Faculty

Mackenzie Greer is the public programs director for the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, a land trust working throughout Berkshire County, the westernmost region of Massachusetts. She transitions projects from acquisition to the creation of public access. From her previous experience as a land use planner, Mackenzie works on long-range initiatives for the land trust, such as “The High Road” a vision to connect trails to town centers throughout the region. Mackenzie facilitated the purchase of 370 acres in three transactions with funding and support from the Housatonic River NRDAR. Mackenzie holds master’s degree in landscape architecture and in regional Ppanning.

Maggie Monast is a senior manager on Environmental Defense Fund’s Agricultural Sustainability team, contributing expertise in conservation finance and the farm financial sector. Maggie’s work focuses on advancing economic incentives for agricultural conservation in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient losses to water while increasing agricultural resilience and financial stability. Maggie collaborates with farmers, agricultural organizations, farm finance providers and economists to develop the financial case for agricultural conservation for farmers and their business partners and design incentives to integrate that value into financial practices, policies and products. Learn more about EDF’s agriculture finance work at https://edf.org/farm-finance.

Marc Smiley is principal of Solid Ground Consulting and has been working in conservation since 1982 when he started as the third employee of the Land Trust Alliance. Marc has since led conservation organizations as a board member, staff member, and consulting, working with a majority of land trusts in the U.S. Marc was on the first Land Trust Accreditation Commission, and wrote two of the Alliance’s curricula on board governance and fundraising.

Marcia Nicholson is the human resources director for Land Trust Alliance. She has extensive experience working across all human resources competencies in leading, developing and implementing human resources programs. Her expertise involves working at the operational, strategic and tactical level to support business and operational needs. She has a strong background in organizational development, process/continuous improvement, strategic planning and change management. Some of her notable accomplishments involved building an HR department from ground up, streamlining and automating processes and implementing change to achieve workforce excellence.Marcia holds a bachelor’s degree from Bluefield College, Bluefield, VA. She serves as an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) both on the national and local levels. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, reading and listening to music. She also enjoys mentoring up-and-coming HR professionals where she shares her knowledge and passion for HR.

Margaret Fields is the GIS Manager at the North Carolina Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, doing spatial analysis to support various projects around the state.

Margaret Williams, ACR program officer, is responsible for the review California compliance and voluntary market project listings and for providing oversight to project verification, registration and offset issuance for a variety of project types. She also serves as a team member for offset methodology development and approvals. Prior to joining ACR, Margaret was at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute where she conducted science communications and helped manage a multi-institutional grant from NASA Ames Research Center. She has experience in GHG emissions verification, carbon offset project development, various GHG reporting protocols and GHG inventory and reduction plan development. At Impact Carbon, Margaret served as Program Manager for carbon asset development, various GHG reporting schemes and overseeing all survey design, fuel and emissions data collection, data analysis and document preparation for carbon asset validation and verification under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Gold Standard. She designed novel approaches for quantifying avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from rural households in Asia, Africa and Latin America where multiple clean energy technologies were installed and also represented Impact Carbon on the US Technical Advisory Committee (ISO) for Clean Cook stoves and Clean Cooking Solutions. From 2009 to 2013 Margaret was a senior climate change and air quality project manager and technical specialist at ICF International where she developed GHG emissions inventories and reduction plans for cities and counties in California as well as analyzed environmental data for regulatory compliance. She was a certified lead verifier (2009-2015) under the California Air Resources Board Mandatory Reporting Rule with Refineries and Transactions specialties and has conducted GHG audits for landfills and oil and gas facilities under the British Columbia and Alberta reporting schemes. Margaret holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in Atmospheric Chemistry from the University of Miami. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of California Irvine in the department of Earth System Science and also at NASA Ames Research Center.  While at UC Irvine, she held the Comer Fellowship for the Study of Abrupt Climate Change.

Marian Vernon is the Sierra Meadow Adaptation Leader at Point Blue Conservation Science. Marian works to develop climate-smart resources to inform strategic conservation planning efforts and meadow restoration projects on public and private land in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Prior to joining Point Blue in 2017, Marian was the Strategic Initiatives Analyst at Sonoma Land Trust. She holds a master’s degree in environmental science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Marissa Max is the corporate relations manager for the Land Trust Alliance. New to the Washington DC area, Marissa recently moved from Colorado where she grew up and later graduated from Colorado State University. Conservation and corporate fundraising are passions of hers, as she was previously at an international conservation nonprofit, Rainforest Trust, as their Corporate Giving Officer. Marissa has worked with companies such as Sambazon, Endangered Species Chocolate, Credit Suisse, Harney & Sons Fine Teas, and N3TWORK, to name a few. In early 2018, she helped launch a cause marketing campaign, #PurpleForThePlanet, in conjunction with Sambazon, which raised over $35,000.

Marissa Moore works as the very first high school intern at Montezuma Land Conservancy. She is a long-time resident of southwestern Colorado and is currently a senior at Southwest Open School in Cortez. Her Native American heritage includes Northern Cheyenne, Ute Mountain Ute, and Otoe-Missouria. After completing the Agriculture Immersion Program at MLC’s farm in 2018, she is eagerly exploring careers in conservation and is sharing her job experience with other youth.

Mark Anderson is director of conservation science for The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern U.S. Region. He provides science leadership, ecological analysis, and landscape assessments for conservation efforts across twenty-two eastern states. He holds a doctorate in ecology from University of New Hampshire and has published widely on climate change resilience, large landscape conservation, biodiversity, and forest dynamics. In 2016, Mark won The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Achievement award.

Mark Minelli has devoted the last 30 years of his career to building a leading brand strategy and design firm. He has many years of experience with clients in the land trust community, including Trustees in Massachusetts and Natural Lands. A frequent speaker on branding, Mark has presented to audiences including World Brand Congress, the American Association of Museums, and the American Marketing Association.

Mark Wishnie is Global Director of Forestry & Wood Products at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) where he advances forest management programs with commercial, climate and conservation benefits. Prior to joining TNC, Mark led portfolio management and research for the BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group’s US$3 billion timberland investment portfolio and served on the group’s executive and investment committees. Mark also served as Director of the Native Species Reforestation Project, a joint initiative of the Smithsonian Institution and Yale University, served as program director of the Yale Tropical Resources Institute, and has advised companies and government agencies on environmental management and forest restoration. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in forest science from Yale University.

Marquette Crockett joined the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy in 2014 where she serves as Stewardship Director of the Conservancy’s preserves in the Roan Highlands and coordinates landscape level restoration initiatives for Appalachian grassy balds and native conifer communities. She served for more than eight years as a wildlife biologist for Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in West Virginia. She enjoys rambling through the woods, discovering protected areas in Western North Carolina and is a passionate, but not always successful, gardener.

Mary Alice Holley has beent the communications and marketing director for Conservation Trust for North Carolina since 2016. She leads the effort to build greater public awareness for land trusts and connect all of North Carolina’s communities to the benefits of conservation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communications and rhetorical writing from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In her spare time, Mary Alice enjoys hiking with her dogs Hickory and Birch (yes, they’re both named after trees…) and exploring North Carolina’s hidden treasures from her kayak.

Mary Anthony has served as the director of the 1772 Foundation, based in Providence, RI since 2003. The foundation is committed to farmland conservation and historic preservation and is particularly interested in historic properties redevelopment programs or “revolving funds” to which it funds approximately $1 million each year through training, recapitalization, convenings and PRIs. Mary holds a B.A. from the University of Connecticut and an ALM from Harvard University.

Mary Pfaffko is the Teaming with Wildlife associate for the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. Her work supports state fish and wildlife agency efforts to implement and revise the state wildlife action plans. She was the lead author of the DC Wildlife Action Plan. (B08)

Matt Brantley, from Monroe, North Carolina, received his undergraduate degree in environmental science at Davidson College in 2016. He went on to work for a year at a local land trust in Charlotte, and began his graduate program in the fall of 2017 at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. He plans to graduate in December 2019 with Master of Forestry and Master of Environmental Management degrees. His academic and career interests revolve around forestry operations and timber management. Upon graduation he hopes for a career in the commercial timber industry, timberland investments, or consulting forestry.

Matt Arsenault received his bachelor’s degree in political science in 2010 from Florida State University. He worked in the Florida House of Representatives as a legislative aide for about a year before taking a position at the Florida Office of Energy. After holding several positions at the Office of Energy, including grant manager and policy analyst, he began pursuing his master’s degree in public policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. After graduating, Matt became the program manager of the Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative.

As the chief technology officer at Community IT, Matthew Eshleman is responsible for shaping Community IT’s strategy in assessing and recommending technology solutions to clients. With a deep background in network infrastructure technology he fundamentally understands how technology works and interoperates both in the office and in the cloud. Matt joined Community IT as an intern in the summer of 2000 and after finishing his dual degrees in Computer Science and Computer Information Systems at Eastern Mennonite University he rejoined Community IT as a network administrator in January of 2001. Matt has steadily progressed up at Community IT and while working full time received his MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University. Matt is a frequent speaker at NTEN events and has presented at the Inside NGO conference and Non-Profit Risk Management Summit. He lives in Baltimore MD with his wife, daughter and son. Matt is an active member of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and the support committee of the Baltimore Mennonite Voluntary Service unit.

Maura Adams will begin chairing the board of Five Rivers Conservation Trust in Concord, New Hampshire in June 2019. She’s in her sixth year as program director for the Northern Forest Center, a nonprofit organization creating rural vibrancy across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. She lives off-grid in the woods of Deerfield, New Hampshire.

Mavis Gragg J.D. is the current board chair for Triangle Land Conservancy. She is a graduate of UNC- Chapel Hill and Pepperdine School of Law. She also serves on the board of directors for Dispute Settlement Center and is an adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law. In 2013, Mavis co-founded the Gragg Family Fund, which hosts college prep workshops for parents and provides financial support for youth.

Megan is Stakeholder Engagement and Outreach Lead for the U.S. Department of Defense Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program .

Megan serves as the director of stewardship for Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. Megan joined CCALT in 2008. She has master’s degrees in forestry and environmental management from the Nicholas School at Duke University. In her spare time, she works helping her husband manage their family cattle ranch in Oak Creek, Colorado. The ranch has been conserved with a conservation easement and their daughter is now the 5th generation on the land.

Megan Wargo is director of land protection for Pacific Crest Trail Association.?She has successfully negotiated fee title and conservation easement acquisitions to permanently protect over 77,000 acres. Prior to joining the PCTA, Megan worked for the Pacific Forest Trust,?the Trust for Public Land,?and the Piedmont Land Conservancy.?She holds a master’s degree of environmental management degree from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, economics & politics from Claremont McKenna College.

Meghan Mullee is an assistant vice president in the Nonprofit & Corporate Risk division at Alliant Insurance Services, Inc. A Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) portfolio partner, Alliant is the largest specialty brokerage in the United States, and ranks among the top five privately held insurance brokerage firms nationwide. Meghan has written and presented on insurance topics for the Land Trust Alliance and works closely with land trusts nationally to solve their insurance needs.

Melinda Beck practices in the area of conservation, land use, real estate transactions and real property transfers. Melinda assists local governments, land trusts and private landowners with purchases and donations of conservation easements throughout the United States and internationally. In her career, Melinda has completed hundreds of conservation transactions. Melinda’s practice also includes assisting landowners and land trusts with issues related to oil and gas development, including negotiation of leases and surface use agreements.

Melissa oversees the accreditation review process, works closely with the Commission to review and update the Requirements Manual, and has reviewed over 70 accreditation applications to date. Previously, she worked at The Nature Conservancy developing key ecological indicators for the Hudson River adaptive management plan and collecting data to assess the success of invasive species reduction programs. Melissa has a master’s degree in biodiversity, conservation and policy from the University at Albany and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University.

Before coming to Maine, Mike worked as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Manager in Anchorage, Prince William Sound and the North Gulf Coast. He also directed Kuskokwim Native Association. Mike dealt with Fisheries and Natural Resources Department in cooperative research, monitoring and management within the Middle Kuskokwim area. Mike graduated in 2005 from the University of North Dakota with a bachelor’s degree. in fisheries and wildlife biology.

Michele Vidarte is the events and community engagement manager at the Lake George Land Conservancy, responsible for the organizations summer fundraising gala, year-round community events and educational programming and founder of the first LGLC trail run race. Michele also founded and leads the organizations NextGeneration Committee, writes various grants and assists with development and fundraising strategies and cultivation. Michele holds a bachelor’s from Fordham University in journalism and communications and lives in Saratoga Springs.

Michelle Albert is a senior attorney at The Nature Conservancy. She manages litigation matters for the Conservancy and provides general legal support to the Missouri and Nebraska chapters. Prior to joining the Conservancy, Michelle worked for eight years in private practice at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP as a commercial litigator in federal and state court, where her practice included navigating discovery disputes, motions practice, trial work, arbitrations, and appeals.

Michelle Pleim is the development and special events coordinator at Westchester Land Trust (WLT) where she works to translate the community’s passion for open space into funds for preserving lands in Westchester and eastern Putnam counties. Michelle has a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Michelle Pugliese joined the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy staff in 2007. Michelle previously served as the St. Simons Land Trust director of land master’s degree in environmental management. Michelle manages the organization’s land and conservation easement acquisitions.

Mike Kane is the director of conservation at the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), managing a variety of land conservation, land stewardship and restoration activities in PEC’s nine county service area. He has also served as the Land Conservation Officer for Loudoun and Fauquier counties, where he worked with landowners, public agencies and allied organizations to conserve the region’s diverse natural, historic, scenic, and agricultural resources.

Michael is the associate director of stewardship for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in California. He supervises a team chiefly responsible for management of 500,000 acres of fee and easement interests in the state. He has served TNC as an attorney and provided legal support for many of the state’s easement acquisitions and enforcements.

Mike Quist Kaust manages recreation across hundreds of thousands of acres at the American Prairie Reserve in Montana. Believing time spent outside is essential to stewardship, Mike’s career has focused on the intersection of recreation and conservation. A graduate of Middlebury College, he managed the Appalachian Mountain Club’s alpine hut system in New Hampshire, then headed west to work for the Yellowstone Forever Institute and as the Program Director at Adventure Scientists in Bozeman, Montana.

Mike Szymkowicz is the stewardship manager for The Land Trust for Tennessee. Mike is committed to being a good steward of land. As stewardship manager, Mike coordinates a dedicated team of monitoring volunteers and is often out in the field meeting directly with landowners of conserved land. Mike developed a love for the outdoors and open spaces while growing up in Upstate New York. When he wasn’t traveling to compete in sporting events, he was fishing the rivers with his father or exploring his family’s property with friends. After earning a bachelor’s degree from The State University of New York at Potsdam in 2014, Mike relocated to Nashville where he became involved with The Land Trust as a passionate stewardship volunteer. Today, as a full-time member of our team, Mike serves as a great steward for the beautiful Tennessee landscapes he now calls home.
When he is not exploring Tennessee’s green spaces with his fiancé and their two dogs, Mike can be found enjoying live music, trying new places to eat, or in the gym.

Misti Schmidt is an attorney at Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass in San Francisco, where she focuses her practice on the real estate and tax aspects of conservation transactions under the mentorship of Bill Hutton. She also has expertise in the acquisition, disposition, financing, and leasing of commercial real estate. Misti received her juris doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where she received a Certificate in Environmental Law. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Misti was an AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader at an environmental project and was a law clerk at the Center for Biological Diversity, EarthJustice, and the Natural Heritage Institute.

Misty Buchanan is the deputy director for Natural Heritage Program of North Carolina.

In 2016 Mitch joined the Vital Ground Foundation team where he now oversees the Lands and Conservation Program as the conservation manager. Vital Ground’s Land and Conservation Program focuses on habitat protection and stewardship projects that encompass the Northern Continental Divide, Selkirk, Cabinet-Yaak, Bitterroot, Yellowstone and North Cascades ecosystems. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, Mitch developed a sense of place working in the family woods and fields of the glacial kettle moraine area. He held onto that passion, pursuing a B.S. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Mitch has lived in Missoula for over a decade, working collaboratively on projects with federal, state, local and tribal partners involving forest, range, riparian, and weed management. He has a rich history in land-use planning and land-management experience.

Molly Fales is director of conservation transactions at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust (CCALT), Molly has worked to conserve over 50,000 acres of land across Colorado. Many of these transactions have included funding from a variety of federal, state, local, and private sources. Molly grew up on a now conserved ranch on Colorado’s western slope and has a law degree from the University of Oregon.