I read with interest the excellent article by PAW intern Hannah Floyd ’27 on the New Jersey Pinelands and Princeton student and alumni involvement. She quotes John McPhee ’53 as expressing concern that “some semblance” of the region will still exist in the future. It will, thanks to another Princeton alumnus, Brendan Byrne ’49. I went to work in his first gubernatorial campaign when I graduated (as did classmates Henry Furst and Tony Tolles) and spent two years an assistant in his Governor’s Office. (Disclaimer: I later married his niece.) At the beginning of his second term he signed an executive order halting all development in the Pinelands, which was immediately challenged. I was by then a law clerk to the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which immediately heard the appeal, with Byrne arguing the case himself as I got to watch. The state legislature passed the comprehensive preservation legislation and so the court never issued any opinion. In 2004, a considerable portion was renamed the Brendan Byrne State Forest in his honor. But continued preservation still requires attention and advocacy. Thank you, Hannah and classmate professor Tom Givnish, for your preservation work.
I read with interest the excellent article by PAW intern Hannah Floyd ’27 on the New Jersey Pinelands and Princeton student and alumni involvement. She quotes John McPhee ’53 as expressing concern that “some semblance” of the region will still exist in the future. It will, thanks to another Princeton alumnus, Brendan Byrne ’49. I went to work in his first gubernatorial campaign when I graduated (as did classmates Henry Furst and Tony Tolles) and spent two years an assistant in his Governor’s Office. (Disclaimer: I later married his niece.) At the beginning of his second term he signed an executive order halting all development in the Pinelands, which was immediately challenged. I was by then a law clerk to the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which immediately heard the appeal, with Byrne arguing the case himself as I got to watch. The state legislature passed the comprehensive preservation legislation and so the court never issued any opinion. In 2004, a considerable portion was renamed the Brendan Byrne State Forest in his honor. But continued preservation still requires attention and advocacy. Thank you, Hannah and classmate professor Tom Givnish, for your preservation work.