Our Team
Brooklyn Greenway Initiative Staff
Hunter Armstrong, Executive Director
At BGI, Hunter leads efforts in planning, advocacy, and community engagement for greenways, and he has over two decades of experience improving public spaces and the public realm in New York City. A frequent speaker on NYC public spaces and mobility, Hunter has advised on multiple planning efforts including the 2025 Greater Greenways Plan, and convened the 2024 and 2026 NYC Greenways Summits. Hunter serves as co-chair of the NYC Greenways Coalition (50+ members), for which BGI was a founding organizer, and he was named to City & State’s Brooklyn Power 100 in 2026. With partners in 2024, Hunter released the first-ever Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway User Study with new research and insight on Brooklyn greenway uses, trends, and volume of use. This was the first-of-its-kind study of one of the most heavily used urban greenways in the US.
Previously, Hunter worked at the Natural Areas Conservancy and at CIVITAS, where he organized an ideas competition to improve the East River Esplanade in Manhattan. He has a masters degree in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia. When he has free time, Hunter is an open water swimmer in NYC and beyond.
Avvah Rossi, Director of Horticulture and Greenway Stewardship
Avvah works at the Naval Cemetery Landscape with the staff to help maintain the space and its plantings and support visitors' engagement with its biodiversity and ecology. She also works on BGI's stewardship and greening projects along the greenway. She is a horticulturist and ISA-certified arborist with experience from many botanical gardens, public parks and and historical gardens. She enjoys teaching people about plants as part of her work in public gardens: including horticulture, arboriculture, and agriculture practices. She is excited to work with BGI to foster thriving habitat for native plants and community involvement in everything from seed saving to street tree care.
Christine Carey, Naval Cemetery Landscape and Greenways Gardener
Board of Directors
Chair – Richard B. Miller
Energy and Transportation Consultant
Vice Chair – Kati Solomon
Vice President of Operations, Bryant Park Corporation / 34th Street Partnership
Treasurer – Ted Weissberg
Executive Chairman, Digital Marketing Institute
Secretary – Wes Jacobs
Rose Cay Capital
Rachel Banay, Director of Applied Insights, Cityblock Health
Rodrigo Bandeira, BTG Pactual
Terri Carta, Executive Director, Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy
Melina Flabiano, Estee Lauder
Deborah Flynn, Design Consultant
Elijah Hutchinson
Katie Keimel
Robert Pirani, Director, NY-NJ Harbor & Estuary Program Hudson River Foundation
Eric Pitt, Chief Commercial Officer, Emergent Climate
Michelle Rabinowitz Carney
Andrew Simons, Principal, emphas!s design, inc
Tiffany Stone
Support
Jitasa, Bookkeeping and Accounting
Tech4results, Website and IT Support
emphas!s design, inc, Graphic and Wayfinding Design
NCL Advisory Committee
Anna Bakis
Sarah Kornbluth
Jeffrey Longhenry
Penn Marchael
Andrew Ullman