Mark Darling
President, Founding Board Member
Mark Darling is Supervisor of Recycling and Resource Management Programs at Ithaca College.
While working as an employee of the Physical Plant Department at the College he attended
classes, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1997. Mr. Darling has been responsible for
the waste management programs at the College since 1995. He has presented on composting,
recycling and waste reduction at state and national conferences. He received the New York
State 2000 Governor’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Program Innovation Award. This award
was presented in recognition of creativity and innovation in diverting waste from disposal
by implementing waste reduction and recycling initiatives at Ithaca College. He is also
currently serving as the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the National Recycling
Coalition College and University Recycling Council.
Tania Schusler
Secretary, Founding Board Member
Tania Schusler helped found Finger Lakes ReUse while environmental issues educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. She now teaches as a core faculty member in the Department of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England in Keene, NH. She holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Natural Resource Management from Cornell University and a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"For me, reuse is about local self-reliance. It's practical, economical, creative and inventive.
Bottom line, it's transformative. We not only transform materials. We transform ourselves, our
community and our economy as people learn the craft and skills of reclaiming, repairing and
reinventing to locally produce affordable, quality goods. All without destroying natural resources
or burning loads of fossil fuels moving goods across the globe."
Barbara Eckstrom
Treasurer, Founding Board Member
Barbara Eckstrom is Solid Waste Manager at Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Division.
Ms. Eckstrom has been the Tompkins County Solid Waste Manager for more than two decades since
receiving a Masters of Science in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University. Under her
leadership, the community has reduced the volume of its waste stream by almost 60% since adopting
a comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan in 1995. This has been accomplished through programs
for recycling, composting, reuse and waste reduction. Her goal is to continue to implement and
fund additional programs to reduce the County’s waste stream by 75% by 2015.
David Newman
Board Member
David Newman is the Director of Construction Management at Cornell University Planning,
Design and Construction.
Lynn Leopold
Board Member
Lynn Leopold served as the former Recycling Specialist for the Tompkins County Solid
Waste Management Division, providing outreach and education on reuse, waste reduction
and recycling. Prior to that, she served as the Education Coordinator for 5 years for
the City of Ithaca's recycling program, Ithaca Recycles. She came to Ithaca in 1979
and in 1983 received a MS from Cornell University in Science and Environmental Education.
She presently serves as a board member of Finger Lakes ReUse, Inc. and is a trustee of
the Village of Lansing.
“Reuse is the ultimate waste management tool and for me, it just follows that
reuse--creative, adaptive or otherwise--is the most sensible way to manage our
precious resources while rerouting wealth back into our community. Keeping useful
goods in circulation goes way beyond just sensible resource management. It can
provide meaningful work for many and get us off the buy, use up, and dispose
treadmill to nowhere.”
Sarah Adams
Board Member
Photographer and partner in V. Romanoff and Associates Restoration and Design Consultants,
traces her lifelong love of reuse and recycling to early childhood. Growing up living in
old houses, her father was a historian who had a lasting influence over her passion for
sustainability. Adams first collaborated with Romanoff in the early 1970s, joining the
battle against what she describes as 'a reaction to urban renewal and the destruction of
downtown Ithaca at the time,' an initiative responsible for the salvaging of sites such
as the Boardman House, the Clinton House, and the Dewitt Building.
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