Philanthropist named president of foundation

SARASOTA — Conservationist and philanthropist Elizabeth Moore was named president of the TREE Foundation, an international nonprofit based in Sarasota that's dedicated to tree and forest research, exploration, education and conservation worldwide. 

Moore is a also supporter of regional environmental activities in Southwest Florida. She will begin her three-year term as president on Jan. 1, 2020, according to a press release. 

Moore was elected president during the TREE Foundation's Oct. 8 board meeting. Two new board members, Alan Winston and Michael Dexter, were also elected.

In 2016, Moore gifted $2 million to Mote Marine Laboratory to establish a coral reef research facility in the Florida Keys. The Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research & Restoration opened in 2017 on Summerland Key. She also donated over $1 million for the creation of the 6,000-square-foot Marine Science Center at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Bradenton, the release states. In 2016, with help from the Conservation Foundation of Gulf Coast, Moore purchased Triangle Ranch, an 1,100-acre parcel of land near Myakka River State Park. The land is now permanently preserved via a conservation easement that protects it from development.

In her new role, Moore will work closely with TREE Foundation Founder and Executive Director Margaret Lowman. The organization's mission is to save local and global forests and promote environmental education for youth. 

New board member Winston is a financial advisor and first vice president for Morgan Stanley in New York. Before his current career, Winston was a teacher and taught a young Lowman in his ninth-grade history class. Dexter, the other newly elected board member, is a former staffer for the Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Change Adaptation Office in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw a $1.2 billion annual grant program. He currently manages finance and grants for the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program. A Sarasota native, Dexter graduated from New College of Florida where he was an environmental student of Lowman's.

The TREE Foundation was co-founded in 1999 by Lowman, Michael Pender of Cavanaugh & Co., and commercial real estate agent Bob Richardson.