Officers and Directors

President

Alicia L. Downey is an antitrust advisor and commercial litigator and managing partner of Boston-based Downey Law LLC. She is the former chair of the board of directors of the Boston Dance Alliance, Inc., and was formerly a director of Needham Extended Day Program, Inc., a trustee of the Winsor School, and co-cookie manager for her daughter’s Girl Scout troop. A resident of Needham since 1993, she has been a director of the Needham Land Trust since its inception.

Treasurer

Dan Dain is a founding member of the Needham Land Trust and an attorney with a land-use litigation practice at the real estate development boutique law firm of Dain Torpy in Boston. He is also a Managing Member of the Restaurant Investment Group, which manages an equity fund created to support start-up independent restaurants in the Boston area. A resident of Needham since 2000, Dan is chairman of the Town of Needham Golf Club Advisory Committee.

Secretary

Roy A. Cramer is a partner at the law firm of Frieze Cramer Rosen & Huber LLP in Wellesley, where he specializes in real estate law, including zoning and environmental matters. He is currently a member of the Walker Pond Watershed Association and served for many years as a member of the Needham Conservation Commission, Needham Town Meeting, Needham Golf Course Advisory Committee, Needham Exchange Club, and Newton/Needham Chamber of Commerce. Roy has been a director of the Needham Land Trust since its inception.

Directors

Allen Downey is a professor emeritus at Olin College, Principal Data Scientist at PyMC Labs, and the author of Probably Overthinking It, Think Python, Think Bayes, Think Stats and other books related to computer science and data science. He served on the Needham Trails Committee in 2007-08 and does volunteer trail maintenance. Allen is a runner, cyclist, and frequent user of public land in Needham and surrounding towns. He has been a Needham resident since 2004.

Robert Kubica is Managing Director, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer for The Davis Companies, a Boston based real estate investment, development and management firm. He serves on the Board of Overseers for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay and co-chairs the leasing committee for the Boston Bar Association. A Needham resident, Rob joined the Needham Land Trust Board in 2017.

Susan McGarvey is a former Membership Director for the Trustees of Reservations and former president, membership chair, and board member of the Needham League of Women Voters. In addition to her work promoting open space preservation and community civic engagement, she has been a Town Meeting Member (Precinct G) since 2010. A resident of Needham since1978, she joined the Needham Land Trust Board in 2021.

Jeanne McKnight is a retired attorney, formerly with KP Law, P.C., a firm concentrating on municipal law, serving as Town Counsel, City Solicitor or Special Counsel to numerous Massachusetts cities, towns and districts. Jeanne headed KP Law’s real estate practice group, helping municipalities to acquire conservation lands and restrictions, enforce restrictions, and grant restrictions on municipal land. Jeanne has served on the Needham Planning Board since 2006, and is also on the Board of the Needham League of Women Voters. A resident of Needham since 1989, she has been a Director of the Needham Land Trust since its inception.

Richard A. Oetheimer is Of Counsel in the Boston office of the national law firm Goodwin Procter LLP, where his practice includes a wide variety of real estate and land use litigation. Rich has served since 2004 on the Massachusetts Advisory Board of The Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation nonprofit organization dedicated to Conserving Land for People, and he currently serves as Vice-Chair. He has been a resident of Needham since 1993. He joined the Needham Land Trust Board in 2018.

Dawn Stolfi Stalenhoef is a partner with Boston-based Casner & Edwards, LLP, where she works as an interdisciplinary regulatory attorney, drawing on her diverse experience in the public and private sectors to provide regulatory compliance and transactional counseling across a broad array of subjects including environmental regulation, brownfields redevelopment, land use permitting, municipal law, energy regulation, securities regulation, as well as regulation of nonprofits and private foundations. Dawn holds a master’s degree in environmental studies and worked in the consulting field as an environmental scientist before becoming a lawyer. A resident of Needham since 2000, Dawn served on the Needham Trails Committee and was a member of the Needham Conservation Commission from 2008 to 2013. Dawn joined the Needham Land Trust board in 2017.

Stephen Frail is a Member-at-Large for the Town of Needham Climate Action Committee, which advises and assists the Town of Needham, through the Select Board, in the implementation of policies and practices to achieve the objectives of the Town’s Climate Action Roadmap and to support the state’s attainment of 2050 Net Zero goals. Stephen also served as Chair of the Town of Needham Climate Action Planning Committee, which developed the Town’s first Climate Action Roadmap, and has been a Needham Town Meeting Member since 2020. Stephen joined the Needham Land Trust board in 2024.