About Rita
Rita has been a member of the Harding Town Committee since 2020 and is currently serving her first year as Deputy Mayor. During her first two years in office, she co-chaired the Centennial Committee and spearheaded the Centennial calendar (http://hardingnjcentennial.com/calendar/), the Centennial montage video (http://hardingnjcentennial.com/100-years-of-harding/), the Centennial page to celebrate and honor our veterans (http://hardingnjcentennial.com/our-veterans/), and the many events held throughout the Centennial year including the Centennial Montage Dinner and a Movie night at which the montage was premiered, the Centennial Gala Featuring Art in Bloom, and the Centennial Dedication Event in Memorial Park. See photos here: http://hardingnjcentennial.com/photo-gallery/.
Rita also served or currently serves on the Glen Alpin Subcommittee, the Citizens Park Advisory Committee (CPAC), the Board of Health, Harding Open Space Trust (HOST), the Historical Preservation Committee, and is liason to the Board of Education.
Professionally, Rita is the owner of Chipperson Law Group, an intellectual property boutique law firm, which she founded in 2003. She also simultaneously served as Of Counsel to Flaster Greenberg of Cherry Hill from 2005–2009. She is an experienced litigator and negotiator. She is also a member of the New York and New Jersey bars and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and many federal district courts.
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Rita worked as an automation engineer for various companies including Johnson Controls, Inc., a fortune 200 company, and Cosentini Associates. As an engineer, Rita designed and supervised the installation of a wide variety of control systems including those installed at the National Museum of the American Indian, Richard B. Fischer Center for the Performing Arts, Goldman Sachs in Bangalore, India, and the Time Warner Center. Rita received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University in 1993 and a law degree from Touro Law School, Cum Laude in 2000.
Rita has served on the Board of Adjustment since 2017 and, before that, she served on the Environmental Commission. She has been a member of the Harding TWIG since 2014 and was its treasurer from 2017-2023. She is also on the board of the Morris County chapter of Covenant House, and serves as the secretary for the Harding Township/Green Village Bridle Path Association. She was treasurer for the re-election campaign of Mayor Chris Yates and Dev Modi in 2017.
She is married to David Chipperson, who currently serves on the Harding Planning Board and previously served on the Historical Preservation Committee. They have two children, Zachary and Grace, two black labs, Hunter and Boomer, and a cat named Pax.
