The Silvio Laccetti Foundation has just announced a new award, the Charlie Kontos Environmental Activist Award. This award has been named for one of Prof. Laccetti’s Stevens students who went on to begin a promising career in Wildlife Biology. Charlie Kontos was 33 when he died suddently of an undiagnosed heart condition in 2010.
Charlie was an intrepid environmentalist, having done major field work in the Rocky Mountains, Caribbean Islands and in the jungles of Panama – as well as having performed intensive work in New Jersey. A most important result of his NJ work was the discovery of the fisher cat’s return to the Garden State. This finding was widely publicized in his field publications and in the popular press.
The winner of this years first Kontos Award is Connor Cunningham, a senior at Glen Rock High in NJ. His achievements in environmental work to date have been stunning as the articles below will show. Since being honored by the Foundation, Connor has wholeheartedly jumped into our Venice Project, and will now be a focal point and contact for the Volunteers 4 Venice, which focuses on safeguarding the environment of Venice. In particular Vols 4 Venice seeks to ban cruise ships from the canals and lagoons of Venice – an effort supported by a good number of Garibaldi Award winners.
Recipient chosen for Charlie Kontos Environmental Activist Award
GLEN ROCK — A rising high school senior is using microbes to remove dangerous algae from a local pond.
Connor Cunningham, a 17-year-old Glen Rock High School student, is cleaning up the algae bloom in Saddle River County Park’s duck pond by releasing microorganisms into the water.