OUR BOARD
KENNETH MACNULTY
President
Ken retired from Analog Devices in 2018 as the Director of World wide Compensation. He is an accomplished human resources/compensation professional with experience in high tech, professional services, financial services, healthcare and consulting industries. Ken and his family have resided in Lynnfield for more than 30 years. He has previously lived in Topsfield and Essex. Ken has been involved with the IRWA for more than 10 years. His other community activities include the Friends of the Lynnfield Rail Trail, the CCB Cycling Club, the Town of Lynnfield Personnel Board, the Lynnfield Youth Hockey Association.
LAUREN FITZGERALD
Vice President
Lauren (Abernathy) Fitzgerald is a self anointed naturalist, finding inspiration for photography, art and writing in daily “rambles” along the rivers, beaches and hills of the North Shore. Lauren was raised in Topsfield and attended Shore Country Day School and Governor Dummer Academy. She graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Anthropology from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Her involvement with the alumni association brings her back to campus often. Following college, Lauren found success for seventeen years with International Data Corporation, an IT Market Research Firm. During this period she managed the contracts of Fortune 500 global communication and networking corporations. Most recently she has dedicated herself to IRWA as a volunteer, participating in Lobby for Rivers, invasive plant monitoring programs, and Greenscapes elementary school education. This past summer, she assisted IRWA in the Tidal Stream Crossing Assessment, scrambling over riverbeds and marshes of over 80 culverts to determine their needs.
DAVID COMB
Secretary
For the past two decades, Dave has worked at Cell Signaling Technology (CST) and New England Biolabs (NEB), both family-founded biotechnology businesses on the North Shore. He most recently served as CST’s Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, managing their Sustainability Programs and overseeing CST’s Small Grants, Employee Volunteer, Science Scholarship, and Art Programs. Before establishing CST’s CSR programs, Dave was the Creative Director in the Marketing Department for 13 years, managing a team of designers and involved in CST’s print and electronic publications. For twenty years, Dave has been a board member of New England BioLabs Foundation, and served as Board Chair since 2005. He ran a successful location and studio photography business in downtown Boston for 13 years after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1983. Dave currently lives in Manchester with his wife, Coleen Fitzgibbon and has 2 sons Dylan and Tristan. He loves to travel and has strong passions for fly fishing, backcountry skiing, mountain biking, all water sports, art & photography, gardening and tennis.
BRIAN TINGER
Treasurer
Brian is currently the corporate comptroller of New England Biolabs Inc, in Ipswich MA. He has worked at New England Biolabs since 2005, serving as a leader in the finance department. Prior to joining New England Biolabs, Brian worked for BDO Seidman, a public accounting firm in Boston, assisting audit clients across a wide array of industries. Brian graduated from American University in 1999 with a business degree in accounting and was captain of the American University cross country team.
CHRIS BARENSFELD
Chris supports many local and national organizations that protect open space, historic structures, the environment, and sustainable agriculture. In 2009, she acquired and subsequently managed the restoration and adaptive reuse of the 19th century Towne farmstead in Boxford, MA. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, and currently serves as the home of Merrohawke Nature School, which provides learning in nature for children. Chris was raised in rural western Pennsylvania, and relocated to Boxford with her husband, John Hagerman in 1995. They have two grown daughters. She serves on the Second Congregational Church of Boxford Board of Trustees and the Boxford Historic Districts Commission. She has degrees in both Fine Art and Graphic Design and is an active member of the Rocky Neck Art Colony. She can often be found practicing landscape painting en plein air.
JULIA CASTO
Julia is a retired school teacher and volunteer coordinator. From 2012 - 2021 she served as Vice-Chair of the Board at the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. After successfully transitioning from a gathering place that served 70,000 people a year to a resource center during the Covid lockdowns, The School received state wide accolades and new grants and funding. In 2021, Julia and her family moved to Boxford from California. Her new house is next to a tributary of the Ipswich River and near a state forest full of trails. Exploring this new landscape became her passion as she enjoyed learning about the new flora and fauna encountered on the trails. She has been involved with projects to remove invasive species, counting fish, and lobbying with state legislators on behalf of IRWA.
PAUL CHAROS
Paul is currently employed by Intercontinental Real Estate Corp as an Asset Manager where he has worked since 1984. He received a BS from Suffolk University in Clinical Psychology with a minor in Biology. Prior to IREC he worked locally at Treeline Inc., as an outdoor professional involved in the design, construction, and sales of ropes courses, climbing walls, and fitness trails, and as a ropes course instructor trainer, guide, and outdoor program facilitator for programs and workshops of rock climbing, canoeing, solo camping, and backpacking. As a volunteer for Ducks Unlimited, a national wetlands conservation organization, in the past 12 years he has served as an area chairman and a state trustee. In the past Paul also served on the executive board of the Melrose Wakefield Hospital as a representative of a local community mental health organization in Melrose. In the community, he has been a longtime hockey coach for the Wakefield Youth Hockey Association and a Pan Mass Challenge rider of many years. Since 1995 he has lived in Wakefield with his wife, Jean, two children and multiple Labradors, which he enjoys training. In the past he has lived with Jean in both Essex and Magnolia.
CHRIS DAVIS
Chris Davis is a career environmental professional. He retired in 2020 from Ceres, a sustainability-focused nonprofit. For 10 years he served as Senior Program Director and led Ceres’ work with institutional investors on climate change as an investment rise and opportunity, as well as water scarcity and other environmental, social and governance risks. Prior to his work at Ceres, Chris practiced environmental law for 30 years at Goodwin Procter, where he chaired the environmental practice, co-founded the clean tech practice, was a member of the private equity team, and worked on a wide range of environmental issues and transactions. Chris previously worked as an environmental engineer.
Chris has lived on the North Shore for 30 years. He serves as a Deacon at First Church in Wenham, is a member of Ipswich-Rowley Rotary, and serves on several nonprofit boards including IRWA. Chris is an avid cyclist, skier, and outdoorsman. He is married to Jayne Begala, has two grown sons and three grandchildren residing in California.
DIANE DIXON
Diane has lived in Wenham with her husband Mark and their four children for almost 20 years. She involved the kids from a young age with math, science and the environment through IRWA, volunteering for herring counting, stream sampling, and water quality testing. Originally from England, Diane received a Joint Honors BSc in Geography and Ecology, and a Masters in Business Administration. She worked in finance and local government in London and Cambridge, UK. Diane currently works part time in administration at Mass Audubon preschool.
LINDA FATES
Linda wrote and edited for several magazines before joining the faculty and staff of Pingree School in Hamilton, MA where she worked in Admissions and taught film history and American history. While living in London from 1983 - ’88, she introduced and co-directed a special program to teach able-bodied children about kids with disabilities. From 1993-2014 she worked at Harvard University in many rolls associated with development, becoming the Assistant Dean of Principle Gifts for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She and her husband Richard have two sons and six grandchildren. She loves kayaking, hiking, tennis, reading and good conversation.
DANIEL HEITER
Dan has worked for 30 years as a research scientist at New England Biolabs, studying and producing enzymes that cut DNA to enable gene splicing and other technologies. Recently he pressed to install solar arrays at Biolabs, and is currently pursuing ways to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions, to drive the company towards carbon neutrality (in addition to his day job). Every year, he organizes several teams from Biolabs for the Run of the Charles canoe relay race, which they sometimes win! He lives on the Ipswich River with his wife, Sally; they have two grown sons, who when they are home accompany him and whoever is up for it on the “Heiter Challenge”—boating from his backyard to the mouth of the Ipswich, a distance of 22.2 miles. He has been active in IRWA for many years, doing river monitoring with his wife, helping run the Paddle-a-Thon, maintaining and installing the docks at IRWA and anything else he can think of to help.
KIM HONETSCHLAGER
Kim has lived near the Ipswich River in Reading for over 25 years. She has been active in river issues for equally long. She is a water quality monitor, a Stream Team member, participates in river cleanups, and enjoys kayaking on the river in the summer and snowshoeing along the river in the winter. She also enjoys gardening, hiking, XC-skiing, and travel. Kim retired from the Town of Reading in 2021 as the Geographic Information Systems Administrator. While there she was instrumental in developing Reading’s stormwater enterprise fund and has presented on the topic at numerous workshops and conferences. She managed or was a member of the Reading’s Trails Committee, the Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee, the Community Preservation Act Committee, and the Northern Area Greenway Task Force. Prior to working for the Town of Reading she was the GIS Coordinator for the Town of North Reading and worked on the “Big Dig” project in Boston. Kim grew up on a river in Minnesota, received a BA in Anthropology and Sociology at Carleton College, and studied City and Regional Planning at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She and her husband Will Finch make their home in Reading where they raised their two children.
RICHARD F. HOWARD
Richard has been a lawyer litigating matters relating to disability law, including special education and other disability services, civil rights, discrimination and reasonable accommodations. He worked at the Office of the Attorney General in Augusta, Maine, The Disability Law Center, Inc. in Boston and at Kotin, Crabtree and Strong, LLP in Boston. Prior to his retirement, Richard managed his own practice in Ipswich. Richard has presented at over 150 seminars on special education and other disability law topics to professionals, families, employers, public officials and attorneys. He has served on the board of directors of Mass. Advocates for Children, Mass. Committee for Children and Youth, Mass. Law Reform Institute and the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems.
DEB LOGAN
Deb has spent the bulk of her career in the retail strategy space in the U.S. and Europe with Price Waterhouse Strategic Consulting Group; Promostyl; L.E.K. Consulting; and Orchard Brands. Most recently she has engaged as an independent contractor with various clients including Partners in Health and their work on the Covid response for the State of Massachusetts. Deb attended Dartmouth College and the Amos Tuck School of Business and serves as the Tuck Representative to the Dartmouth Alumni Council. Other board affiliations include the Ipswich Family YMCA, the Trustees of Reservations Chairman’s Council and the North Shore Nordic Association (NSNA).
Deb is an outdoor enthusiast, rower, skier and 17 year PanMass Challenge cyclist. She lives in Ipswich, is married to Mark Evans, and has three grown children living in various places around the globe. Deb was introduced to IRWA by her daughter Grace who volunteered and worked for IRWA during her high school and college years.
DONALD PEARSON
Don retired from Drager Medical Systems, a global manufacturer of medical electronics, in 2018. Although trained as a chemist, he rode the emerging wave of affordable computing from laboratory bench work to laboratory automation and on to the factory automation at several area companies before joining Drager in 1989. He served in individual contributor and managerial roles along the way. Don received undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from WPI and Harvard University, respectively.
Don grew up in Connecticut where, as a Boy Scout, he developed interests in camping, hiking, and fishing which have relocated smoothly to Massachusetts and Maine. Don has lived in Wilmington since 1992 and currently serves on the town's Conservation Commission and Board of Library Trustees.
JUDITH SCHNEIDER
Judy is a nurse and worked in a variety if nursing positions during her career in the Boston and Denver areas. Most recently she held administrative roles at the North Shore Medical Center in Salem. Her volunteer work currently includes the Middleton Stream Team, the Middleton Board of Health, and the Middleton Cultural Council. Judy is an avid photographer, and a favorite subject is the Ipswich River environment. Judy and her husband Dale have lived in Middleton for over 25 years. Judy loves the outdoors and favorite activities include hiking, clamming and kayaking.
MICHAEL SEARLES
A Topsfield native, Mike’s relationship with the Ipswich River began with a school-day canoe trip with his mom, fostering a lifelong passion for the pursuit of a healthy, resilient environment. Since graduating undergrad, Mike has enjoyed a career in public service at the State House while continuing to cook professionally in the greater Boston area. Working with municipal water departments, regional water suppliers, IRWA, state and municipal officials, Mike wrote his master’s capstone policy analysis Water Supply Alternatives for the Town of Topsfield. In his spare time, Mike enjoys playing men’s softball for the Clouters, running recreationally, and performing volunteer trail maintenance.
KEN WHITTAKER
Ken, now retired, has been involved in environmental protection and remediation throughout his entire career. Soon after college he set up and ran a performance monitoring analytical laboratory for a company that designed, managed and operated wastewater treatment facilities. Returning to school he earned a Masters and Doctoral degree in environmental engineering and spent the next 20 years as a hazardous waste site treatment and remediation expert for civil/ environmental consulting companies of national reputation. Once again off to school, Ken earned his J.D. and returned to his roots in New England in 1998 to practice environmental law at several Boston legal firms. Ken lives in Wenham and has been married to his wife Margaret for 49 years. They share three wonderful daughters and four equally wonderful grandkids.