Leadership Team Update

At its January Annual Meeting, the Board of Directors of Delaware Canal 21 elected Richard Henriques of Brownsburg to be its new Chairman of the Board, replacing Co-Founder of the organization, Allen Black of Point Pleasant, who was elected to the newly created position of Chairman Emeritus. Black had requested the change in status, having led the relatively new non-profit since its inception in 2012.

Richard Henriques (Chairman of the Board)

Henriques is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania.  Prior to his appointment at Penn, Dick served as the CFO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, and prior to that, Dick was the Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller at Merck & Co.

Dick said that he is honored and humbled to follow Allen as Chair of Delaware Canal 21 and help advance its mission to sustainably water the 60 miles of the Delaware Canal.  It should be known, he continued, that in the words of an avid supporter, Allen remains “Inspirer-in-Chief”.

Doug Dolan, Executive Director of Delaware Canal 21 said the organization takes great pride in the strength of its board and its ability to embrace change. The other members of the board include Randy Apgar, Boyce Budd, Lynn Bush (Secretary), Betsy Falconi, Bill Kiesling (Vice Chairman), Don McCloskey, and Craig Miller (Treasurer), with William Collins of the landscape architecture firm Simone Collins serving as Technical Advisor.

Doug Dolan praised the new Chairman Emeritus, saying that Black’s insight, skill, and knowledge has provided direction and enthusiasm for Delaware Canal 21 for the past nine years. “Through Allen’s leadership, Delaware Canal 21 has grown from a concept in 2012 to a recognized, respected and energetic non-profit advocate for the sustainability and survival of the Canal”. In its nine years of existence, Delaware Canal 21 has brought in more than one million dollars in grants to support maintenance and long-range planning for the Canal.

Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I expect to remain quite active in Delaware Canal 21 and its efforts to save the Delaware Canal from extinction through deferred maintenance.

- Allen Black (Chairman Emeritus and “Inspirer-in-Chief”)

Allen recognized early on that the state park’s budget would never be enough to provide the kind of first-class maintenance necessary for the future survival of the Canal. So, he set as Delaware Canal 21’s top priority finding a new business model for the Canal, one that would identify new and different sources of revenue to support vastly enhanced maintenance for the canal waterway.

It was through Allen’s tenacity that potential board and advisory members were attracted to the mission and embraced the need, that we were able to gain the trust of organizations such as PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor with whom we would work to make a credible difference in the future of the Canal. Allen was instrumental in attracting the attention of the William Penn Foundation to financially support the Delaware Canal Vision Study (2017) and other relevant projects conducted by Delaware Canal 21. In this way, Delaware Canal 21 brings new twenty-first century solutions to this nineteenth century Canal. Under Allen’s guidance, Delaware Canal 21 has developed a bold new business model, a new paradigm for the Canal that will enable the Canal to generate supplemental revenues that will afford top notch maintenance and planning.