Bruce Stout, a resident of Delaware Township, Hunterdon County, has been a public member of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission since 2013.  A nearly daily user of the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park, Bruce is Professor Emeritus at The College of New Jersey and has held numerous positions in government and academia.  In academia, in addition to being the former Chair of the Department of Criminology at The College of New Jersey, Bruce taught at the Rutgers Graduate School of Criminal Justice and at Penn State-Abington.  He was also Executive Director of the Violence Institute and the Behavioral Research and Training Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he was a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.  In government, Bruce has served as Deputy Chief of Policy and Planning for Governor Whitman, Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Commission, Director of the Division of Child Behavioral Health Services and Research Director for the Juvenile Delinquency Commission.  Bruce also worked for the office of Governor Corzine, where he chaired the reentry working group that developed the reentry component of the Governor’s crime plan and where he worked with the Government Efficiency and Reform Commission on sentencing and corrections reform.  Bruce is also a board member of Wildlife Center Friends and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence -- NJ.  Bruce, earned his doctorate at the Rutgers University Graduate School.

Official biography from DEP website: https://www.nj.gov/dep/commissioner/

Phil Lubitz has spent a lifetime living along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. He is a four-time mayor of Kingwood Township where he currently chairs the township Board of Adjustment and Housing Board. He has also served on Kingwood's Open Space Committee for the past 10 years. He has a BA from George Washington University and a Master’s Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Administration and Policy from Rutgers University.

A 1973 graduate of Hampton University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Douglas Palmer has served the public for nearly 30 years, first, legislatively as a Mercer County Freeholder in the 1980s; as the first African American Mayor elected in 1990 to lead the capital city of Trenton, New Jersey; and in the past decade as a developer and implementer of urban policy and community development initiatives, presiding over the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the New Jersey Urban Mayors, and other national and statewide organizations dedicated to data-driven problem solving and best practices. His leadership positions include:

Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, 1990-2010
Past President, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Dec. 2006-June 2008
Member, United States Homeland Security Advisory Council
Member, National Voting Rights Commission
President, National Conference of Democratic Mayors, 2003-2006
President, New Jersey Conference of Mayors, 2005
President (Now President Emeritus), New Jersey Urban Mayors for 10 years
President, National Brownfield Association (NJ Chapter)
Mercer County Freeholder

On June 30, 2010, Douglas Palmer completed his fifth term as Mayor of the City of Trenton. During his tenure, he has reduced crime and unemployment, dramatically increased homeownership for working families; maintained a high tax collection rate and balanced budgets; replaced an ineffectual police structure by establishing a civilian police director; and brought the state capital the Marriott Hotel (the city’s first), an anchor of downtown revitalization. He also has led efforts to obtain funding for the $75 million expansion of the Trenton Train Station, a major engine for downtown economic development that is now attracting private investment nearby; and won National Livability Awards for the first Justice Department Weed ‘n Seed program and for a model enrichment program serving at-risk youth. Emphasizing multi-jurisdictional collaboration and public-private partnerships, Mayor Palmer also led efforts across a wide range of quality-of-life issues to:

Over the years, Mayor Palmer has received various awards and honors some of which are:

• National Conference of Mayors President Award, 2012

• Distinguished Public Service Award, 2010, the highest honor conferred by the United States Conference of Mayors

• Honorary Doctorates of Letters, Hampton University, Hampton, VA and Rider University, Lawrence, NJ

• Hampton University's outstanding "Twenty Year Alumnus" award, given to an alumnus who has excelled in his profession and brought honor to himself and the University by making a positive impact in the community

• "Spirit of St. Francis" award from St. Francis Hospital in Trenton for outstanding leadership and dedication in the field of health care

• "Equal Justice Medal" from Legal Services of New Jersey for leadership and aggressive policies in the areas of affordable housing, welfare, and other issues affecting the disadvantaged

• State of Israel Peace Medal Award for efforts to increase and improve relationships between the African-American and Jewish populations

• "Tending the Garden State" Community Development Leadership Award from Worldworks Foundation of New Jersey for outstanding achievements in developing successful strategies for permanent solutions to ending hunger.

Since leaving office in 2010, he started Douglas H. Palmer and Associates, LLC, where he holds the position of President and CEO. This company specializes in inter-governmental and corporate consulting. A list of several of his clients include, The American Beverage Association, The National Football League, Major League Baseball, Petra Systems, Premier Magnesium, Veolia North American, Philips, a division of Philips Electronics North America Corporation, Comcast, IPS Group, McDonalds Corporation, Mueller Water Products and a partner in Arete’, a capital raising company that secures investments for multi-million dollar projects in cities. Partner in DSW Solutions, a government relations firm.

His philanthropy & projects include:

Chairman of the Board of The Trenton Literacy Movement. An organization that partners with the Trenton Public Schools to assist first, second and third graders read on grade level by third grade.

Founder and President of Mayor Palmer’s Trenton First Initiative Foundation that awards scholarship to high school and college students.

Trustee on the McCarter Theatre Board in Princeton, NJ.

Former Board Member of Children’s Future, an organization whose mission is to provide support service to children ages zero to three and their parents.

He is Co-Chairman of the Mercer County Community College Capital Campaign.

He is married to Christiana Foglio-Palmer and they have one daughter, Laila. His passion for children prompted him to accept the Chairmanship of the Board of Trenton Literacy movement in order to improve grade school literacy in an effort to improve learning preparedness within the Trenton public schools.

 

 

Caryl “Chris” Shoffner is Mayor of South Bound Brook Borough and has served as a member of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission since 2020.  Before becoming Mayor in 2016, she was a borough council member for nine years.  Deeply committed to her community, she also has served as a volunteer with the South Bound Brook Fire Company for the past two decades. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and worked as a special education teacher.  A member of the Teamsters Union for more than three decades, she was employed as a driver for Entenmann’s for 24 years.  She also worked as a driver for UPS for a decade and served as a shop steward.

John Reiser is a resident of North Brunswick Township.  He has served as County Engineer for Middlesex County for 43 years until his retirement in 2013. He is a Civil Engineer with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in civil engineering from Rutgers University. Upon graduation from Rutgers he attended the US Army Corp of Engineers School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  In 1965, he left the Corp of Engineers Reserve as a Captain on the general staff of an Engineering Brigade.  Subsequently he worked for the County of Los Angeles and the City of New Brunswick.  Prior to retirement, he was a licensed professional engineer in four states.  He has been married for 53 years to Sandra Wisniewski. They have two children, Marla (Stanford ‘91) and Matthew (Georgetown ‘93).