Board of Directors

Clearwater board members play key creative roles in fundraising, event planning, program development, financial management, public relations, and project management, and serve as spokespersons and ambassadors for Clearwater. The Clearwater Annual Meeting provides members with the opportunity to participate in the vital function of electing board candidates into office. Clearwater members and the public may communicate with the Board at any time: board@clearwater.org. Communications will be acknowledged and responded to, when appropriate.

Planning Documents

Comprehensive Plan  – Adopted May 2025
In May 2025, Clearwater’s Board of Directors ratified a new five-year Comprehensive Business Model Plan to ensure the organization’s long-term financial stability and strengthen its capacity to serve the Hudson River and its communities. Building on the foundation of the 2021 Strategic Plan and recent organizational reforms, the plan was developed over nine months with input from business, education, maritime, and nonprofit leaders, together with staff and board. It outlines a proactive, data-driven approach to diversifying revenue, expanding programs, and building reserves, positioning Clearwater to thrive as a leading force for environmental advocacy, education, and community engagement for decades to come. Read the Comprehensive Plan Summary or learn more.

Strategic Plan – Adopted December 2021
In 2020, Clearwater initiated a comprehensive strategic planning process to refine its vision for the 21st century and ensure long-term organizational sustainability. With guidance from the Hudson River Foundation and the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, input was gathered through surveys, interviews, retreats, and assessments involving staff, board members, organizational stakeholders, and community voices. This process affirmed the sloop, Clearwater as the core of the organization, and highlighted education and advocacy as the most important and successful of our programs, and music as a unique and central means of promoting our mission and engaging our members and Hudson Valley communities. Read Clearwater’s strategic plan.

Board Meeting Schedule 2026-2027

Clearwater Board Members

Samantha Hicks, President
Second Term, expires October 2027
Email Samantha: president@clearwater.org

Samantha, AKA Captain Sam, started working on the sloop as an apprentice in 1994 at the very beginning of what would become a 17-year career in sail education. She worked her way up through the ranks on numerous vessels, including the Schooner Ernestina out of New Bedford, sailing as chief mate for the maiden voyage of the brigantine Irving Johnson, and sailing to both Europe and Asia aboard the Pride of Baltimore II. After sailing as captain of the Sloop from 2000 to 2005, she signed on as chief mate for the Barque Picton Castle’s fourth World Voyage, circumnavigating the globe.

Arthur Jones, Vice-President
Third term, expires October 2027
Email Arthur: vicepresident@clearwater.org

A lifelong resident of the Hudson Valley, Arthur Jones has been a Clearwater member and perennial sloop volunteer for 22 years. Arthur is a dedicated environmentalist, an avid sailor and an award-winning filmmaker who has made several short films in support of Clearwater, The NY Democracy Project and other local non-profits. Arthur is serving his second term as a board member but has been involved with Clearwater most of his life. He currently lives in Jersey City and works in New York as a full-time television professional, specializing in the management of large and complex projects. As a board member, Arthur offers a unique blend of digital media expertise, love of the Hudson River and a passionate commitment to Social and Environmental Justice.

Adenike Bamgboye, Treasurer
Second Term, expires October 2029
Email Adenike: treasurer@clearwater.org

A seasoned administrator and expert in public procurement, small business, and vendor management, as well as process reengineering. In her career of over 20 years, Adenike has served in various capacities for over a decade at the City of New York, including contracting, environmental health and safety, and quality assurance. She pioneered a number of initiatives for small business contracting opportunities, not limited to MWBE participation and outreach. Adenike is passionate about environmental conservation through policy-making. In one of her past projects, she unraveled the impact of single-use plastic carry-out bags on environmental footprints, as a contribution to a NYC legislation for its ban. Adenike developed health and safety programs for four bureaus at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. She currently lives in Elmont and consults for the NYC DOE and serves as Assistant Deputy Comptroller for Nassau County.

Erin Hubbard, Secretary
First Term, expires October 2029
Email Erin: secretary@clearwater.org

Erin is a former crew member of Clearwater, as well as many other educationally focused tall ships.  She has maintained my captain’s license throughout these many years after moving ashore; Erin has become a teacher and a nurse. She enjoys traveling, skiing, quilting, and sailing, and serves on her town’s Select Board.  The values of Clearwater have been a touchstone through all her travels in life: Be welcoming to all, share knowledge, build community, honor the Earth, and work as a team until the job is done.

At-Large Board Members

Lyndsey Cooper
First Term, expires October 2028

Lyndsey Cooper is a dedicated community engagement professional advancing New York State’s climate preparedness through adaptation, mitigation, and a just transition to a clean energy economy. With over a decade of experience bridging climate advocacy, public service, and environmental education, she began her tenure with Clearwater as a participant in Young Women at the Helm. She values connecting youth to the water and Earth as an essential step in cultivating the next generation of environmental stewards.

Currently, Lyndsey is the Associate Director of Community Engagement at the Long Island Regional Clean Energy Hub, leading outreach efforts to expand clean energy access in underrepresented communities. Previously, she was a Climate Outreach Specialist with the Hudson River Estuary Program, leading outreach for public-private climate research efforts and serving on New York State’s Climate Smart Communities Equity Working Group. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from SUNY New Paltz and is pursuing a Master of Social Work at NYU.

Sarah Armour
Second term, expires October 2027

Born and raised in the Hudson Valley, Sarah has been lucky enough to be part of the Clearwater community since before she was born. She grew up volunteering at the festival, singing with Clearwater’s Power of Song Program, and working on the Sloop in a number of capacities, including as a volunteer, educator, and first mate. Sarah has spent the last ten years working in environmental education, sail training, and experiential learning and she credits Clearwater with sending her along that path. Sarah works at Mystic Seaport Museum as the Captain of the classic Schooner Brilliant, running one of the oldest Youth Sail Training programs in the country. Sarah has a degree in Earth Systems Science from Cornell University where she focused on applied ecology, sustainable agriculture, and environmental education.

Steve Stanne
Third term, expires October 2029

Steve Stanne has been teaching about the Hudson since 1980, when he stepped aboard Clearwater as education director, a position he held for 19 years. His time with the organization also included two stints as acting executive director. From 1999 until retirement in 2017, he was employed by Cornell University in partnership with NYSDEC to direct education efforts of the agency’s Hudson River Estuary Program.

Over his career, Steve designed signature river education programs including Clearwater’s Classroom of the Waves and the Estuary Program’s Day in the Life of the Hudson, as well as coordinating placement of the familiar blue and white sturgeon signs at highway crossings of Hudson River tributaries. He is the principal author of The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River, published by the Rutgers University Press, and the Estuary Program’s State of the Hudson reports in 2009 and 2015.

Steve is also a musician, performing with the Hudson River Sloop Singers while at Clearwater, and with the folk quintet Betty and the Baby Boomers, which earned the Hudson River Environmental Society’s 2016 “Outstanding Environmental Communicator” award.

Directors

Neall Burger
First term, expires October 2028

Neall Burger first set foot on the sloop in 1981 when she came on as a volunteer and loved every minute, despite knowing nothing about sailing. Next summer she crewed as an intern, and was third mate for the following summer. That fall Steve Stanne hired her as an educator to run the on-land program, which brought her to the Hudson Valley where she has lived for the last 40 years. After three years at Clearwater, she took a teaching job in the Hyde Park School district where she taught for 23 years. As soon as she retired in 2011, she jumped back on the boat as a volunteer. The magic of sailing, the sense of working with the crew for a good cause and love of the Hudson River has always been very important to her. For the last two years Neall, along with Meg Clark and Joan Carter, has organized the auction for the Clearwater Gala.

Stuart Findlay, PhD
First Term, expires October 2027

Stuart Findlay is an aquatic ecologist working on the Hudson River for over 30 years, researching sensitive wetlands, shoreline restoration, and conducting environmental monitoring critical to helping guide the river’s recovery. He aims to identify impending problems and devise suitable solutions in streams, wetlands, and the Hudson River, and is committed to carrying science from discovery to dissemination and is actively engaged with a wide array of management, outreach, and educational programs. Stuart holds a PhD from the University of Georgia.

L.A. Kauffman
First term, expires October 2028

L.A. is an activist, organizer, and writer with a lifelong involvement in social and environmental justice. She helped lead grassroots campaigns that saved more than 100 community gardens and two iconic public libraries from luxury development in New York City. She was the mobilizing coordinator for some of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, during the 2003-2004 Iraq War. She has worked on a wide variety of pro-democracy initiatives and has broad expertise as a strategy advisor, fundraiser, trainer, coach, and communications and media strategist. A widely published writer, she’s the author of two books on the history of social movements in the United States, exploring how ordinary people have achieved progressive goals against long odds. She is a recent transplant to the Hudson Valley and an avid novice sailor, as well as an enthusiastic hiker, kayaker, and organic gardener.

Tom Murphy
Second term, expires October 2028

Tom Murphy is a Hudson Valley native – he grew up in Newburgh, attended Newburgh schools, and Orange County Community College. He has been a banker since the early 1980s when he got his start at a small bank in Newburgh. He is currently a Senior Vice President at M&T Bank, running their Government Banking Division here in the Hudson Valley and Long Island. Tom serves on M&T Bank’s local Charitable Foundation Board, providing funding to over 100 non-profit organizations in Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan, and Orange counties. He is currently on the Board of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley and Chair of their Ulster Board and previously served on the boards of the Bardavon Opera House, Mohonk Preserve, and many other community organizations. While on the Mohonk Preserve Board, Tom was Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee for many years and also spent time on their Environmental Education and Finance and Development Committees. Tom lives in Kingston, NY with his wife Ellen, their two college-age boys, two dogs, two cats, and five chickens. He is an avid reader, skier, hiker and fisherman.

Daniel Riesel
Second term, expires October 2027

Daniel Riesel was raised in Croton on Hudson, but presently resides in Manhattan and Arlington, Vermont. His love of the outdoors and the Hudson Valley led him to be a Clearwater Board member for over a decade during the 70s and 80s–and also served on the sloop crew. Daniel has been practicing law for 60 years, and since 1970, his practice has focused on environmental litigation. He is a founder of the first Environmental Protection Unit in the Department of Justice. During the period 1970 to 1973, the Unit successfully prosecuted over 30 Hudson River polluters. In 1973, he entered private practice and joined the country’s oldest environmental law firm, (now) Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C. He has taught environmental law and litigation at Cardozo and Columbia Law Schools for over a decade, and chairs the American Law Institute annual courses on environmental law and environmental litigation. Daniel is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers.

Larry Rothbart
Second term, expires October 2027

Lawrence (Larry) Rothbart has lived in Brooklyn for over 40 years but is a lifelong New Yorker. He is a lawyer-mediator-collaborative Professional focused on Family Law issues. His first memory of the Clearwater was soon after it first sailed into New York harbor going to the old, gritty South Street as a child. He had to go through a hole in the fence for the sail.

Fast forward a bit. Larry became a member of Clearwater in his own right as a young adult when he returned to New York after college in Boston (where he worked on environmental issues including Seabrook). Once Larry had children, they came with him on Clearwater sails from the time they were babes in arms. They all were volunteers together on the boat for years. Eventually, they became “spare parts” especially when the boat was near New York Harbor or Pumpkin Sails.

Larry’s hope is to keep the focus on the boat as a vehicle to encourage environmental education, environment action, cultural and historical education, sailing experiences, music, and a little fun; throughout the length of the Hudson.

Julia Wilson
Second term, expires October 2028

Julia became involved in Clearwater as a high school boat and office intern in 1991. During college at Cornell, where she majored in premed studies and environmental science, Julia continued to intern on the sloop, and after graduating, decided to spend a year or two sailing on Clearwater and other boats before grad school. By the time she started graduate study four years later, she had been the sloop’s engineer, deckhand, bosun, second mate, and educator. After earning a doctorate of chiropractic in Portland, OR, Julia returned to the Hudson Valley and Clearwater as mate and relief captain. That led to her becoming captain, a position she held until a week before the birth of her first child in 2008. Since then, Julia has done occasional relief work, but mostly has been working hard at raising two kids and running a thriving chiropractic office and business in Kingston and Hudson.