Four new members have been appointed to the Princeton Area Community Foundation Board of Trustees.
Steve Downs, the Co-Founder of Building H, Dr. Kathryn A. “Kate” Foster, President of The College of New Jersey, Scot D. Pannepacker, a Partner at Lear & Pannepacker, and Atiya Weiss, the Executive Director of the Burke Foundation, were appointed to 3-year terms on the Board of the Community Foundation, which has awarded more than $173 million in grants since its founding in 1991.
“The Governance Committee is honored to have recruited four individuals who will add great value and perspective to our board work. Each is a respected leader in their various fields, and each brings a deep commitment to advancing the mission of the Community Foundation.” said Jamie Kyte Sapoch, Community Foundation Trustee and Chair of the Governance Committee.
Board Officers
Sonia Delgado, who was named Board Chair Elect in June, took over leadership of the Board, while her predecessor, Anthony “Skip” Cimino will now serve as Immediate Past Chair. Trustees also voted to name Jeanne Besser as Secretary and Michelle Everman as Treasurer.
“It has been a great honor to work with Skip, who is steady, calm and wise,” said Sapoch. “We are looking forward to Sonia’s leadership. She is a terrific source of inspiration.”
Trustee Emeritus
Dr. William P. Burks retired from the Board after almost 30 years of service. He was named Trustee Emeritus and will continue to volunteer on committees.
“The joy Bill has taken from this experience is catching. I’m so filled with gratitude to have had the experience working with Bill and Skip,” said Delgado. “It’s going to serve me well in the years ahead.”
Bill is a kind and generous man, and the impact he made on this community is immeasurable, said Jeffrey M. Vega, President & CEO of the Community Foundation.
“Everything we do today, is because Bill set the stage three decades ago,” he said.
Naming an Emeritus Trustee is an honor that is not bestowed lightly, said Sapoch.
“Bill’s impact on the Community Foundation has touched all of us,” she said. ““No one has had more of an impact on this Foundation than Bill Burks because he always made this work his first priority.”
New Trustees
Steve Downs, of Princeton, is the Co-Founder of Building H, a community of entrepreneurs, investors, designers, engineers and researchers working to build health into everyday life – by design. He is also an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Downs previously served as Chief Technology and Strategy Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. During his tenure there, he also held the roles of chief technology and information officer, assistant vice president of the health group, and founding leader of the foundation’s innovation portfolio. He also previously served as director of the Technology Opportunities Program (TOP), a U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration initiative, and as a research fellow of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Kathryn A. “Kate” Foster, of Pennington, has been the President of TCNJ since 2018. She also is a Board Member of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, serves on the President’s Leadership Council for the national All In Campus Democracy Challenge, and is a member of the NCAA Division III Presidents Council.
She previously served as the President of University of Maine at Farmington (UMF), and as a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University. From 1993 until 2012, Foster worked at the University at Buffalo, where her roles included Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the University at Buffalo Regional Institute. She was previously a lecturer at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland.)
Scot D. Pannepacker, CPA/ABV, CFF, of Hopewell Borough, joined Lear & Pannepacker in 1988. He is a certified public accountant who is accredited in business valuations and certified in financial forensics. He has extensive experience in areas including gifts, trusts and personal financial planning, including charitable strategies for estate planning.
He is also a Member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Mercer County Estate Planning Council. He serves as a Member of the Boards of Trustees and Treasurer of the Friends of Hopewell Quarry, Mary G Roebling Foundation, and the Mary G Roebling Music Foundation. Pannepacker is the former Board President and Treasurer of Preservation New Jersey, a former Trustee and Treasurer of The Watershed Institute, and former Trustee of the Historical Society of Princeton.
Atiya Weiss, of Princeton, is the Executive Director of the Burke Foundation, which invests in promising programs and policies that focus on healthy pregnancies and births, healthy parent-child relationships, and high-quality early learning and care. The Burke Foundation has also partnered with the Community Foundation to award Community Impact Grants/The Burke Foundation Legacy Grants. Weiss also serves on the Community Foundation’s Committee on Impact, and its COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Fund grants evaluation team.
Before joining the Burke Foundation, she served as Executive Director of JP Morgan’s Philanthropy Center, where she advised charitable trusts and family foundations, and worked with the Gates Foundation to create the Global Health Investment Fund. She previously managed a global health grantmaking portfolio at the Pfizer Foundation, where she also led flagship programs, including Pfizer Global Health Fellows and Mobilize Against Malaria. She is also a Trustee of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and an Ascend Fellow at the Aspen Institute.
William Harla, Andrew Lieu and Calvin Thomas completed their terms of service on the board.
“They are outstanding members who each served their terms with distinction and integrity,” said Cimino. “I’m proud of the fact that they’ve been associated with our organization.”
