Board of Directors
Members of the Land Trust Alliance’s Board of Directors are passionate land conservationists who collectively govern the Alliance, setting its course and providing expert guidance. Current and past members include working ranchers, legal professionals and healthcare experts. Their volunteer service is invaluable, and the Alliance is immensely grateful for their donated time and talent.
Lise H. Aangeenbrug
Lise Aangeenbrug is Executive Director of Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO). The organization takes much of the state’s lottery money and invests it in open space, parks, and wildlife habitats. Lise grew up in Kansas, one of three daughters of a college professor father and college researcher mother. She attended St. Lawrence College, received BA’s in political science and biology, and then attended Yale, where she received her master’s from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
After graduate school, Lise spent time in Kenya doing field work before returning to Colorado in 1993, where she helped start GOCO. She served as its Deputy Director and Acting Executive Director until 2001, when she left to become Director of Programs at Colorado Conservation Trust. She returned to GOCO in 2006, and was hired as their permanent Executive Director in 2009.
David H. Anderson
David H. Anderson is an attorney who specialized in land use and environmental law for 35 years in Santa Barbara, California. Now retired and based in Ketchum, Idaho, he continues to provide pro bono services to land trusts in Idaho, Oregon and California on land conservation law and nonprofit governance issues. Over the years, he has served on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Lennox Foundation (past chair), California Nature Conservancy, Santa Barbara Foundation (past chair), Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (past chair and past co-executive director), Santa Barbara City Planning Commission (past chair), Land Trust for Santa Barbara County (past chair and general counsel) and the Housing Trust for Santa Barbara County. He currently serves on the board of the Wood River Land Trust (past chair) and is an advisor to the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. He served on the board of the Land Trust Alliance (past chair) from 2001 to 2013, and rejoined the board in 2017. In his early legal career, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, general counsel for the California Air Resources Board, and visiting associate professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law. He is a graduate of Occidental College (B.A.), University of Southern California (J.D.) and Stanford University (J.S.M. in Environmental Law). He and his wife, Lyn, enjoy skiing (on bluebird days), bicycling, hiking and time with their two grandkids.
Laurie R. Andrews
Laurie Andrews is executive director for Jackson Hole Land Trust in Wyoming and has launched complex land projects, completed numerous land deals and monitored many easements on foot and horseback with local landowners. She has also built strong working relationships with numerous other federal, state and local organizations. Prior to the move to Jackson, Laurie was director of philanthropy for the Washington state office of The Nature Conservancy, raising more than $12 million annually. Laurie grew up on a peach orchard in northern California and has a Bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University.
Robert A. Ayres
Bob Ayres manages ranchlands in the Texas Hill Country and the Davis Mountains of West Texas. In the 1990s, Bob guided his family through a long-range planning process that resulted in the permanent protection of the Shield Ranch through conservation easements with the Nature Conservancy and the City of Austin. In recognition of their stewardship efforts, Bob and his family received the Landowner Award from the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the President’s Conservation Achievement Award from the Nature Conservancy, and the Lone Star Land Steward Award from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Bob has served as a Trustee of the Nature Conservancy of Texas and as a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Hill Country Conservancy. Bob serves as a Trustee of the Shield-Ayres Foundation, and as the President of El Ranchito, a nature immersion summer camp for inner-city youth located on the Shield Ranch.
A native of San Antonio, Bob received his undergraduate degree in Spanish from the University of the South. He received a Masters in Theological Studies from Virginia Theological Seminary and Masters in Fine Arts in creative writing from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Bob lives in Austin with his wife Margy. They have two daughters.
Alan M. Bell
Alan Bell is a partner at the law firm of Charity & Associates, P.C. and practices in the area of project finance, specializing in municipal finance and real estate finance and development. He has served as owner’s counsel, underwriter's counsel, bond counsel, borrower's counsel, credit enhancer's counsel and legislative counsel in a wide variety of real estate developments and public financings, including general obligation bonds, traditional revenue bonds and various conduit financings such as airport bonds, stadium bonds, §501(c)(3) bonds, multifamily housing bonds, and single-family mortgage bonds. Mr. Bell has provided representation on projects totaling over $10 billion.
He is also the Founder and President of The Elements Group, a firm focused on the development of nature-inspired modern homes, residential communities and living solutions. He also founded The Elements Community Initiative, the charitable arm of The Elements Group, focused on the development of innovative community projects that encourage the experience of nature and open space by urban and inner-city families.
He is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and the Project Management Institute. He is also the Chairman of the Chicago Open Space Legacy Fund and a board member of Openlands, the Chicago Park District Advisory Council Oversight Committee, and the Black Ensemble Theater. Mr. Bell also serves on the Governing Board of Uplift Community High School, in Chicago, Illinois.
He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance, from the University of Notre Dame in 1986. He received his law degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1989. While in law school, Mr. Bell served as Executive Articles Editor of the Journal of Legislation. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1991. Mr. Bell received his Certificate in Project Management from New York University in 2003.
Franz Colloredo-Mansfeld
Co-Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chairman of the Core Investment Committee, Franz co-founded Cabot Properties in 2002. Franz has served as the Chief Executive Officer of the firm since its inception. Previously, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Cabot Industrial Trust, a NYSE listed real estate investment trust, starting with its IPO in January, 1998 through to its sale for $2.1 billion in December 2001. From the time of its IPO until its sale Cabot was the top performing national industrial REIT, outperforming the S&P and Dow Jones indices during this period. During the years Mr. Colloredo-Mansfeld has been CEO, Cabot has raised four private equity funds, committed approximately $2.7 billion in total capital and completed 200 transactions in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Prior to joining Cabot, Mr. Colloredo-Mansfeld was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, Inc. where he worked from 1992 through 1996 in Boston and Budapest. Mr. Colloredo-Mansfeld previously worked in Germany for the Deutsche Bank real estate investment group in 1992 and was a Robert Bosch Fellow at the German Central Bank (Bundesbank) in Frankfurt in 1991. Mr. Colloredo-Mansfeld was also an investment banker with Merrill Lynch & Co. from 1986 through 1989, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions based in New York, London, and Tokyo. Mr. Colloredo-Mansfeld is a graduate of Harvard College, with a degree in History, and he received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Michael P. Dowling, Immediate Past Chair
Michael P. Dowling has spent his professional life at the intersection of natural resource business, policy, conservation and finance, where he has been a successful entrepreneur, executive, private equity manager, philanthropist and consultant to businesses and nonprofit organizations. Michael joined the Land Trust Alliance board in 2010 and chaired the effort that produced the Alliance’s 2011-2017 strategic plan. He became chairman of the Alliance board of directors in 2012 and co-chaired the Alliance’s first ever campaign, Together: A Campaign for the Land, which raised over $35 million to enable the successful implementation of the strategic plan. After stepping down as board chair in 2015, Michael chaired the search committee that selected Andrew Bowman of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to succeed long-term Alliance president, Rand Wentworth.
Michael has served as chairman of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, where he played a lead role in creating one of the nation’s most advanced regulatory frameworks for oil and natural gas development; co-founder and long-time chair of the Colorado Conservation Trust; chair of the Colorado Wildlife Federation; vice chair of the Colorado Symphony and board member of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts. He currently serves on the boards of Scenic Hudson and Colorado Public Radio and is the founder and president of The Dowling Foundation. Mr. Dowling was the 2010 recipient of Colorado Open Lands’ George E. Cranmer Award, honoring career achievement in open space preservation.
Earlier in his career, Michael worked as an energy and environmental consultant, as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and as an entrepreneur and private investment manager in the energy industry and in conservation real estate. Michael has a Bachelors in Geology & Geophysics from Yale College (winner of the 1975 Belknap Prize), a Masters of Forest Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a Masters in public and private management from the Yale School of Management. Since 1993, Michael has supported the Dowling Scholarship at Yale for joint graduate degree students in management and environmental studies.
Michael is an active outdoorsman and a former arborist and river guide. He is inspired and motivated in his conservation work by sharing his love of nature and the outdoors with his eight-year-old daughter, Theresa.
Blair C. Fitzsimons
Blair Fitzsimons serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Agricultural Land Trust, (TALT) a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of agricultural lands, wildlife habitats and natural resources in Texas. Previously, for American Farmland Trust (AFT), Blair spearheaded the legislative effort to establish a Purchase of Development Rights program in Texas, and to create a database documenting rural land loss and trends in Texas.
Prior to her work for American Farmland Trust, Blair worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to establish a $100 million Texas High School Project, and chaired the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board; a $1.5 billion fund established by the Texas Legislature to make grants for telecommunications to rural schools, hospitals and libraries.
In addition to TALT, Blair supports her husband and sister-in-law with the management of the family’s cattle and hunting ranch, located along the Texas-Mexico border. In 2005, the ranch was named the regional winner of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s environmental stewardship award. Blair and her husband, Joseph, have three grown children.
Jameson S. French, Vice Chair
Jameson French is the CEO of Northland Forest Products, Inc., a hardwood lumber processor, exporter and distributor, headquartered in New Hampshire, but with operations in Virginia. The French family has been in the hardwood industry since the late 19th century. He is also President of Meadowsend Timberlands, LLC, which is the family land management company.
Mr. French is the immediate past Chair of the D.C.-based Hardwood Federation, and continues as the chair of their policy committee. He is incoming chairman of the Quebec-Labrador Foundation, vice chair of the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, chairman of the Foundation for Seacoast Health and a board member of the New Hampshire Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also chair of the Tuckernuck Land Trust in Massachusetts.
He is a past chairman of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, The Forest Stewardship Council (U.S.), the Hardwood Manufacturers Associations, the American Hardwood Export Council, the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation (New Mexico) and Strawbery Banke Museum (New Hampshire). He served the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation as trustee, treasurer and vice chair until June 2010.
Educated at Phillips Andover, Trinity College and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, he lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and is married to Priscilla Stevens French. They have three children.
Peter O. Hausmann
Peter Hausmann is the former chair of the Land Trust Alliance and currently serves as chair of the Natural Lands Trust, the largest regional land trust in the Delaware Valley. He is a former board member of The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania and was chair of its real estate committee for over a decade. Previously, Peter 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 resold over $80 million of land to conservation buyers in the Willistown area.
Peter was a member of the Chester County Planning Commission and its chair 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.
Peter 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. President Bush Sr. awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award to Peter for his efforts in 1990. Peter has since served as an advisor to several other open space initiatives in recent years.
Peter was active in commercial real estate for over 30 years. He was involved in the development of two LEEDS certified "green" office buildings in the greater Philadelphia area. Peter 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.
Laura A. Johnson, Chair
Laura Johnson is a life-long conservationist with more than 30 years experience in nonprofit management. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge MA, and is taking a lead role in launching a new international land conservation network.
Laura is the immediate past president of Mass Audubon where she spent 14 years leading the country’s largest independent state Audubon organization. Prior to joining Mass Audubon, she worked for 16 years at The Nature Conservancy working both as a lawyer and in positions including Massachusetts state director and northeast region vice president.
Laura is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance. She is also an Overseer of WGBH, on the Board of Advisors of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), on the Board of Visitors of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and a Corporation member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Laura served for 8 years as a founding member of the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Stewardship Council.
Laura received a BA in history from Harvard, and a JD from NYU Law School. From 2013-2014 she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University where she completed a study on private land conservation efforts around the world.
Cary F. Leptuck
Cary Leptuck currently serves, since 2006 as President, Board of Directors, of the French and Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust in Southeastern Pennsylvania – one of the founding organizations of the Alliance. He also serves as a Commissioner of the Land Trust Accreditation Commission since 2008 where he is a member of the Executive and Program Evaluation Committees as well as the Joint Committee on Accreditation.
Now fully retired, Cary spent his entire professional career of forty years in health care management – primarily hospitals and health care delivery systems, both in the medical university and community settings. He spent over 25 years as President and CEO of Chestnut Hill HealthCare in Philadelphia before retiring the first time to his own consulting practice specializing in not-for-profit governance and quality improvement.
Concern for land conservation and community and regional planning issues led him to a position on the Board of the FPCCT in 2004 and the passion and commitment he has for these activities has only gotten stronger. Much experience with accreditation in health care then led him to his role at the Accreditation Commission where he also chaired the Ad-hoc Committee on Renewal Design.
Cary has served as chair of the Pennsylvania Hospital Association, the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council and several other organizations. He’s a Life Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and a Fellow of the Philadelphia College of Physicians in addition to a number of other societies and organizations. He’s a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and holds graduate degrees from Columbia University. He served six years in the US Air Force with the eventual rank of Captain.
Widowed since 2006, he is the father of four children and grandfather of eight. When time allows he still enjoys golf, flying, gardening and fishing in from his home Montauk, NY.
Fernando Lloveras San Miguel
Fernando Lloveras San Miguel, Esq. is currently the executive director of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, a position he has held since 2003. The Conservation Trust is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement of the natural and historical treasures of the islands of Puerto Rico. Presently, the Trust manages a large personnel and more than 23,000 acres of land. Furthermore, the Trust has successfully accomplished the difficult task of making conservation a profitable practice, while also improving the quality of life for the ecosystems of the islands of Puerto Rico and their inhabitants.
Lloveras San Miguel is also co-founder and chairman of the board of Microjuris.com, Inc., the leading Internet provider of legal and legislative information in Latin America.
Lloveras San Miguel is a member of the boards of directors of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Land Trust Alliance.
From 1989 to 1992, he served as an advisor on Federal Affairs to the Governor of Puerto Rico. He has also served as a member of the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce’s Government Relations and Technology Committees, committee chair for the Center for the New Economy, and is a student mentor for Puerto Rico Youth at Risk.
In 2000, he was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernest and Young, received the 2001 Top Management Award and the Premio Zenith in the “Professional Services Sector.”
Lloveras San Miguel holds a Magna Cum Laude Juris Doctor degree from the University of Puerto Rico, a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College, where he was senior fellow. He is married to Michelle Marxuach and is the father of two children.
Stephen H. Lockhart
Stephen (Steve) Lockhart, M.D., Ph.D., is an anesthesiologist and Regional Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the East Bay Region at Sutter Health in northern California. For more than 20 years, he has been actively involved in issues of social justice in medicine. As a National Parks Second Century Commissioner, he advocates for environmental and science education within the national parks. Steve continues to serve on the national board of Naturebridge, following his six years as board chair, and is focused principally on securing the funds to build and bring environmental science programming to students in the Yosemite Environmental Education Center.
Growing up in St. Louis, Steve developed a life-long love of the outdoors as he rose to the rank of Eagle Scout in his segregated Boy Scout troop. It was during this time that the seeds were sown for his commitment to social justice and his desire to help introduce youth of all backgrounds to the wonder of our national parks.
A Rhodes Scholar, Steve obtained his Master’s degree in Economics from Oxford University, and M.D. and Ph.D. from Cornell. When he moved to California in 1986 for post-graduate training at University of California, San Francisco, he began visiting Yosemite and discovered his passion for climbing.
Steve lives in Oakland with his wife Karen and their young daughter Anna.
Mary McFadden
Mary McFadden used the Alliance book, Starting a Land Trust, as a blueprint for the Wareham Land Trust (MA), which she founded in 2001. Wareham and its surrounding towns were facing the loss of thousands of acres of cranberry bogs and uplands, which spurred their citizens to action. Mary has been active in land conservation at the local, regional, state and national levels for over ten years. She has been a board member of the all-volunteer Wareham Land Trust since its inception, and was a driving force in passing the Community Preservation Act, a conservation funding measure. She also served on the board of the Buzzards Bay Coalition, a regional watershed and land protection organization, where she led its strategic planning committee and co-chaired its successful capital campaign, and continues on its Bay Lands and Watershed Protection Committee. Mary is a member of the Mass. Land Trust Coalition, the Mass. Audubon Council and is a founding member of the Alliance's National Council.
Her work in Wareham has made Mary keenly aware of the challenges facing board members of small and volunteer land trusts, who carry the responsibility for both the governance and day-to-day operations of their organizations. Her Trust has benefited from Alliance information and services over the years, including guided organizational assessments, Rally workshops, guidebooks, Learning Center, and grant assistance to help the Trust prepare for Accreditation. Mary is especially grateful that the Alliance will launch an independent insurance program, Terrafirma, to protect land trusts' conservation easements and fee lands. In her role as Alliance board member, she wants to help other small and volunteer land trusts and their board members find better ways to access and benefit from Alliance services.
Ms. McFadden, who is a lawyer and director of Health Management Resources Corp. in Boston, received an Environmental Merit Award from EPA and was honored by the MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and Plymouth County Education Association for her work engaging children in the campaign to support land conservation. She also received the LeBaron Briggs Conservation Award from the Wildlands Trust of Southeastern Massachusetts and the Buzzards Bay Guardian Award, the highest honor granted by the Buzzards Bay Coalition.
With her husband, Larry Stifler, she is also active in land and water conservation projects in western Maine, where they are conserving their working forest lands for wildlife, recreation and resource protection. They are founders of the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel and trustees of a family foundation. When she finds free time, Ms. McFadden enjoys spending time in nature with her husband and three children, painting water colors and travel.
William Mulligan, Treasurer and Secretary
William Mulligan is a Managing Partner director of Primus Capital, a Cleveland-based private equity firm. Prior to joining Primus, Mr. Mulligan served in various management and operating roles at McKinsey & Company, Deere and Company and First Chicago Corporation. Mr. Mulligan earned a BA in Economics from Denison University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Mr. Mulligan is a director of several Primus portfolio companies, TFS Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: TFSL), and Universal Electronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: UEIC). Mr. Mulligan also serves as a trustee of The Cleveland Clinic, Denison University, Western Reserve Land Conservancy and Transplant House of Cleveland.
George S. Olsen
George S. Olsen has been involved with the Montana Land Reliance (MLR) since its inception in 1978 and he has served on their board since 1979. Mr. Olsen served at the Secretary-Treasurer of the MLR board before taking over as Board President two years ago. As a Certified Public Accountant, Mr. Olsen spent much of his professional career advising ranchers, farmers and large landowners. In 2012, he retired as a shareholder from Galusha, Higgins, & Galusha, PC.
Mr. Olsen is a member of the Montana Society of CPAs and serves as the Chair of their Legislation & Governmental Affairs Committee. He is also on the Elkhorn Federal Credit Union Board of Directors and the Montana Higher Education Student Assistance Corporation Board of Directors. Mr. Olsen serves on the board of the Ruby Habitat Foundation, a 1,100 acre ranch dedicated to creating sustainable agriculture and preserving and enhancing the natural resourced and social and economic make up of Southwest Montana. He was also the past Treasurer of the United Way of Lewis and Clark County.
The Montana Land Reliance is one of the largest and most effective land trusts in the United States. During period that George has served on its board, MLR has protected 900,000 acres including 272,000 acres in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem and 1559 miles of trout streams.
Mr. Olsen has a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Montana and he lives in Helena, MT with his wife, Ellen Vogelsang.
Michael A. Polemis
Michael Polemis has been engaged in conservation work since 1986, when he helped found the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC), in New York’s Hudson Valley. He was on the Board from 1986, serving as Board Chair from 1995 until 2011, when he left the Board. Michael rejoined CLC’s Board in 2013 and currently serves as Governance Committee Chair. Columbia Land Conservancy has grown to become one of the most diverse and successful land trusts in the country. They have over 25,000 acres under easement and operate 10 public conservation areas comprising over 2,400 acres. They have developed an innovative match program, putting together 54 farmer and landowner matches that cover every imaginable type of farming from cut flowers, to beef, to hops. CLC, through its Community Assistance Program offers training, assistance and advice for local municipalities, and volunteer groups in planning, GIS work and establishing community trails. Michael joined the Land Trust Alliance National Council in 2011.
In addition to his interest in conservation, Michael is on the Board of the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. He is a Vice Chair of the Board and heads the museum’s collections committee.
In 2014, Michael retired after 41 years in the international shipping business, the last 28 years as President of Pro Bulk (USA) Inc.
Michael and his wife Barbara live in Old Chatham, New York. They have two married daughters living in New York and New Orleans. Michael is an avid fly-fisherman and upland game hunter and has two German Short Haired Pointers that keep him and his wife very busy.
Frederic C. Rich, Vice Chair
Frederic C. Rich is Of Counsel to Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, an international law firm based in New York, where he was a partner for many years. He is now a writer. His latest book, Getting to Green, about environmental politics, is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in April 2016.
Mr. Rich is the long-time Chairman of the Board of Scenic Hudson Land Trust, and also serves on the Board of the Hudson Highlands Land Trust, both accredited. He chairs the Environmental Leaders Group in New York State, an informal coalition of environmental, land conservation, environmental justice and parks groups that work together on issues of policy and funding. He also is Chairman of the Foundation for Landscape Studies, and Vice Chair of The Battery Conservancy, Inc., which is spearheading the restoration and revitalization of the Battery at the tip of Manhattan.
Rich is an amateur gardener and composer. He has designed a large landscape garden in Garrison, New York and recently developed an "urban farm" on the green roof of New York's first LEED "Platinum" residential building. He composed the world's first "environmental oratorio," The Hudson Oratorio, which premiered and was recorded in 1996.
He received his A.B. from Princeton University, his J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law, and studied moral philosophy as a Keasbey Fellow at King's College, Cambridge.
Steven E. Rosenberg
Steve Rosenberg is Executive Director of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust and Sr. Vice President of Scenic Hudson, Inc. Focused on New York City’s backyard in the Hudson Valley, the Scenic Hudson Land Trust, which in 2011 received the Land Trust Alliance’s highest “Land Trust Excellence Award,” has conserved 35,000 acres of natural and scenic areas and productive farmland and created more than three dozen parks and preserves along the Hudson River as part of its campaign to “Save the Land That Matters Most.” Steve is leading Scenic Hudson’s initiative to execute a first-of-its-kind “NYC-Hudson Valley Foodshed Conservation Plan,” as well as the organization’s work with urban and rural communities to revitalize their riverfronts in the era of sea level rise and climate change. He also directs Scenic Hudson’s other programs, which save the places that define the Hudson Valley as a nationally recognized landscape and to ensure that riverfront development strengthens public connections with the River. Steve grew up in Miami, and was inspired to work to conserve land after he experienced south Florida’s rapid suburbanization in the 1960’s and 70’s. Before joining Scenic Hudson in 1990, Steve practiced real estate and land use law in Washington, DC. He graduated with honors from the George Washington University law school and received his B.A. in history and urban studies from Northwestern University.
Thomas D. Saunders
Tom Saunders is president and CEO of the accredited Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy protects open space; conserves and restores rivers and streams; plants trees, gardens and green spaces; protects rare, threatened and endangered species; and preserves and shares Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Prior to his work at the conservancy, Tom was a land use attorney at Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison in San Francisco and Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue in Washington, D.C.; director of the Maryland Environmental Trust; and community development director of Gainesville, Florida. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University, a masters in Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University and a law degree from Stanford University.
Julie R. Sharpe
Julie Sharpe is president of the Narrow River Land Trust in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, an all-volunteer, watershed-based land trust. Julie is passionate about watersheds, the carrying capacity of land, nonpoint source pollution and other water-land issues. Her home on the Narrow River estuary has led her to work with local conservation commissions and the Rhode Island Coastal Management Council on Water Quality ordinances and special area management plans. Recognizing the role land trusts play in coastal land management, Julie has served on several land trust boards: Narragansett Land Conservancy Trust, the Land Conservancy of North Kingstown (chair), and the Narrow River Land Trust (current chair). She was a founding member of the Rhode Island Land Trust Council and the Washington County Land Trust Coalition. She serves as an advisor to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Land Trust Excellence Committee and the National Council of the Land Trust Alliance.
In the 1990s, Julie helped to establish the Rhode Island Natural History Survey to document and monitor the state’s biodiversity. She was a part of the vanguard that brought public radio to Rhode Island in 2002. In 2008, with the support of other family members, Julie launched an innovative effort through the Rhode Island Foundation called the Conservation Stewardship Collaborative to advance the stewardship of Rhode Island’s 100,000 acres of public and private conservation land. She has worked with the University of Rhode Island for 28 years on water quality monitoring with its program Watershed Watch.
Julie is lucky to have a partner in conservation — her husband Henry. They live in Saunderstown, Rhode Island; Teton Village, Wyoming; and Sorrento, Maine. Julie got her degree in Geological and Geophysical Sciences from Princeton University.
Judith Stockdale
Judith Stockdate became executive director of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation in 1994. This Chicago-based private foundation’s mission is land conservation and artistic vitality in both the Chicago region and the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Ms. Stockdale’s previous position, begun in 1990, was that of executive director of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, the nation’s first multi-state environmental endowment.
After positions as an economic analyst, a college instructor, and a natural resources planner, in 1978 Ms. Stockdale became executive director of Openlands, a non-profit land conservation organization in Chicago. Here she initiated efforts to preserve and protect natural lands in urban and rural northeastern Illinois through creation of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor (the nation’s first heritage corridor), Friends of the Chicago River, and Wetlands Research, Inc. In 1987, she became a senior staff associate of the Chicago Community Trust.
Stockdale is an independent director of the Nuveen Funds, a member of The Chicago Network, and a board member of both Donors Forum and Friends of Ryerson Woods. Her past volunteer service includes: board member of Land Trust Alliance, board member of Environmental Careers Organization, member of the advisory board of the National Zoological Park, president of the Lincoln Park Cooperative Nursery School, member of the Governor’s Science Advisory Council (Illinois). Ms. Stockdale served as a commissioner of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Commission from 1985 – 1992, and as its vice chair from 1985 – 1987.
A native of the United Kingdom, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geography from Durham University (U.K.) and a Master of Forest Science degree from Yale University.
Judith and her husband, Jonathan Boyer, live in Chicago. They have two grown daughters.
Darrell Wood
Darrell Wood, owner of Darrell Wood Ranches with properties in both Vina and Susanville, California, is most looking forward to helping individual land trusts protect America's ranches, farms and open spaces while on the board of the Alliance. Darrell is past chairman and a current board member of the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, former chairman and a 14-year board member of California Rangeland Trust, former second vice president of the California Cattlemen’s Association and past president of the Lassen County Cattleman’s Association.
A sixth-generation cattleman, Darrell raises certified organic, grass-fed cattle on his ranch, supplying beef to Panorama Meats, made up of more than 50 family ranches from nine states that follow strict environmental stewardship protocols. He has received several awards, including the Grassland Stewardship Award in 1999 from the Society for Range Management Stewardship, the National Wetlands Conservation Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2006 and the National Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in 2009.