Board of Trustees
Dennis Percher
Chairperson
Joining the SMC in late 2001, Dennis has been board chair since January 2007. He enjoys encouraging the community to become conservancy members, and finding and working with a great team of volunteers who maintain and improve the park and lead SMC programs. He is involved in all aspects of the conservancy and especially likes to plan and build new trails, improve the signage system, and get rid of knotweed and aralia. He directly manages the Mayapple Trail Runs, SMR Family Campout and occasionally leads hikes. Dennis enjoys jogging the trails, photography and kayaking. His professional background has been in management consulting and training. He has two grown daughters and has lived in Maplewood with his wife, Barbara Laub, since 1984.
John Verzani
Vice Chair, Trail Work Coordinator
trailwork@somocon.org
John has been a board member since February 2011 and serves as co-organizer of the trail work crew. You might find him and his dog Romeo scouting the Reservation for new trail opportunities.
Sarah Jane Jelin
Secretary, Membership
A board member since January 2016, Sarah Jane has lived in the area most of her life and always viewed the reservation as her refuge…a place to hike, run, picnic or simply enjoy nature. After working with the South Mountain Conservancy trail crew, building and improving hiking trails she joined the Board. In her role as head of membership, she is striving to raise the profile of the conservancy in order to increase membership and engagement in conservancy activities. Sarah Jane operates her family manufacturing business in Clark.
Dave Berry
Community Outreach, Trash Tacklers Coordinator, Chainsaw gang
community-outreach@somocon.org
trashtacklers@somocon.org
chainsawgang@somocon.org
A hiker in the Reservation since moving to South Orange/Maplewood in 1990, David become an SMC board member focused on Community Outreach at the start of 2020. Retiring as a program and camp director from the South Mountain YMCA in 2018 after 28 years has allowed David to spend more time hiking and volunteering for the Conservancy, especially as a Trailkeeper, Chain Saw Gang member, and other conservancy activities. As the Community Outreach liaison, he seeks ways to collaborate with diverse organizations and community groups looking for nature programming and volunteering opportunities in the Reservation. By working with these groups and SMC program coordinators, David attempts to find synergies between the Conservancy’s and their missions. David lives in South Orange with his partner Peg. He enjoys running into former Y campers and families in the Reservation and around town.
Craig Leisher
Craig is a social scientist at The Nature Conservancy who is happiest at the nexus of science and practice. Since moving to the area in 2006, his dose of Vitamin “N” (nature) comes from South Mountain Reservation. A board member since 2021, he’s run every trail, eaten wineberries in the summer, snowshoed in the winter, and counted tree rings on downed trees after a storm. He loves the reservation and its history.
Ivette Halama Canjura
Ivette, a former resident of West Orange, chose the neighborhood for its natural surroundings and profusion of flora. Although life events led her out of the area, she still considers West Orange “home.” She started volunteering at the conservancy in 2020 and joined the board in 2023. Ivette loves being in nature, going on or leading weekly treks, constructing and enhancing reservation trails, and promoting SMC family events and campouts.
Her passion for the outdoors has also inspired her to take on additional projects, getting involved with the Pocono Environmental Educational Center (PEEC) in Pennsylvania where she is a Trail Steward.
She encourages everyone to try something new and unusual, to get outside, and to volunteer in any capacity.
Neal Templin
Neal has had a life-long love affair with mountains. A California native, he began hiking as a boy in the Sierra Nevadas. As a young man, he spent a year building trails and fighting fires in the mountains of Southern California.
These days, he hikes in the South Mountain Reservation. He began helping out on trail repair there several years ago. He has two big hopes for the reservation: The first is restoring its magnificent trail system. The second is eliminating non-native plants, and bringing the forest back into balance.
Neal makes a living as a journalist. He spent 29 years with the Wall Street Journal, and now works for Barron’s, a sister publication of the Journal. He lives in South Orange.
Leslie Arthur
Les joined the SMC board in the spring of 2023 after years hiking in the reservation. An avid hiker, he is a certified hiking leader with the Appalachian Mountain Club which promotes diversity in hiking and outdoor activities. When not on the trails, Les is cycling and part of the tri-state Black cycling culture which often gets together on weekends with as many as 60 people for riding and charity events.
Professionally, Les worked in the NJ public school system for 30 years teaching African American history, U.S. history and Latin American culture and economics. He currently is a Ph.D. candidate in African American history at Rutgers University.
John Bylancik
John grew up in the outdoors, in Albany, NY at the foothills of the Adirondacks. It was here he found his love of the outdoors and started to understand the importance of preserving wild places. John’s “indoor” education and experience includes an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Business, and MBA, and a career in technology marketing and educational tech. John’s “outdoor” education has taken him on hiking, backpacking, and canoeing adventures from the Superstition Mountains in AZ, through the Boundary Waters in MI and WI, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and his adopted home of NJ. These experiences have brought to life the powerful impact that a connection with the outdoors can have and John’s current passions revolve around helping others foster new or renewed connections with the wilderness. A volunteer member of the NYNJ Trail Conference, John serves as Chair for the NW NJ sector overseeing Trail Conference trail maintenance work from High Point to the Delaware Water Gap.
But home is where the heart is, and the South Mountain Reservation has become “home turf” for John since 2018. John started by joining the SMC on hikes, trail work days, forest regeneration days, FrogWatch USA, the Pollinator Meadow project, the Mayapple Trail Runs and of course the Family Campouts. John looks forward to helping grow the outreach programs within the SMC to share the experience of the reservation with more people, and to reduce Nature Deficit Disorder wherever possible.
Penni Malakates, Operations Director
Penni started as SMC Operations Director in July 2022 and is responsible for marketing, our social media presence, store fulfillment, and general support of Conservancy programs. While most of her career was spent in the international art world, she has always made the outdoors a part of her life. Since leading outdoor adventure trips for kids across Maine at Bates College, she has remained close to outdoor organizations and activities. She is passionate about increasing access to the outdoors for people of all ages and backgrounds and believes in community building through volunteerism and time spent outside. Through her work with the Conservancy, Penni hopes to bring a greater awareness of the joys of the Reservation to the broader Essex County community. She lives in Maplewood with her husband and two kids. Penni conceived of the Hemlock Falls poster in the classic style of the national parks. She can be reached at opsdirector@somocon.org.
Program Coordinators
Citizen Science, Lori LaBorde, citizenscience@somocon.org
Chainsaw Gang: David Berry, chainsawgang@somocon.org
Family Campout: Penni Malakates, Dennis Percher, familycampout@somocon.org
Forest Regeneration: Rich Rockwell, forestregen@somocon.org
Hikes: Bobbette Mannicotti, hikes@somocon.org
Mayapple Trail Run: Dennis Percher, Kim Levinsky, mayappletrailruns@somocon.org
Trailkeepers: Dennis Percher, Dave Berry, trailkeepers@somocon.org
Trail Work: John Verzani, Dennis Percher, trailwork@somocon.org
Trash Tacklers: Dave Berry trashtacklers@somocon.org
Wildflower Sculpture Park: Doris Cacoilo, curator, sculpturepark@somocon.org
Hike Leaders
Lou Nocito, Sharon Salmon, Dennis Percher, Gail Waimon, Dustin Dumas, Janine Beer, Linda Silver, Ruth Borgenicht
IT and Treasurer
Paul Kerner IT@somocon.org, treasurer@somocon.org