Longwood Gardens Appoints Three New Members to Board of Trustees

Press Release

KENNETT SQUARE, PA — Longwood Gardens today announced the appointment of Carol Chan, CFA, Inter-American Development Bank; Avery Stabler, Walmart Connect; and Michael Vaughan, Ph.D., University of Delaware (UD) to its Board of Trustees. They join the board as Michael Bontrager, Robert (Bob) McCracken Peck, and Margaretta (Peg) K. Stabler conclude their service.

“We are grateful to Michael Bontrager, Bob Peck, and Peg Stabler for their combined 66 years of dedicated service to the Longwood Gardens Board of Trustees,” said Paul B. Redman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Longwood Gardens. “Their leadership helped guide us through years of transformational growth and mission impact from the Main Fountain Garden Revitalization, to Longwood Reimagined, to the acquisition of Longwood at Granogue, which made Longwood a multisite organization that now stewards nearly 1,700 acres of the Brandywine Valley. We offer a very special thanks to Peg, grandniece of Longwood Founder Pierre S. du Pont, for her dedicated and extraordinary 38 years of service to Longwood.”

The new trustees bring expertise in finance, marketing, and education. Avery Stabler and Michael Vaughan have previously served on Longwood’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee as non-trustee board committee members, while Carol Chan has served on Longwood’s Endowment Investment Committee.

“Carol Chan, Avery Stabler, and Michael Vaughan bring valuable expertise in global financial planning, experiential marketing, and academic administration and education outreach,” said Ann C. Rose, Chair of the Longwood Gardens Board of Trustees. “Their valuable experience and insight will help ensure Longwood continues to advance its mission, inspire guests, and remain an innovative educational and cultural leader for generations to come.”  

Carol Chan, CFA, is the Head of Investments/Chief Investment Officer, Retirement Plans at the Inter-American Development Bank Group, where she oversees the strategic management and operational aspects of more than $9 billion of retirement trust assets. She works directly with the governing committees on developing investment policies, recommending investment strategies, conducting external investment manager due diligence, portfolio construction, liquidity, and risk management.  

A resident of Rockville, MD, Chan has held various leadership positions in strategic planning and financial management in other financial, travel and leisure Fortune 500 companies. Prior to her current position, Chan was the Deputy Chief Investment Officer at EY US LLP and formerly a member of the Global Manager Research team at Hewitt Associates, and served as the Director of Trust Investments at a corporate plan sponsor.

Avery Stabler serves as Team Lead at Walmart Connect, where she oversees the media strategy and data-driven thought leadership for Unilever’s marketing activations, helping Unilever’s portfolio of brands leverage Walmart’s vast ecosystem of consumer, retail, and media capabilities to drive business growth. Before joining Walmart, she was Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Earlier in her career, the Wilmington, DE resident held senior advertising and partnership roles at Hearst Magazines and Condé Nast Publishing.

Michael Vaughan, Ph.D, serves as the University of Delaware (UD) Chief Community Engagement Officer and works to promote and foster the University’s partnerships with the surrounding community. Through collaboration with campus leaders and others, he leads the Community Engagement Initiative (as faculty director), as well as the Delaware State University-UD Dual Degree Engineering Programs and Del Tech Connected Degree programs, all of which are initiatives designed to advance UD’s identity and impact as an engaged research university and community partner. With more than 34 years of academic administrative experience at UD, Vaughan most recently served as Vice Provost for Equity and as Associate Dean for Engineering Undergraduate Education. A resident of Newark, DE, Vaughan also holds a secondary faculty appointment as an Instructor within the College of Engineering.

About Longwood Gardens 

In 1906, industrialist Pierre S. du Pont (1870–1954) purchased a small farm near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, to protect a collection of historic trees from being cut for timber. Today, Longwood stewards nearly 1,700 acres across two properties: Longwood Gardens, one of the world’s great gardens, encompassing more than 1,100 acres in Kennett Square and renowned for its extraordinary beauty and horticultural excellence; and Longwood at Granogue, a 505-acre cultural landscape in Wilmington, Delaware.

Guided by its mission to bring joy and inspiration to everyone through the beauty of nature, conservation, and learning, Longwood advances horticulture and conservation through scientific research, global plant exploration, and innovative efforts with partners worldwide to safeguard and propagate rare and endangered plants. Longwood also invests in the future of the profession through tuition-free education programs including the Professional Horticulture Program, which has prepared generations of horticulturists for nearly eight decades, and the Longwood Fellows Program, which prepares professionals to lead public gardens around the world. Together, these programs connect a global network of more than 3,000 alumni who are shaping the future of horticulture and public gardens. For more information, visit longwoodgardens.org.