During his tenure at the middle school, Suozzo has made character education a focus of his office. He introduced Timberlane students to the Six Pillars of Character project, an initiative of the nationally acclaimed Character Counts! program developed by the Josephson Institute. Working with classroom teachers Suozzo helped to build a climate that recognized and rewarded the character traits known as the Six Pillars: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, caring, citizenship and fairness. He brought best-selling author and girl-on-girl bullying researcher Rachel Simmons to Timberlane in 2006. Girls Against Bullying, an all-student group organized to raise awareness of female aggression at Timberlane, was formed in the wake of Simmons’ well-received public appearance and workshops with students.

A former successful boys soccer and tennis coach at Central High School, Suozzo helped develop and implement the district’s middle and high school peer mediation program and led the effort to create a new code of conduct for Timberlane that was consistent with the one used at Central High School.

In 2007 Suozzo served as the school’s point person with contractors building a major wing at Timberlane. Working with faculty and the project’s on-site managers, Suozzo was credited with helping the 10-classroom addition open on time and at minimal disruption to students and programming.

Suozzo was also instrumental in the development of the middle school’s new class schedule, implemented in the 2007-08 school year, and has been a key facilitator of Timberlane’s sister school relationship with the Usizolwethu Primary School in South Africa, begun in 2005.

Suozzo holds a bachelor’s degree from Elizabethtown College in Lancaster, Pa., and a master’s degree in education administration from Rider University.

He and his family live in Flemington.