Thursday, October 1, 2026
About a week after Superstorm Sandy devastated the barrier island in 2012, Liz Nachman sprang into action.
Her then college-age son, Geoffrey Noss, who’s now 28, suggested selling T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Rebuild the Beach.” Nachman, busy with her own branding and marketing business, wasn’t sure she had the time. But within a few days, her son had received orders for 100 shirts.
“It exploded,” Nachman recalled.
She dived into ordering and selling the shirts, and gave all the proceeds to the Long Beach School District for needy children. She began donating the money in November 2012, and the donations continued throughout the school year. In all, about $45,000 went to the school district.
The apparel has been sold in stores and businesses around the city, including Synergy Gym and Tutti Frutti.
“She’s always giving before she takes,” Noss said of his mother. He is now an assistant guidance counselor at Syosset High School and continues to work as a substitute teacher and club advisor at Long Beach High School. “She takes care of others before herself,” he said, “and always gives back to the Long Beach community.”
Nachman has never stopped volunteering. For all of her efforts, the Herald has proudly named her its 2021 Person of the Year.
A decade ago, Nachman established an annual scholarship for the high school. The money, between $250 and $300, goes to a student for an essay he or she writes. Each year, Nachman comes up with a question — for example, who played a major role in your high school life? A student can choose from a number of scholarship programs, including Nachman’s. She reads every one of the submissions and decides on a winner.
Nachman, 59, was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a well-to-do suburb of Cleveland, the daughter of a mechanical engineer and a homemaker. “I didn’t need for anything,” she said. “But I came from a family of volunteers.”
Her parents, she said, were involved in a host of community and civic organizations. She went to Ithaca College in upstate New York, and during one summer vacation, she shared an apartment with friends in Long Beach. After she graduated, she returned to the city, and never left.
Three years ago, she started a business, Brand Strategies, which operates out of her home in Long Beach and the home of her business partner, Erik Hilliker, of Bayville. Nachman says her work with the company can occupy seven days a week, with long hours every day.
Hilliker explained that he and Nachman worked for another branding bonding company for about a decade before they started their own business. At the outset, they agreed that, at least in part, it had to be about giving back. They donated to animal rights organizations and to soup kitchens. This year they donated clothing and other items to three soup kitchens, two of them in Long Beach.
“Food pantries on Long Island and in Long Beach are stressed these days,” Hilliker said. “[Liz] is a mom, and she’s doing all these things. She just believes in giving back.”
Robert Blau, founder of the Long Beach Soup Kitchen, at 140 West Pine St., on said Nachman has played a key role in the nonprofit’s operations for years now. Just before Christmas, Blau said, she donated dozens of hats, gloves and scarves. “She does anything we need, when we need it,” he said. “She has been a considerable asset to the community.”
Nachman also donates and contributes her time to Arts in the Plaza, said the organization’s director, Sammi Metzger. Nachman was one of the first to donate to the program, which offers shows of paintings and other crafts on weekends outside City Hall. “She’s always been a great community supporter,” Metzger said.
In any other free time she has, Nachman said, she works with the Kiwanis Club, and serves on the Chamber of Commerce’s Health and Wellness Committee. Chamber Chairman Ian Danby, who has known Nachman for about eight years, said he sees her “all over town,” and described her as a “do-er and a wonderfully positive person.”
Nachman is a chamber board of directors nominee, Danby said, adding that she plays a vital role on the health committee, including getting key videos for “Wellness Wednesdays,” on which the chamber offers clips to help with anything and everything in general health.
“She’s a wonderful person who only wants to help the community,” Danby said.
The ongoing Rebuild the Beach project offers not only T-shirts, but sweatshirts, hats, blankets, beanies and baseball caps. Much of the sales are generated on social media and by word of mouth, and most of the proceeds go to one of several charitable causes Nachman supports. The T-shirts sell for $25 to $50.
“I like to donate wherever I can,” Nachman said. “There’s need everywhere.”
She can often be spotted on the beach during cleanups. She tagged along last summer when Fabien Cousteau, a grandson of the legendary French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, visited Long Beach to promote a major beach cleanup.
Nachman said she is following the example set by her parents. “I just like to continue what they did,” she said. “I like to pay it forward.”
City Council member Liz Treston, who has known Nachman for years, said, “Liz is one of the most generous, kind-hearted people I know in the City of Long Beach. I don’t know what motivates her to do what she does. But every time I see her on Facebook doing something, I post, ‘Be like Liz.’”
