Faculty/Staff

MICHAEL CATANIA

Catania is the founder and president of Conservation Resources Inc, a nonprofit conservation organization that provides technical and financial assistance to the conservation community in the Garden State. He has been extensively involved with conservation, environmental and land use policy issues in New Jersey for more than 30 years. An attorney, he began his career with the Office of Legislative Services, the central non-partisan staff agency for the New Jersey Legislature.

From 1974 to 1982, Catania staffed the various agricultural and environmental committees of the legislature, and drafted many of New Jersey's conservation and environmental laws including the Pinelands Protection Act, the Conservation and Historic Preservation Restriction Act, the Natural Areas System Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers System Act, as well as several of the Green Acres Bond Acts. In 1982, he became the first director of the Office of Regulatory Services at the NJDEP, where he was responsible for overseeing the adoption and enforcement of all DEP regulations. In 1986, Catania became the deputy commissioner of DEP, serving in that position under two Governors and three commissioners until 1990.

After teaching environmental law and policy for three semesters as visiting professor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics and Cook College at Rutgers, Catania continued working with The Nature Conservancy of New Jersey, where he was executive director from 1991 until 2003. Previously, he served as a founding member and co-chair of the Stockton Alliance and was the vice chair of the Mendham Borough Environmental Commission. In 1998, he was the co-chair of the Coalition to Preserve Natural Resources.

Catania holds a BA from Livingston College, an MA in political science from Rutgers University, where he was an Eagleton Fellow, as well as a JD from the Rutgers School of Law in Camden. He is a member of the NJ Bar and has been admitted to practice law here since 1981.