Martin Johnson – Founder and President
Mr. Johnson founded Isles in 1981 with two other Princeton University students. Since then, “Marty” and Isles have received national and international recognition for their sustainable development work.
Mr. Johnson is a founding director of numerous other development organizations and projects, including: the New Jersey Regional Coalition, New Jersey Community Loan Fund (now New Jersey Community Capital), Housing and Community Development Network of NJ, and the Success Measures Project, a national effort of the Development Leadership Network to re-think impact measures for community-building work.
He is a former trustee and Executive Committee member of Princeton University, where he also taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University from 1996-97. He is a trustee of the Capital Health System, the Capital City Redevelopment Corporation, and National Housing Institute. Marty was a Princeton University football recruit from Akron, Ohio. He moved to Trenton in 1981, where he and his wife Liz have raised three sons.
Elizabeth Johnson – Chief Operating Officer
Ms. Johnson is the Chief Operating Officer at Isles, Inc., a nonprofit community development and environmental organization where she has worked for 15 years. Ms. Johnson has served as a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for Public Policy at Thomas Edison State College and as the Director of the Department of Recreation, Natural Resources, and Culture for the city of Trenton. Ms. Johnson, a plant biologist by training, created Rutgers University’s Newark Urban Gardening Program and was one of the first women in New Jersey to serve as a County Agricultural Agent.
Ms. Johnson has received numerous awards for her work in promoting good practices in urban natural resource management and community development, including a Take Pride in America Award from the White House, a Green Community Award from the NJ Forestry Services, and a Woman of Distinction Award from the Girl Scouts of Delaware Valley. Ms. Johnson currently serves on the Trenton Board of Education, the Mercer County Open Space Board, and the Trenton Downtown Association Board. She is an advisor to Leadership Trenton.
Dr. Gail D. Brooks – Principal, Isles YouthBuild Institute
Dr. Brooks has more than 30 years of experience in public and higher education, as well as extensive experience with all student populations including Abbott districts and over a decade of experience in curriculum development and implementation. She holds a BA Degree in History/Education from Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York. She also has a MA and an earned Ed.D. from The University of Pennsylvania.
Yuki Moore Laurenti – Managing Director, Resource Development
Ms. Laurenti joined Isles in 2007 after working in the Private Banking Division of U.S. Trust Company of New York for 26 years. During that time, she was a private banker, banking office manager in New York City and in Princeton, chief administrative officer, and national banking product manager. She has extensive volunteer experience, which includes being Board President of Isles for five years, treasurer of Young Audiences of New Jersey, board member of Princeton Area Community Foundation and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and President of the Harvard Alumni Association. Ms. Laurenti is currently a Commissioner on the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission and has served on the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the New Jersey Brownfields Redevelopment Task Force, and the Trenton Board of Education. She has an A.B. in Economics from Radcliffe College.
Peter Rose – Managing Director, Isles Community Enterprises
Mr. Rose joined Isles in August of 2006 after his most recent work as Program Manager for Microenterprise Development for MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates) where he supported the replication of the ASSETS Plus+ microbusiness development model in new across the United States and Canada. In 1995, as the Founder and Executive Director of the Washington Community Alliance for Self-Help (Washington CASH), he created an award-winning, comprehensive microbusiness development organization for low-income women, people with disabilities and other economically disadvantaged groups — from the ground up. At the time of his departure, its peer lending program had started more than 500 businesses and made more than $500,000 in small loans (the majority less than $1,000) to people with very low incomes and achieved a 98% repayment rate. Prior to starting Washington CASH, Mr. Rose was the Managing Director of RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund, the organizing agency for the Microcredit Summit — a 9-year coordinated effort to bring microcredit to 100 million of the world’s poorest families by 2005. He has a B.A. from Evergreen State College and a teaching certificate from the University of Puget Sound.
Markese Humphrey – Director, Housing
Mr. Humphrey is a native of Trenton. In May 1998, he graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Public Health. In the year 2000, he passed the New Jersey’s Real Estate exam. He practices as a licensed Realtor on a part-time basis via DePaola Realtors, Inc in Ewing, New Hersey. He is a member of Mercer County Association of Realtors (MCAR), New Jersey Association of Realtors (NJAR) and the National Association of Realtors(NAR). In January 2003, he was hired at Capital Corridor Community Development Corporation, a company established by Rev. Darrell L. Armstrong and the Shiloh Baptist Church. Under his tenure, the company earned it 501.c3 status and developed many youth and family programs. Mr. Humphrey is currently taking classes at University of Phoenix Online to achieve his goal of earning a MBA in Human Resource Management.
Dr. Jeanne Oswald – Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Training
Prior to assuming this role, Dr. Oswald was consulting, with a primary focus on strategic development, organizational analysis, and facilitation for education institutions and other nonprofit organizations. Dr. Oswald served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education after serving as Deputy Executive Director for many years. Prior to the establishment of the Commission, she served as Executive Director of Board Affairs and Government Relations in the New Jersey Department of Higher Education. She received her doctorate at Rutgers University and served in the field of education for 29 years: 5 as a teacher, 8 in the New Jersey State Department of Education, and 16 with the state-level higher education agency. Dr. Oswald is a former Chair and current member of the Board of Directors of Special Olympics New Jersey and she serves as a member of the Isles Capital Campaign Steering Committee and the Pennsbury Scholarship Fund Board of Directors.
Julia Taylor, AICP, LEED – Managing Director, Community Planning & Development
Ms. Taylor joined Isles in 2008 to direct the Home Energy Action in Trenton (HEAT) project. HEAT conducted important research on how problems prevalent in low-income housing that have traditionally been addressed piecemeal – energy efficiency, environmental hazards, and structural defects – could more effectively be addressed holistically. As an outgrowth that work, Isles created the Residential Health and Energy Efficiency Testing (REHEET) program to pilot the joint provision of weatherization, structural repair, and healthy homes services in Trenton, and Isles E4 has expanded its weatherization services county-wide. In 2010, Ms. Taylor assumed responsibility for the newly-formed Community Planning & Development department, and currently oversees Isles’ neighborhood planning, affordable housing production, real estate development, property management, and urban agriculture activities. Ms. Taylor’s previous work includes master planning and real estate development in rural and urban areas, research and social policy analysis, and program evaluation for low-income housing and energy efficiency programs in New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Ms. Taylor is co-Founder and President of SEE Lambertville, a community organization focused on sustainability, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Hunterdon Land Trust. She earned a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in History with a Certificate in American Studies from Princeton University.
Meredith Taylor – Director, Food and Environment
Ms. Taylor’s personal interest in agriculture, food and health leads her to pursue academic and professional paths that foster community-based approaches to expanding access to wholesome, locally grown foods. With an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, she holds Master’s Degrees in Nutrition and Food Studies from New York University and public health from New York Medical College. She managed a school-based nutrition education program called CookShop® and the Harlem S.O.U.L. Food Project (Sustainable, Organic, Uptown, and Local), a WK Kellogg Foundation-funded effort to connect locally-grown food to institutional food service providers in upper Manhattan. In its first year, SOUL’S community kitchen served over 180,000 meals and a food pantry serviced 400 families each month with locally grown food. Through Kellogg’s Food & Society Initiative, Ms. Taylor joined a sustainable agriculture study-tour in Cuba. The tour, organized by Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, brought international delegates from over 90 food systems and sustainable agriculture specialists to learn from the Cuban efforts to bring more ecologically sound and community-based principles to their food system.
She was the Director of Food Systems Programs at the Glynwood Center, where she connected agricultural producers in the Hudson Valley to consumer markets in New York City. From 2004 – 2006 she co-chaired the Outreach and Diversity Committee of the Community Food Security Coalition. She is a member of the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association, and the American Public Health Association.
Rick Ober – General Counsel
Mr. Ober joined Isles after 26 years as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of UJB Financial Corp/Summit Bancorp of Princeton and 3½ years as Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of TerraCycle, Inc. of Trenton, an organic fertilizer start-up. At UJB/Summit Mr. Ober led the Legal Department as it helped grow the bank from $2 billion to $39 billion through 27 acquisitions while winning the first New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association Diversity Award. He also had responsibility for the Community Development and Compliance Departments for 7 of those years. Mr. Ober currently serves as an Ombudsman for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, Co-Facilitator of Trinity Jobseekers, a mediator for Executive Mediator Services and the New Jersey Judiciary Foreclosure Mediation Program. He is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and Yale Law School.
Elyse Pivnick, MCP – Senior Advisor and Director, Environmental Health
Ms. Pivnick has over 25 years of experience in managing environmental health projects in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. In 1999, she created Isles’ Environmental Health Initiative with funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program has since grown to address a broad range of challenges such as lead poisoning, asthma, pest management, healthy schools, open space needs, exercise, and nutrition. Successfully sought resources and program development partnerships currently include government and private agencies such as the U.S. EPA; New Jersey Departments of Community Affairs, Environmental Protection, Health and Senior Services, and Human Services; Rutgers University; UMDNJ/School of Public Health; private foundations; and individuals.