Understand Our Mission

A businessman, philanthropist and former CEO of Maher Terminals LLC, Brian Maher is founder and chairman of Maher Charitable Foundation.

Brian was a maritime industry leader from 1969 until 2007, when he and his brother Basil sold Maher Terminals. Maher Terminals is a major marine terminal operator providing services to the shipping industry in the Port of New York/New Jersey and in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Brian founded Maher Charitable Foundation in 2009 to seek out and fund improved educational opportunities for children in New Jersey. He has spearheaded many of the Foundation’s early childhood education initiatives and provided key volunteer leadership to Pre-K Our Way, the community-based effort to expand New Jersey’s high-quality preschool program.

Brian served as a past chair of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and former vice chair of St. Peter’s College Board of Trustees. Brian is a past member of the Board of Trustees for NJ Seeds, NJN Foundation, Regional Business Partnership, Regional Plan Association and of the Board of Overseers of New Jersey Institute of Technology. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Ohio State University.

Amanda Maher is the president of Maher Charitable Foundation.

Amanda is an adjunct professor of political science at Drexel University. Her academic interests focus on the role of citizens in contemporary democracy. As a graduate student, she wrote about the effects of inequality on citizen participation and the possibility of promoting civic engagement through institutional design.

Amanda owns and operates The Meeting House restaurant in Princeton, NJ with her husband Amar Gautam.

Prior to her graduate work, Amanda was a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York City.

Amanda has a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Duke University. She is on the board of trustees of Princeton Day School, which her three children attend.

Margarethe Laurenzi is executive director of Maher Charitable Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s efforts to expand access and funding for high-quality early childhood education for New Jersey children, invest in the Clinton Hill community in Newark’s South Ward, foster civic learning, and enhance workforce development.

Before joining Maher, Margarethe served as chief philanthropic officer at the Community Foundation of New Jersey. She led grantmaking, advised fundholders on their giving strategies, and worked with other funders and nonprofit partners to limit the use of solitary confinement and advance youth justice reform, increase representation and support for unaccompanied minors and their families, and broaden access of low-income women to capital through microlending. She spearheaded efforts to promote the vital role of women in philanthropy by advising the Impact100 giving circles that CFNJ hosts.

Margarethe served as a development officer at the Rutgers University Foundation during the state university’s first billion-dollar capital campaign. For nearly two decades, she led her own nonprofit and education consultancy, working with The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Fordham University, and the Central Park Conservancy, among others. She managed the editorial process for several books, including Jeffrey Sachs’ best-selling The End of Poverty.

Margarethe is co-president of the Women@NJPAC board, a board member of NJPAC and the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, a longtime member of Impact100 Essex, and chair of the advisory board for Jazz House Kids in Montclair. She formerly led the Medical Needs Foundation and was vice chair of the Jazz House Kids board.

Active in alumni affairs for Princeton University, where she received her AB in Politics, Margarethe is a vice president of her class and serves on the area Princeton Prize in Race Relations committee. Margarethe was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Fellow in Florence, Italy, and speaks Spanish and Italian.

Originally from Buffalo, NY, Margarethe is a 25-year resident of Mountain Lakes, NJ, where she and her husband Mark raised their three grown children.

Barbara Reisman has dedicated her career to advocating for high-quality early childhood education for children birth to five.

As senior advisor to the Maher Charitable Foundation, Barbara has had a leading role in the Foundation’s efforts to reduce inequality by making substantial investments in policy advocacy and programs for young children and their families, including expanded access to high-quality early childhood care and education. Along with other critical projects, Barbara helped guide the Foundation in the design, renovation, and construction of several state-of-the-art birth-to-five early childhood centers in New Jersey.

From 1997 to 2016, Barbara was Executive Director of The Schumann Fund for New Jersey, where she focused the Fund’s early childhood grantmaking on strategic policy and program initiatives that helped make New Jersey’s preschool system an exemplar for other states. The Schumann Fund also supported parent and community organizing to improve public schools.

From 1986 to 1997, Barbara was the Executive Director of the Child Care Action Campaign (CCAC), a national advocacy organization. She is the author of numerous articles and publications on the economics of child care and childcare policy.

A Montclair, NJ resident, Barbara holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MA in History from Rutgers University, and a BA from Brown University.

Nicholas A. Chiaravalloti is the owner of ANJ LLC, a consulting firm that provides strategic consulting services to private sector clients. ANJ assists clients with the development of goals and defined outcomes, working with clients to address strategies to establish long-term meaningful relationships with public and private stakeholders. ANJ is also positioned to assist clients with specific short-term, time-sensitive project needs.

Nicholas served as an Assemblyman for the 31st Legislative District from 2016 to 2022. The 31st Legislative District covers all of Bayonne and parts of Jersey City. He also served as Majority Whip from 2020 to 2022.

In 2017, Nicholas received a Doctorate in Education from St. Peter’s University. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the Rutgers-Newark School of Law, becoming a member of the New Jersey Bar in 1998, and received a BA in History from The Catholic University of America.

Nicholas has also served as the State Director for the Office of United States Senator Robert Menendez. He was a partner in the law firm of Weiner & Lesniak, LLP from 2002 to 2007.

Nicholas currently serves on the New Jersey Broadband Commission, the Executive Board of the Boys Scouts of America, Northern New Jersey Council, the Executive Board of the Hudson County Chamber of Commerce, and the Regional Planning Association New Jersey Committee.

Sam Crane has been a long and familiar presence in New Jersey’s philanthropic, public and private sectors. As principal of CraneConsulting LLC, he has specialized in strategic planning as well as governmental and community affairs consulting. As philanthropic advisor to Brian Maher, Sam helped establish the Maher Charitable Foundation, and guided the Foundation’s participation in Pre-K Our Way, the nonpartisan and nonprofit effort to encourage effective, high-quality preschool programs in each of New Jersey’s communities. He has also been instrumental in realizing the Foundation’s vision for state-of-the-art early learning facilities in Newark and Passaic.

Previously, Sam was senior vice president, external affairs for Maher Terminals LLC, a marine terminal operating company with facilities in New Jersey and British Columbia. Earlier, Sam served as president of the Regional Business Partnership, a private nonprofit business organization devoted to regional economic and business development in Newark and Northern New Jersey. He held several senior positions in government finance and policy development, including his service from 1992 to 1994 as State Treasurer under Governor Florio. In that position, Sam was the chief financial officer for the State of New Jersey and managed the state’s annual budget, all revenue collections, and the state employee pension fund.