Perfectly positioned

I’m excited to announce that Andrew Bowman has been named the next president of the Land Trust Alliance. The board of directors is thrilled that Andrew has agreed to take on this critical role. He embodies the drive, innovation and collaborative spirit to lead the Land Trust Alliance and the land trust community to dramatically increase the impact of conservation in America.

Andrew comes from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, where he has served most recently as their program director for the environment, responsible for more than $100 million in grant funding. He traces his commitment to conservation to his father, a city planner who instilled in Andrew the importance of what makes places beautiful and special. Andrew studied at Hastings College of Law under Bill Hutton, who exposed him to the mechanics of private land conservation and gave him the opportunity to be chief student editor of The Back Forty — the Newsletter of Land Conservation Law. Andrew credits Bill with first introducing him to the Alliance at the 1993 Rally in Big Sky, Montana, where he began his conservation trajectory.

Now, after a decade of helping fund land conservation, Andrew is eager to play a more hands-on role in addressing the challenges facing the land trust community. As he says, “I have had the privilege of being in a position over the last decade to observe and study the needs of the land conservation field and I seek now to use that perspective to help the land trust community set its priorities going forward and become more effective and powerful than ever.”

On behalf of the entire board of directors, I say with great confidence that Andrew is perfectly positioned to help chart a way forward for conservation in the 21st century.