Board of Directors
Michael B. Moskow, Chair
Michael joined the CLF Ventures Board of Directors at its creation in 1997, and he has been a part of the CLF Board of Directors since 1988. He currently serves as chairman of the Board of both CLF and CLF Ventures, and is a member of several CLF Board committees: the Finance and Auditing Committee, the Development Committee, and the Nominating and Governance Committee.
Since graduation from Harvard College and Columbia Business School, Michael has continuously redeveloped multi-family housing, office buildings and retail centers in the Boston area and in Newburyport, Mass. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Walker Home and School and of the Boston Foundation for Sight. He is a trustee of the Walker Trust and a graduate board member and trustee of the Harvard Crimson.
Eugene Bernat
Gene Bernat is vice president and co-founder of Cover Technologies, Inc. (CTI) and its affiliates, a composting, recycling, and remediation company headquartered in Holyoke, Mass. He is also past president of Recycled Earth Technologies, and of Saber Enterprises, Inc., a forest management company.
CTI owns and is currently remediating, permitting, and redeveloping Fisherville Mill in Grafton, Mass., a MA DEP Tier 1A site, into a 240-residential-unit mixed-use development in a national historic district and within a public drinking water supply. CTI is also developing alternative energy projects and developing and commercializing a bioconversion technology to produce enzymes and other valuable bio-molecules from select biomass waste products.
Gene is an entrepreneur and expert on organic resource reuse and recycling, as well as on numerous other innovative and environmentally sound technologies. He serves on the Board of Directors of several sustainable agriculture education organizations, including The Farm School, the New England Small Farm Institute, and Battle Road Farms. Gene joined the CLF Ventures Board of Directors in 2011.
Eugene H. Clapp
In 1988, Gene co-founded Penobscot Investment Management Co., Inc. Previous business experience includes financial and general management positions with Pfizer, Inc. in Boston and New York. Gene is a corporation member of Partners HealthCare System, Inc. and a trustee of Partners Continuing Care, Inc. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. He is also a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society and a director of the National Rowing Foundation. Gene has served on the CLF Board of Directors since 1997, became treasurer in 1998, and is also the chair of the Finance and Audit Committee. He has served on the CLF Ventures Board of Directors since 1998.
John Cleveland
John Cleveland is the vice president and co-founder of Innovation Network for Communities (INC), a new national non-profit whose mission is to develop and spread scalable innovations that transform the performance of community systems. He also serves as the part-time Executive Director for the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, a high-level CEO group in Boston that supports the implementation of the Boston Climate Action Plan. (Thomas Menino and Amos Hostetter are the Commission’s co-chairmen; via the Commission, John is also Climate Advocacy Advisor to the Barr Foundation.)
John has been working for over 30 years in human, social, and natural capital formation strategies, sustainable development, green building design, organizational learning, socially responsible businesses, school reform, and economic development. He has been a full-time resident of Tamworth, New Hampshire since 2005 and a part-time resident since childhood. He has a B.A. from Yale in City Planning. He is 58-years-old.
Jack French
Jack received his undergraduate degree from Williams College and his law degree from Harvard Law School. He has been a practicing lawyer for many years and is currently a retired partner at Sullivan and Worcester LLP. He has been involved for many years at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI), where he formerly served as chairman of the Board of Trustees and is currently an emeritus trustee. BBRI is an organization of some 25 senior scientists who, with related post-doctoral students and lab assistants, are engaged in basic biomedical research largely funded by NIH grants.
Jack has been a member of CLF’s Board of Directors since 1992 and has served on the CLF Ventures Board of Directors since 1997. In addition, he serves as chair of CLF’s Massachusetts State Board and is a member of the Nominating and Governance Committee.
Gordon Hall III
Gordon was born and brought up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Amherst College in 1952 and subsequently the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
After eight years at Parkwood Laminates, Inc., he joined the real estate firm of R.M. Bradley & Co in 1962 and became a senior vice president and director in 1975. In 1980 he became an independent real estate investor/developer and was joined by his two sons David and Gordon in 1982; he remains very active. He has served on the Board of Directors of Thermal Circuits in Salem, Mass. and on the Board of Trustees and Board of Investment of First Mutual Bank of Boston.
In addition, Gordon has been very involved in the non-profit sphere. He has served as chair of the Chewonki Foundation, president and chair of the Berkshire Choral Festival, director of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and president of the Back Bay Association. Gordon has also served as trustee of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. He has been a trustee of CLF since 2003 and a member of the CLF Ventures Board of Directors since 2001.
He has a keen interest in sailboat racing and has been Class A Massachusetts Bay Champion for the last four years, and National PHRF Champion and runner-up in 2001 and 2002. He also enjoys fly-fishing, skiing, and tennis.
Crystal Johnson
In 2009, Crystal founded ISES, the Integrative Sustainability & Environmental Solutions, which presents the annual Sustainable Economy Conference. She specializes in energy, water/wastewater, and natural resources. CLF and ISES are now working together on an urban agriculture theme for the third Sustainable Economy Conference, which successfully integrates diverse environmental and economic communities.
She has a B.S. in both Natural Resource Management and Conservation Resources Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. After her graduation in 1991, she worked as an energy analyst, energy planner, and environmental planner. In 1995, she returned to Boston and worked for three years as an environmental planner for AECOM/Frederic R. Harris, Inc. From 1999 to 2006, Crystal worked at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Environmental Planning and Assessment as a senior environmental program manager. She joined the CLF Ventures Board of Directors in 2011.
Jacquie L. Kay
Jacquie is currently a research fellow at MIT in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, looking at the connections between communities, financing, and energy. She was the founder and president of WPI, Inc., an international trade and development firm for 35 years. She formerly worked for the Ford Foundation, Harvard University, regional planning agencies, a manpower planning agency, and community colleges.
She has been involved in a multitude of boards, with key involvement in finance boards: Business Development Corporation/New England (formerly MassBusiness), Thrift Fund for Economic Development, and Minority Enterprise Investment Corporation. In addition she has served on the boards of the Boston Conservatory, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Health and Development International, WGBH Corporate Partners, and on the Tucker Foundation of Dartmouth University. She co-founded the Asian Community Development Corporation and served on its board for many years. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of CLF and CLF Ventures since 1998.
Jacquie’s work has focused on building leadership in communities and institutions and identifying strategic directions and sustainability issues for organizations and individuals. She has extensive network and resource capabilities globally and locally in both the public and the private sectors. Jacquie has an Ed.D. in Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.A. from New York University, and a B.A. and an Executive MBA from the University of Washington.
She keeps active in skiing, tai chi, and swimming. Jacquie has a son and daughter-in-law and resides in Cambridge, Mass. She formerly lived in New Hampshire, where she maintains a keen interest in conservation and environmental matters.
Jim Matheson
Jim earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School, received a Bachelor of Science (with honors) from the United States Naval Academy, and retired as a commander in the US Naval Reserves. Jim has over 20 years of technology and leadership experience across a variety of organizations and roles, in which he has designed, engineered, and deployed sophisticated technology platforms. He formerly served as a Navy F-14 & FA-18 pilot, including duties flying combat missions from an aircraft carrier and as a TOPGUN instructor and Adversary Pilot. He also gained broad experience in emerging aircraft and weapons system design, testing, and procurement, and was deeply involved in many of the military’s IT modernization initiatives.
Jim currently works for Flagship Ventures, which he joined in 2000. He focuses on creating and funding new ventures in the sustainability, clean technology, and special technologies (e.g. nano-technology, materials, and technology systems) arenas. Jim serves on the boards of Flagship portfolio companies Advanced Electron Beams, Black Duck Software, Frontier Energy, Mascoma Energy Corporation, Novomer and Oasys Water and is Chairman of the Board of Genstruct and Ze-gen. He was previously a director of e-Dialog (acquired by GSI Commerce), Yantra (acquired by Sterling Commerce /SBC), and Flamenco Networks (acquired by SOA Software).
Jim has served on the Board of CLF Ventures since 2010. He is also on the Board of New York-based hedge fund Black Horse Capital, Common Impact (a non-profit providing business services to other non-profits), and the Center for Women & Enterprise. Jim is actively involved in numerous entrepreneurial and venture capital organizations, including the Department of Energy’s Biomass Technical Advisory Committee, New England Clean Energy Council, the MIT Enterprise Forum, The Deshpande Center, and The Service Academy Business Network.
Peter Nessen
Peter is president of the consulting firm Nessen & Associates, Ltd., and director of The Philanthropic Initiative (T.P.I.). He is a certified public accountant and one of the country’s leading experts in public finance and privatization. Peter was the special advisor for education to Governor Romney and was the Secretary of the Executive Office of Administration and Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during Governor Weld’s administration, after having successfully completed sub-cabinet level assignments in the previous administration. He has served on the governor’s commission evaluating school reform and chaired the joint commission on teacher preparation. Other professional activities include facilitating the merger of Boston City Hospital and University Hospital, serving as Harvard Medical School Dean for Resources and Special Projects and lecturing in the Department of Health Care Policy, and serving as partner in the accounting firms of BDO Seidman and Henry J. Bornhofft Company.
Peter holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business Administration. He has been chairman of the Massachusetts Cultural Council since March of 1996, after serving on the Council since 1994. He was on the board of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education as well as numerous other not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, including the Board of Visitors for the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College; he chairs the Board of Advisors of the School of Education, Northeastern University. Peter has served on CLF’s Board of Directors since 1993 and has been a member of the Board of Trustees since its inception in 2000. He is also a member of the Finance and Auditing and Executive Committees. Peter has served on the CLF Ventures Board of Directors since its creation in 1997.
John M. Teal
John’s professional career began in the early 1950s with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis on the ecology of a tiny cold spring. After completing his thesis, John studied salt marshes at the University of Georgia Sapelo Island Marine Institute. He then went to Dalhousie University at the newly created Canadian oceanography establishment.
In 1961, John joined Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he became Scientist Emeritus in 1994. Throughout John’s professional career, he has conducted research on coastal wetlands, effects of hydrostatic pressure on deep-sea animals, physiology of warm-blooded fishes, over-ocean bird migration, oil pollution, wastewater treatment, and restoration ecology. Currently, he consults on marsh restoration, constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, and cleanup of polluted wetlands and waters. Since 1993, John has been involved in a 32-square-mile salt marsh restoration project in Delaware Bay.
In addition, John has served on National Academy committees, editorial boards of scientific journals, and local committees; he has also been published in both the scientific and popular literature media. Always interested in the willingness and/or unwillingness of professional scientists to take part in public policy decisions, John has served on the Board of Trustees and Directors of the Conservation Law Foundation since 1978 and has been vice chair since 1980. He has also served on the CLF Ventures Board of Directors since 1997 and CLF’s Science Advisory Committee. John also served as the president of the Society of Wetland Scientists in 1998-9.