Cloud Forest School Foundation
The Cloud Forest School Foundation (CFSF) is a not-for-profit educational organization providing support to the Cloud Forest School. It was founded in 1993 to provide the School with an international network of friends, financial support (annual, capital and endowment funds), professional development opportunities, and teacher and volunteer recruitment. The CFSF raised the funds to purchase the current school campus from The Nature Conservancy in 2000 and since then has conducted capital fundraising for the construction of six new classroom buildings, in addition to providing ongoing annual operating support. Additionally, the CFSF publishes The Rainbow, a bi-annual newsletter about the school and its activities. The volunteer Trustees bring hands-on expertise in a variety of fields and travel to Monteverde each March for a joint meeting with the Cloud Forest School Trustees.
The CFSF is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization and accepts tax-deductible gifts at the following address:
Cloud Forest School Foundation
PO Box 3223
Sewanee, TN 37375
Board of Trustees
Mary Bruce Alford graduated from Sewanee: The University of the South in 2005 as an Environmental Policy major. During her four years there, she participated in the Island Ecology Program, outreach trips to Ecuador and New Orleans, the Environmental Resident Program, a summer program in Madrid, and the Senior Alumni Leadership Council. She was a member of the Order of The Gownsmen (the academic honor society) and on the Dean’s List. Mary Bruce now works at The Trust for Public Land in Massachusetts.
Doug Cameron is a retired teacher (7th grade science and 10th grade biology) at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School and outdoor program leader at the University of the South. He has led numerous wilderness trips around the United States for both schools and still conducts courses for Wilderness Medical Associates. More recently, he has led outreach trips for the University of the South to Honduras and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He is currently Assistant Fire Chief in Sewanee (33 years), and just retired as a volunteer EMT in Sewanee. He is on the board of the local public education foundation, Leadership Franklin County, Housing Sewanee (a habitat group – in which he is a founding member), The Land Trust for Tennessee, and the Tennessee Environmental Council. (B.A., Harvard)
Douglas A. Caves is founder, owner, and Vice-Chairman of Laurits R. Christensen Associates, Inc., Madison, Wisconsin, an economic consulting company, which employs 60 professional economists. He has published over 40 academic papers in economic journals. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa, his other charitable boards and activities include Madison Campus Ministry, Boy Scouts of America, and First United Methodist Church. He did volunteer teaching (8th grade) and other projects at the CFS (Centro de Educacion Creativa) during the semester he and his family lived in Monteverde. He is a major supporter of The Nature Conservancy on both the local and national level. (B.A., M.A., Oklahoma State University; Ph.D, University of Wisconsin)
Jason D. Hamilton is the Director of Admissions at The University of The South – Sewanee. Prior to assuming this position in June, 2005, Jason was Sewanee’s Associate Director of Admission, arriving from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, where he was also Associate Director of Admission and the International Student Counselor. Jason is a 1999 graduate of Sewanee and majored in Spanish, spending a summer abroad in Spain. He spent a post-graduate year in Johannesburg at the University of Witwatersrand, and has completed prerequisite classes for the MBA program at Oglethorpe.
Mark J. Hatch is currently the Vice President for Enrollment at Colorado College. He earned a B.A. in psychology from Bates College and later served as Assistant Dean of Admission at his alma mater. He left Bates to pursue a graduate degree at Harvard University and concurrently worked in the Harvard Admission Office. He then moved west and served as a college counselor and teacher at Harvard-Westlake School and Marlborough School in Los Angeles. In 1997, Mark retuned to higher education as the Director of Admission at Occidental College. In addition to serving on panels at regional and national conferences, Mark is the former President of the Common Application, Inc, a member organization serving more than 350 colleges and universities. He currently serves on the Board of the High Mountain Institute, a semester program for high school juniors in Leadville, Colorado. Mark is married and has two daughters. In his spare time, he plays competitive ice hockey and is an avid trail/mountain runner and has completed two Pikes Peak Ascents – a 13.3 mile race which gains nearly 8,000 vertical feet and ends at the summit of Pike Peak at 14,110 feet.
Elizabeth M. Lowell, from Harvard, Massachusetts, is a Partner in Raybin Associates, Inc. (Counsel to Non-Profits). Formerly she was Director of Development at Fay School, Assistant Director of Development at the Lahey Clinic Foundation, and a consultant in planned giving. Her current and recent trusteeships include Friends Academy, Locust Valley, New York and the College of Preachers, Washington, DC.Elizabeth made her first trip to Costa Rica in 1997, when she traveled to Monteverde and learned of the school and its deadline for purchasing the property from The Nature Conservancy. She immediately offered to help raise the funds – and hasn’t stopped since.(B.A. Smith)
Scott Shannon, President, is a registered landscape architect and certified planner. Scott is currently Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the State University of New York – College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY, where he is also Undergraduate Curriculum Director. He is the co-director of the Sustainable Futures program at the Monteverde Institute, Monteverde, Costa Rica, and a partner in Acanthus Associates, LLC, a community planning and housing consulting firm based in Cazenovia, New York. Scott is a former Fulbright Scholar in urban design in the Czech Republic, and serves on the boards of a number of not-for-profit groups advocating land conservation, historic preservation, and community planning. (BS, BLA, MLA SUNY – College of Environmental Science and Forestry).
Christopher R. Tompkins is Headmaster of the Perkiomen School, which is located in Greater Philadelphia (Pennsburg, PA.). As Assistant Head of School for Enrollment at Mercersburg Academy, Chris created the first CFSF exchange with an American school and facilitated the exchange program with St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School. The CFSF exchange program now extends to several schools in the USA. Prior to Mercersburg, Chris was Assistant Headmaster at The Canterbury Episcopal School, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School, and Director of Admissions at South Kent School. He has taught in Quito, Ecuador, at Greens Farms Academy, and Wellington School. Chris has earned certificates from the Harvard Principal’s Center and Cornell University. He has published articles in a variety of independent school publications, including Far and Wide: Life in American Boarding School, and been a featured presenter at various school-related events across the USA and Germany. Chris is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools Financial Aid Task Force and a founding board member of the Association of Independent School Admission Professionals. He is the author of The Croton Dams and Aqueduct and regularly presents on the topic in the greater New York region. (B.A. Colby College; M.S.Sc.Syracuse University-Maxwell School).
Stephen Watters is Headmaster of The Green Vale School, Glen Head, New York. He served as Director, Middle School, William Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, and taught five years at Kingswood-Oxford School, North Hartford. He is on the boards of the Pennsylvania Association of Private Academic Schools, Friends Council of Education, and Philadelphia Council of Women in Independent Schools. He directed the Quebec-Labrador Mission Friends Camp in Mic-Mac-Malisett for Native American children, ran the SPHERE Program, and coordinated a program for adolescent girls in the public and private schools of Hartford, Connecticut. (B.A. Denison University, MAT University of Massachusetts, Amherst).
Mark W. Lauria is the Executive Director of the New York Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS), a not-for-profit organization which is the second largest state association of independent schools in the United States with over 185 member schools representing 77,000 students. Prior to assuming this position in 2009, Mark was the headmaster of Foothill Country Day School, a pre-K – Grade 8 school in California. He is a cum laude graduate of Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in Psychology and Literature. His M.A in Education, and his PhD in Educational Administration are both from Claremont Graduate University.