Board of Directors
Officers:
Peter Hausmann - Chairman
David Anderson - Vice Chair
Jean Nelson - Secretary
Ted Ladd - Treasurer
Mark Ackelson
Maria Elena Campisteguy
Ann Stevenson Colley
Michael Dennis
Ogden Driskill
David Hartwell
Sherry Fisher Huber
Lawrence R. Kueter
Glenn Lamb
Gretchen Long
Susan Traylor Lykes
Christopher Glenn Sawyer
Maryanne Tagney-Jones
Teresa Villegas
Peter Welles
Ken Woodcock
Peter Hausmann (Chairman)
Peter Hausmann is Chairman of the Natural Lands Trust, the largest regional land trust in the Delaware Valley. He has been a Board Member of The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania and the Chairman of its real estate committee for over a decade. Previously, Mr. Hausmann was on the Board of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Green Space Alliance and 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania. He was a founding Trustee of the Willistown Conservation Trust. He also is a principal in a not-for profit organization that has successfully purchased and re-sold over $80 million of land to conservation buyers in the Willistown area.
Mr. Hausmann is Chairman of the Chester County General Authority. He was a member of the Chester County Planning Commission and its Chairman for a number of years. He was instrumental in developing Chester County’s Comprehensive Plan which was awarded the American Planning Association’s Outstanding Planning Award.
Mr. Hausmann was the Chair of Chester County Citizens to Save Open Space which was responsible for mounting public support for Chester County’s $50 million Open Space Bond initiative, the first open space initiative in the region and the first county-wide open space initiative in Pennsylvania. President Bush Sr. awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award to Mr. Hausmann for his efforts in 1990. He has since served as an advisor to several other open space initiatives in recent years.
Mr. Hausmann was active in commercial real estate for over 30 years. He founded Terramics Property Company, a commercial real estate development and management company, before it merged with Prentiss Properties Trust, a New York Stock Exchange Real Estate Investment Trust in late 1997. From late 1997 until April 2001, he was Executive Vice President and Regional Director for Northeast Operations at Prentiss. Mr. Hausmann was involved in the development of two LEEDS certified “green” office building in the greater Philadelphia area.
Mr. Hausmann graduated from Hamilton College with a B.A. and has a M.B.A. from Rutgers University. He also served as a First Lieutenant in Vietnam.
David Anderson (Vice Chair)
David Anderson is an attorney in Santa Barbara, California, specializing in land conservation law and nonprofit governance. He serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Lennox Foundation, Santa Barbara Foundation (Past Chair), and California Nature Conservancy. He is also a Past President of the board of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and served as its full-time Co-Executive Director for three years during a major restructuring of the staff priorities, board responsibilities and fundraising needs of the Museum. He also serves as General Counsel for the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, and is a Past President of that organization. Earlier in his legal career, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, General Counsel for the California Air Resources Board in Sacramento and Chairman of the Santa Barbara City Planning Commission. He is also active with conservation issues in Idaho, where he serves on the advisory council of the Wood River Land Trust and enjoys skiing, bicycling and river rafting.
Jean Nelson (Secretary)
Jean Nelson (Secretary), a native of Nashville, Tennessee, is the President and Executive Director of The Land Trust for Tennessee whose mission is to preserve the unique character of Tennessee’s natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations. She also serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Southern Environmental Law Center, headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, and on a number of other nonprofit boards.
She served in the Clinton/Gore Administration as the General Counsel for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and as the Director of the President’s Crime Prevention Council. Prior to these appointments, she served as Chief Deputy Attorney General for Tennessee for four years and for thirteen years as a partner with the Nashville law firm of Gullett, Sanford, Robinson and Martin. Her practice was a general business practice, concentrating on administrative law in the health care, transportation and telecommunications areas.
She has been active in numerous professional and nonprofit boards including: Board Member of the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Tennessee Bar; Vice-President of the Nashville Bar Association; Middle Tennessee Governor of the Tennessee Bar Association; Chair of the Organization of Chief Deputies of the National Association of Attorneys General; Member of the Metro Charter Commission for 15 years; President of the Tennessee Environmental Action Fund; Board of the Tennessee Environmental Council; Founding Co-Chair of Metro Greenways Commission for Nashville.
Ms. Nelson received her B.A. in English in 1969 and her J.D. in 1975, both from Vanderbilt University.
Ted Ladd (Treasurer)
Ted Ladd (Treasurer) is the Chairman Emeritus of Standish Mellon Asset Management Company LLC. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1959 and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1962.
Mr. Ladd is Clerk of the Wheelock College Corporation. He also serves on the Executive and Finance Committees. A member of the Board since 1974, he has served in the past as Chair of the Corporation, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Treasurer, Co-Chair of the Capital Campaign Steering Committee, Co-Chair of two Presidential Search Committees, and chair of the Executive Committee.
His other current responsibilities include Trustee of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Chair of the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations, Director of The Boston Company Asset Management Company, member of the Executive Committee of the Boston Economic Club, member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Director of the Conservation Law Foundation, Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, member of the Mellon New England Committee for Public Responsibility, Director of Standish Mellon Asset Management, Director of The Trustees of Reservations, member of the International Advisory Board of the Walden International Investment Group in San Francisco and East Asia, and member of the Board of Overseers of WGBH.
He has formerly served as a Director of Citizens Financial Group, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Harvard Management Company. Mr. Ladd received an Honorary Doctor of Education from Wheelock College in 1995.
Mark Ackelson
Mark Ackelson joined the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation as one of its original staff members in 1980 and has served as its president since 1994. Thanks to the team efforts at INHF, this highly successful land trust has worked with partners to help conserve over 100,000 acres of Iowa’s prairies, wetlands, woodlands, and river and trail corridors. While at INHF, he helped found the Upper Mississippi River Blufflands Alliance, Iowa Environmental Council and Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) Alliance. Nationally, he helped found the Land Trust Alliance and served in several leadership positions and also previously chaired the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.
Mark graduated with honors from the North Dakota State School of Science (Civil Engineering Technology) and with distinction from Iowa State University (Bachelor of Science, double major - Landscape Architecture and Recreation Resource Development [Forestry]). Mark is a registered Landscape Architect. He is also a graduate of Leadership Iowa and in 1997 received the Land Trust Alliance’s prestigious Kingsbury Browne Award for outstanding conservation leadership.
Maria Elena Campisteguy
Maria is the Executive Vice President/Principal of Metropolitan Group. She has extensive experience in communications, resource development, cross-cultural and intercultural communications, international marketing, strategic planning and program development. Maria Elena has also served as associate publisher for LATINA Style magazine, a leading magazine for Latina professionals and as executive director for the Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement.
Maria Elena holds a master’s in business administration, with a focus on international marketing, from Portland State University and a bachelor’s in languages from Georgetown University, with a specialty in Russian and Spanish. She is bilingual in English and Spanish, fluent in French, and has a working knowledge of Russian. She is passionate about sports, travel and her son, Andres Juan (AJ).
Ann Stevenson Colley
Ann Stevenson Colley has been the Executive Director and Vice President of The Moore Charitable Foundation since 1994. As the foundation’s first Executive Director, she worked closely with the founder to establish its environmental conservation mission. The foundation is considered a leading voice for responsible conservation on the local and national fronts. She lives in New York, and is on the board of Riverkeeper.
Michael Dennis
Michael Dennis, Director of Conservation Real Estate and Private Lands for The Nature Conservancy, directs and provides legal oversight of The Nature Conservancy’s conservation real estate programs, which close over 2,000 transactions a year totaling over $500 million. Since joining the Conservancy in 1975, Mr. Dennis has served as General Counsel, New England Field Director, and Eastern Regional Attorney. He received his B.A. from Northeastern University, J.D. Suffolk, University Law School; LLM, Tax law, Boston University Law. He is a member of the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, General Cousel for the Malpai Borderlands Group and member of the DC General Counsels Group.
Ogden Driskill
Ogden Driskill ranches his family’s land at the foot of Devils Tower on his 13,000 acre, historic Campstool Ranch, adjacent to the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. His family has been on that land for seven generations- raising cattle, horses, and buffalo. Ogden is the definition of a conservation rancher, and is known for basing his ranching methods on wildlife habitat and environmental health of the streams, meadows, and natural areas around him, rather than just finding a quick or inexpensive fix. When an invasive, non-native plant species began choking out the majority of the native grasses in his meadow, Driskill overlooked tried-and-true chemical herbicides and instead began raising a sheep species known for grazing on that invasive species. Soon Driskill had hundreds of happy sheep and a restored meadow—all without the use of herbicide or other chemicals.
Beyond the Campstool Ranch property line, Driskill’s dedication to conservation is as strong as ever. After graduating from the Wyoming Agricultural Leadership Program, Driskill became a founding member and board chair of the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust as well as the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts. He’s served as a past board member of the Wyoming Agricultural Leadership Council and as the Wyoming Stock Growers Region I Vice President. During his Board terms with these organizations, he’s worked hard to change the trend of subdividing larger ranch properties into what some call “ranchettes”, or smaller private ranches, which can have a detrimental effect on wildlife and big-picture conservation efforts in the area. The Alliance is honored to have such a powerful voice for land conservation and ranching in the West.
David Hartwell
David Hartwell has been president of Bellcomb Technologies Incorporated, a manufacturer of phenolic impregnated kraft honeycomb panel products since 1989. Previously, he managed several diverse business interests and has worked as a fundraising consultant. He served on the Land Trust Alliance board from 1992-2004. He was a co-founder of the Washington County Land Trust (now the Minnesota Land Trust) in 1991 and has been involved with numerous other environmental organizations, including the Minnesota Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the Belwin Foundation, the Centennial Valley Preservation Project, The Trumpeter Swan Society, the Conservation Endowment Fund, and the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History.
Sherry Fisher Huber
Sherry Fisher Huber has been the Executive Director of the Maine TREE Foundation since 1996. Prior to that she served as the Executive Director of the Maine Waste Management Agency (1989-1995) and as a consultant to private, non-profit organizations for fundraising and development.
She served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1976-1982. She ran for Governor unsuccessfully in 1982 and 1986.
Sherry chairs the Board of Directors of the Mainewatch Institute and is Board President of the Forest Society of Maine. She is a Trustee of the College of the Atlantic. She was a Trustee of The Nature Conservancy, Maine Chapter, from 1983-1993, serving as Chair of the Board from 1987-90, and again from 1996-2006. She served on TNC’s Board of Governors from 1987-1997. She is a member of the Maine Audubon Society’s Advisory Board and a Trustee Emerita of Waynflete School in Portland, Maine.
She is a Director of NatureServe, formerly the Association for Biodiversity Information, the Maine Center for Economic Policy and the Pine Tree State Arboretum. She is Treasurer of Maine Global Climate Change, Inc. She serves on the University of Maine School of Law Board of Visitors, the Maine League of Conservation Voters Board of Directors and is a member of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Leadership Council. She recently was elected to the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance.
Sherry is a graduate of Smith College and the recipient of the Down East Magazine Environmental Award in 2002.
Lawrence R. Kueter
Lawrence R. Kueter is a shareholder and a member of the Executive Committee with the Denver, Colorado law firm of Isaacson Rosenbaum P.C., a firm widely known for its real estate expertise and conservation practice. He joined the law firm in 1981, after four years with the City of Aurora, Colorado, where he was responsible for all legal matters relating to annexation, zoning, subdivision, and right of way matters for the City. A part of Mr. Kueter's law practice still focuses on municipal real estate law, involving rezoning approvals, annexations, public improvement financing, and development and redevelopment agreements.
Since 1990, his practice has included representing numerous landowners, local land trusts, governmental entities, and statewide and national conservation organizations in land conservation matters. He currently serves as legal counsel to the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts and the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust. He has been legal counsel to the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust since its creation in 1995. With his involvement with the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, and the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, he has been in the center of the movement in the Rocky Mountain West to create land trusts that are affiliated with statewide cattlemen's and stock growers associations.
On behalf of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, Mr. Kueter has played a key role in obtaining approval of legislation to clarify property tax burdens on conservation easements, to provide a tax credit for conservation easements in Colorado, and to permit post mortem donations of conservation easements.
Mr. Kueter is a frequent speaker to landowners, land trusts and at conferences of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts. He has also spoken on numerous topics at Land Trust Alliance Rallies. Since 1999, he has spoken to various audiences on land conservation matters over fifty times in most of the states of the Rocky Mountain West. In 2003 and 2004, he served on the Land Trust Alliance's Standards and Practices Revision Committee, and in 2004 and 2005, he co-chaired the Land Trust Alliance's Standards and Practices Program Design Steering Committee.
Mr. Kueter received his law degree from the University of Denver. He has a Masters Degree in economics from Wayne State University and received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Glenn Lamb
Glenn Lamb has been active with Columbia Land Trust since its founding in 1990, serving at various times as President, Vice-President and Secretary, and since 1999 as Executive Director. Mr. Lamb is inspired by the many private landowners throughout the northwest that have worked with land trusts to place their land in conservation, and believes that we all have much to learn by listening to the challenges and opportunities facing private landowners.
Mr. Lamb graduated from the University of Rochester, NY with degrees in Natural Resource Management and Sociology, and has a master in urban planning from the University of Oregon. Mr. Lamb has previously worked for county and city parks departments. Mr. Lamb has served on the board of the Washington State Parks Foundation, the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, the Chinook Trail Association and Habitat Partners, and he volunteers in the Big Brother Big Sister program.
Gretchen Long
Gretchen Long, in addition to serving on the Land Trust Alliance board, is a trustee of World Resources Institute, Washington, DC; the Sonoran Institute, Tucson, AZ;, and Scenic Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY. She is Vice Chair of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust. Having served as Chair of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) for several years, Ms. Long is now a Trustee Emeritus. Formerly she was also Chair of the Murie Center. In the nineties she was Chair of National Outdoors Leadership School (NOLS), the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and the Institute of Ecosystem Studies. In addition, she was Vice Chair of Environmental Defense (ED), and a trustee of Rails-to-Trails. Before her concentration in the conservation community, she served on several social service boards.
She moved to Wilson, Wyoming in the early nineties after raising a family and fulfilling a career as an executive search consultant in the east. She continues to spend some time in New York and New England. A graduate of Harvard Business School, she decided in 1990 to retire and focus her attention voluntarily in the environmental arena, particularly with organizations concerned with land-based matters. She has enjoyed helping sound organizations become even more effective. As a resident of the west, she sees the close interplay between public and privates lands, and in New England, the efforts of the land trusts to preserve special places from soaring growth.
Susan Traylor Lykes
Susan Traylor Lykes is a member of the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance. Elected to the board in 2002, she has served as Secretary and currently co-chairs the Development Committee. Ms. Lykes has been a member of the Board of Directors of The Teton Regional Land Trust for eight years, acting as President, Vice President and Treasurer. Ms. Lykes also serves on the Advisory Board of Conservation Solutions, a private, for-profit real estate investment firm that facilitates neighborhood-scale conservation.
Ms. Lykes holds a masters degree in town planning and was a city planner in Park City, Utah. There, she was one of the primary authors of Park City’s groundbreaking Sensitive Lands Ordinance, which was adopted in 1992. More recently, Ms. Lykes has used her planning skills in Teton County, Idaho, as a member of the citizens’ committee to rewrite the Teton County Comprehensive Plan.
A keen outdoorswoman and traveler, Ms. Lykes lives in Wyoming and Idaho.
Christopher Glenn Sawyer
Christopher Glenn Sawyer has been a partner in the law firm of Alston and Bird since 1985. He specializes in corporate governance and counseling, strategic planning, conservation, and real estate law. As a member of the Real Estate Practice Group, he has served as chair of its Finance and Investments Sections.
Mr. Sawyer currently serves on the Board of Directors of IDI and IDI Services Group, both headquartered in Atlanta, and on the Board of Directors of EDAW, headquartered in San Francisco. During his career, he has represented these clients and others nationally in the assemblage of land and the development of large multi-use planned communities, the development and leasing of commercial, retail, multi-family and industrial facilities, the acquisition and disposition of investment grade real estate, and the structuring of various real estate investment vehicles.
Mr. Sawyer also currently serves as national Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Trust for Public Land (TPL) in San Francisco, as Chairman of the Chattahoochee River Coordinating Committee (an effort to create a park and greenway along 180 miles of the river in Georgia), and President of the West Hill Foundation for Nature in Jackson, Wyoming. He was the founding chairman of TPL’s Georgia Advisory Board and The Nature Conservancy’s National Real Estate Advisory Board. He also currently serves on TPL’s National Real Estate Advisory Council, the Urban Land Institute’s Leadership Group, the Board of Directors of The Murie Center in Jackson, Wyoming, and the Yale University Divinity School’s Board of Advisors. He has been affiliated with numerous professional organizations, including Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Duke University Urban Property Development Council, and the Atlanta Bar Association, which he served as its president from 1989 – 1990.
Over the last five years, Mr. Sawyer has presented more than 50 speeches on real estate and conservation topics to various business, legal, civic and philanthropic groups across America. He has also received recognition for his work, ranging from a cover article in Georgia Trend to receiving the Ferguson Award as the Trust for Public Land’s outstanding national volunteer leader and the Turner Broadcasting System’s “Super 17” Award for his work in Atlanta. The Chattahoochee River Campaign, whose Campaign Coordinating Committee Mr. Sawyer started and chairs, also received the Harry West Golden Glasses Award from the Atlanta Regional Council for its visionary leadership in the Metropolitan Region.
Mr. Sawyer graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received his M. Div. from Yale University in 1975, and his J.D. from Duke University School of Law in 1978.
Maryann Tagney-Jones
Maryanne Tagney-Jones has worked on conservation issues and in Washington State environmental politics for 20 years. As the State Chair of Washington Conservation Voters (WCV) she worked extensively with elected officials, political professionals and volunteer organizations across the State to achieve conservation goals on both the state and local levels. Now Chair Emeritus of WCV Ms. Tagney-Jones keeps an active eye on politics while shifting her main focus to open space preservation through her position as Chair of the Cascade Land Conservancy Board.
The Tagney-Jones family moved to the Snoqualmie Valley in 1981, where Ms. Tagney-Jones worked for the local newspaper as reporter, photographer and anything else that needed doing on a small rural weekly. This led to her interest in politics and, combined with her addiction to running over the forested foothills of the Cascade Mountains, resulted in a career very different from the one she envisioned when studying to become an Educational Psychologist back at college in England.
Teresa Villegas
Teresa Villegas served as an Executive Fellow for the California Air Resources Board with funding from the Hewlett Foundation. She developed recommendations for improvements to the State’s Environmental Justice Program, all of which were approved by the Air Resources Board. Ms. Villegas previously served as Legislative Director for the Trust for Public Land in Sacramento. She is currently a public policy consultant for local governments and the Trust for Public Land. Ms. Villegas was appointed by the Mayor of Los Angeles to serve on the Environmental Affairs Commission. She also serves as a Board Member for the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide environmental advocacy group, and Amanecer Children’s Community Counseling Services, a local organization dedicated to the betterment of youth. She is an active member of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) and was an inaugural member of the HOPE Leadership Institute.
Peter Welles
Peter Welles is a Partner in Telluride Venture Partners, a private equity firm with diverse investments, and a Partner in the Internet-based Environmental News Network. Non-profit involvement includes serving as President of the Kensington Conservancy, an Ontario based land trust that is incorporated in both Canada and the United States. He is also a Trustee of the Cricket Island Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Horse Show Association of America and a member of the Board of Advisors of the United States Equestrian Team Foundation.
Former non-profit involvement includes having served nine years as a Trustee of the Minnesota Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, including two years as Chair. He also was a member of the organization’s National Development Council, served on the National Trustee Council and did extensive peer-to-peer board development work. Mr. Welles also served ten years on the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Land Trust, including 4 years as Vice President, as Chair of the Blake School Parent Association and as a member of the United States Ski Team’s Cross Country Competition Committee.
Mr. Welles is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and has completed Harvard University’s Initiative for Social Enterprise program, “Governing for Nonprofit Excellence.”
Ken Woodcock
Ken Woodcock is now a consultant to the AES Corporation, a global electric power company, and was involved in the founding of AES in 1981. Prior to AES, Ken served in the Federal government from 1967-1981 on energy/environmental policy issues. He is deeply involved in land preservation in Rhode Island. He is a Trustee with The Nature Conservancy's Rhode Island chapter and is a Trustee with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He has rebuilt a barn in Matunuck, RI and gifted it to the South Kingstown Land Trust for use as an environmental center. He is taking steps to preserve family property in Matunuck that is surrounded by salt water coastal ponds. When Ken is not conserving land, he finds himself traveling around the globe with his wife Dottie and working on the establishment of a historic house museum in Matunuck. He is an avid fly fisherman and supporter of numerous Washington, DC-area and Rhode Island arts, history, academic and environmental causes. Ken is also a Corporation Member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and serves on the Board of Visitors of the Business School of the University of Pittsburgh.
