Speakers

Founder, ​​Whole School Sustainability
Email: wholeschoolsustainability@gmail.com

Liz Cutler was the Founding Director of the whole school sustainability initiative at Princeton Day School and, together with faculty, staff, administration, student, and parent partners, built a thriving, multi award-winning program integrating facilities, institutional behavior, and curriculum. She retired in 2022 after 37 years at Princeton Day School. She is also the Founding and current Director of OASIS (Organizing Action on Sustainability In Schools), a 50- school non-profit consortium working to improve sustainability in all NJ schools.

Liz has worked on the worked on many environmentally focused non-profit boards, presented at many conferences (NAIS, NJAIS, IGL, Green Schools Summit, ISAS, CAIS), and consulted with school sustainability programs all over the country. She works as a mentor with the school sustainability non-profit Door Number One in Canada.

After her retirement from PDS she served as the Master Teacher at The Island School, and last year was a Fellow at Stanford University.

She has won many personal awards for her work in school sustainability and is an environmental artist.

Project Manager | Client Sector Leader, Tighe & Bond
Email: JMastrangelo@tighebond.com
Phone: 203-843-2612

Joe is a member of Tighe & Bond's Regulatory Compliance Services Group and Industrial Client Sector Leader. His experience with the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (CTDEEP) stormwater and wastewater permitting, along with federal spill compliance regulations, provide his clients with resources to stay up-to-date on changes that impact their operations as well as to identify, address, and improve business practices which prevent enforcement action from State and Federal inspectors. His experience includes providing compliance assistance to metal finishers, petroleum terminals, institutions, farms, hydro-electric powerplants, manufacturers, hospitals, shipping terminals, municipalities, utility companies, quarries, mining facilities, landfills, and metal fabricators.

Executive Director, Connecticut Association of Independent Schools
Email: Branson@caisct.org
Phone: 860-572-2950

Prior to joining CAIS as Executive Director in 2019, Rick served as a head of school for 18 years at independent, international, and public charter schools, in addition to IB and AP teaching positions, administrative positions, and college experience as a professor and program coordinator. He earned a doctoral degree from Nova Southeastern University, with a focus on organizational leadership and a dissertation in organizational learning. His master’s and bachelor’s degrees in journalism are from The University of Oregon. Rick has served on six accreditation committees in the US and in Asia, served as Chair for the Commission on Accreditation for the Association of Independent Maryland Schools, served on state and international association boards as well as the Board of Directors of NBOA, and presented on a variety of topics to professional organizations at national and international conferences. Rick holds a Non-Profit Board Consulting Certificate from BoardSource.