at the United Church of Christ in Boxborough, MA. Nancy currently cares for several Nature Connection program animals at her home in Acton, MA: Barred Owl, several Spotted Salamanders (including “Big Sally”), and numerous snails of several varieties. Nancy brings a long history of hands-on work with The Nature Connection, beginning with deep connections with Rebecca Reynolds Weil and Sarah Seabury Ward. Nancy also brings a passion for the mission of The Nature Connection and a strong commitment to the people we serve.

 

Marcia Chertok

Marcia has been connected with The Nature Connection since 1995 when she and her husband Allan were invited to a benefit being held for Allan’s friend Sarah Reynolds Ward’s nature based therapeutic traveling programs.

Hearing about The Nature Connection’s mission to bring the power of nature inside to comfort and inspire people isolated from the natural world resonated with her.

Marcia was raised in a bustling household filled with animals rescued from pet stores and zoo animals needing special attention. Marcia’s mother was on the National Wild Flower Association’s board; she led annual wild flower walks on her property in the Indiana Sand Dunes. Her father was a fine artist.  Her mother was a textile designer.  The Nature Connection’s Nature, Animals, and the Arts program base couldn’t have been a better match for her.

Through the years, Marcia has co-directed the office, been a program volunteer, volunteer trainer, member of the board, and on the events committee; her family has housed a myriad of program animals.

Marcia held the position of Research Specialist in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Occupational Health Program for over 30 years.  She is a partner of Health Research Associates providing data collection training, data management, and staffing for Occupational and Public Health research.

 

Wendy Leiserson

Wendy is excited by the opportunity to combine her legal experience advising non-profits, her passion for fostering humanity’s connection to nature, and her education in psychology to serve the mission of The Nature Connection.

For several years Wendy served as counsel for the PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups), a national network of non-profits whose missions included environmental and consumer advocacy. She also taught non-profit law as an adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law. Prior to her work with the PIRGs, Wendy practiced and taught environmental law topics at the University at Buffalo School of Law (SUNY) and earned an LL.M. at Harvard Law School where she examined the nexus between environmental protection and human rights law.

Before becoming an attorney, Wendy graduated with a degree in psychology from Smith College where she engaged in a self-directed study of environmental psychology. Her focus was to ask how psychology might point to ways to increase people’s desire to connect to and protect the natural world. Wendy continued to explore this question in her role as a former board member for the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth.

Wendy is delighted to join the board of The Nature Connection as she returns to her role as a non-profit attorney after a hiatus to start a family.

 

Sarah Seabury Reynolds Ward
Founder, Board Member Emerita

In her early career, Sarah began to inquire how children play and learn. She saw wonder as the key to keeping curiosity alive. This led her to study teaching, the arts, and sciences. She sought to turn the classroom into direct engagement with the natural world. Sarah attended the Putney School, the Shady Hill Teacher Apprenticeship Program, and Sarah Lawrence College. She received her Master’s in Education from Lesley University. In the 1970’s, Sarah collaborated with fellow teachers to develop The School for Centered Learning, seeking to offer children an interdisciplinary approach to learning. In 1983, they created a traveling educational and therapeutic arts and nature program and founded the organization now called The Nature Connection.

Sarah’s daughter, Rebecca Reynolds Weil, MS, OTR/L, worked with her mother as a teacher from 1985-1993, carrying the organization forward as executive director from 1993-2002. Rebecca documented the work of The Nature Connection in her award-winning book Bring Me the Ocean, and now serves as an advisory board member.

Sarah currently lives in Newbury, Massachusetts and still keeps in touch with our staff, volunteers, and Board of Directors.

Board of Advisors

In addition to our Board of Directors, The Nature Connection is fortunate to have a team of talented, experienced advisors who provide valuable feedback, insight, and advice on our initiatives and strategic direction.

• Joel Andrews
• Becky Bartovics
• Tina Bloom
• Judith Burton
• Christine Callahan
• Marcia Chertok
• Justin King
• Ellen Leigh
• Liz Loudon
• Nicole Pecorelli
• Nancy Shepherd
• Rebecca Reynolds Weil