The Board of Governors of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., has welcomed seven new members to the museum’s governing body.
Retiring from the Board are longtime governors Richard J. Bodorff, Dagmar D. P. Gipe, Christopher A. Havener, Jr., and Alfred Tyler, 2nd. Each was presented with a plaque made from the guard rail of the skipjack Rosie Parks. Built in 1955 in Wingate, Md., by Bronza Parks, Rosie dredged oysters for 20 years and has been in the collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum since 1975.
Board officers for the 2017-2018 year are Chair James P. Harris, Vice Chair Diane J. Staley, Treasurer Richard J. Johnson, and Secretary Richard W. Snowdon.
“It is with great pleasure that we welcome these new members to the Board for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We are blessed with an active and committed Board of Governors who contribute their time and skills as officers and committee members. It is a distinct pleasure to have the opportunity to work with so many talented individuals to progress the mission of CBMM,” said Board Chair James Harris. “We also wish the best to the four members that have completed their terms, and we look forward to their continued participation as active board alumni.”
New board member David Blitzer joined Hoon & Associates, LLC, in Chestertown, Md, in 2015. He has strong ties to the region resulting from time spent on his family farm in Kent County. Over the past 10 years, Blitzer has worked with numerous not-for-profit organizations active in the Bay area, including The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, The Conservation Fund, and The Chesapeake Conservancy where he continues to serve in an advisory capacity as a member of the “Chesapeake Council.” He also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy.
Blitzer received his BA in history and political science from the University of Vermont. He graduated in 2015 with his JD, cum laude, from Vermont Law School where he focused his legal studies on real estate, land use and environmental law.
Bill Boicourt is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Horn Point Laboratory. His oceanographic interests are the circulation of continental shelves and estuaries, with particular interests in how these motions are driven by winds and by freshwater flowing off the land. Boicourt received his undergraduate degree in physics from Amherst College. After graduate study in physical oceanography at The Johns Hopkins University, he remained for a few years at Hopkins’ Chesapeake Bay Institute to investigate the circulation of the Chesapeake Bay and the adjacent continental shelf. In 1981, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and joined the University of Maryland at Horn Point Laboratory soon thereafter. In 1989, he was the recipient of the B.H. Ketchum Award from Woods Hole for his work on shelf-estuary interactions.
Boicourt is a Principal Investigator and member of the Board of the Middle Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS) and a founding member of the Chesapeake Bay Observing System (CBOS).
Len Foxwell currently serves as Chief of Staff for Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot. Prior to joining the Comptroller’s Office in 2007, he served as Assistant to Salisbury University’s President for Government and Community Relations, and as Director of Government Relations for the Greater Washington Board of Trade. Foxwell also served as Director of Washington-Area Transit Programs for the Maryland Department of Transportation from 1998-2002, and as Press Secretary for Governor Glendening’s successful 1998 re-election campaign.
A 1992 graduate of Salisbury University, Foxwell remains actively involved with the institution as a member of its Alumni Board, and as a board member of the University’s Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE). In 2015, he received the Service to Society Award from Salisbury University in recognition of his contributions to the State of Maryland over the course of his public service career. He also helped establish FC Tred Avon, a year-round youth soccer program for children and families of the Mid-Shore, in coordination with the YMCA of the Chesapeake, and is deeply involved with the Easton Little League, where he currently serves as board treasurer, and previously served as board president and longtime baseball coach.
Foxwell lives in Easton with his wife, Kerry, and their two children, Colleen and Darren.
Elizabeth C. Moose is Vice President of Mid-Atlantic Realty, Inc., a developer of free standing drug stores, medical centers, and convenience stores in PA, DE, MD & VA. Prior to forming Mid-Atlantic Realty in 1992, she was Vice President of Land Acquisition for BTR Realty, a publicly held company in Baltimore, Md.
Originally from Greensboro, N.C., Moose is a graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in Business & Public Service. She worked for Marriott Corporation in New York and Washington after graduation. After years of visiting CBMM and renting summer vacation homes, she built a house in Claiborne in 2007. Moose is Chair of SOS Sink or Swim and has served on the board of the Classic Motor Museum. She also worked with the Claiborne Association to help save the former Methodist Church building which has been converted to the Village Hall, and currently serves on the committee for Christmas in St. Michaels.
Enos Throop spent most of his career working in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., area as an investment management professional. He held the positions of research analyst and portfolio manager for Johnston, Lemon & Company, was the Director of Equity for the Maryland State Retirement System, Vice President for Legg Mason Investment Management, and Director of Investments for the United Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds. As its first employee and Chief Investment Officer, he started a $20B trust at the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust (NRRIT). He retired from NRRIT in 2006, at which time the assets in the trust’s portfolio had increased to $36B.
Throop grew up on the south shore of Long Island and first visited the Eastern Shore in the mid-1950s on a family trip to Easton to look at skipjack sail boats. He has both undergraduate and master degrees from Hofstra University, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Throop spent four years in the Army Security Agency in the late 1960s as a Czechoslovak linguist. He and his wife, Muriel, have owned property on the Eastern Shore just outside of St. Michaels for almost 35 years, where they now live full time.
Established in 1965, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a world-class maritime museum dedicated to preserving and exploring the history, environment and people of the entire Chesapeake Bay, with the values of relevancy, authenticity, and stewardship guiding its mission. Serving nearly 70,000 guests each year, the museum’s campus includes a floating fleet of historic boats and 12 exhibition buildings, situated along the Miles River and St. Michaels’ harbor. For more information, visit cbmm.org