Michael Van Clef of Ecological Solutions, LLC, has over 20 years of experience involving land stewardship, planning and research. He has worked extensively in the evaluation and management of rare and invasive species, white-tailed deer management, habitat restoration, development and implementation of forest health monitoring protocols and natural resource policy. He prepared the New Jersey Strategic Management Plan for Invasive Species for the NJ Invasive Species Council. Mike has worked with over 25 organizations throughout New Jersey and has prepared numerous stewardship plans that include identification of conservation values and their threats along with stewardship strategies to improve ecological health. mvanclef@hotmail.comm

Emile D. DeVito has been the Manager of Science and Stewardship at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation since 1989. Dr. DeVito develops management plans for NJCF’s 20,000+ acres of holdings designed to protect and enhance biological diversity. Emile educates government officials, advocacy groups, and land trusts on forest-interior habitat and migratory stopover needs of Neotropical songbirds. He received a doctorate in Ecology in 1988 for research on bird communities and vegetation landscapes in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. emile@njconservation.org

Heather Gracie is President of Gracie and Harrigan Consulting Foresters, Inc. located in Far Hills, New Jersey, which works with over 800 woodland owners in the development and implementation of Forest Management/Stewardship Plans. Heather is a 1984 Graduate of Cook College, Rutgers University with a Bachelors of Science in Natural Resource Management and Forestry. She is an NJDEP Approved Forester and have national status as a Certified Forester through the Society of American Foresters, where I have also served as an Executive Committee Member of the New Jersey Division of the Society since 1987. She also serves as the Stewardship Committee Chairperson for the Raritan Headwaters Association. Heather is owner of an American Certified Tree Farm and Christmas tree farm in the Town of Northumberland, New Hampshire. Gracie and Harrigan also partner with the New Jersey Invasive Strike Team.

Richard G. Lathrop Jr. is the Director of Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis and a Professor of Environmental Monitoring in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Natural Resources at Cook College, Rutgers, The State University. He received his doctorate from the University of Madison – Wisconsin in 1988 for The Integration of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Great Lakes Water Quality Monitoring. lathrop@crssa.rutgers.edu

Alexander J. McCartney is a forester from the State of New Jersey Community Forestry Program working with outreach, education and management of the Shade Tree and Community Forestry Assistance Act. Alex received a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Colorado State University in 2000. His forestry related experience is broadly diverse in natural and urban based forest management, including forest health, forest watershed management, inventory, outreach and education. alec.mccartney@dep.state.nj.us

Stephen Shuckman has been practicing Municipal/Urban forestry for ten years. He is an ISI Certified Arborist and New Jersey Certified Tree Expert and is a Consultant for Bloomfield, Montclair, and Maplewood in Essex County. Steve served as the Superintendent of Parks and Shade Tree in Montclair from 1993 to 1998. He was a horticulturist at Van Vleck Garden in Monclair from 1998 to 2005, and he started First Mountain Arboriculture in 2003. Steve earned his Masters of Botany at the University of Missouri at Columbia where he studied old growth maple-basswood forest and tall grass prairie and has dual Bachelors of Science in Biology and Chemistry. arborist@montclairnjusa.org

Jason Grabosky is a Professor and serves as the first John and Eleanor Kuser Faculty Scholar in Urban Forestry in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Cook College where he teaches courses in Arboriculture, Urban Forestry, and Forestry Ecology/Silvics. He is Chair of the USDA Forest Resource Advisory Council to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and was past President of the Arboricultural Research and Education Academy of the International Society of Arboriculture. He received the 2013 International Society of Arboriculture L.C. Chadwick Award for Arboriculture Research. Jason received his doctorate from Cornell in 1999. He is a collaborator with the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation and maintains a research program broadly centered on urban tree biology and management issues related to urban forestry. grabosky@aesop.rutgers.edu