Marek Smith Email & Phone Number

As Director of North America Fire, I am surrounded by a truly inspirational team of TNC staff and partners from across the country, all collaborating to support networks of site-based practitioners, scientists, traditional ecological knowledge keepers and communities who are working together to improve their relationship with fire. Our team leads the North America Region’s Living with Fire priority strategy and administers the Promoting Ecosystem Resilience and Fire Adapted Communities Together Phase II: Collaborative Engagement, Collective Action and Co-ownership of Fire (PERFACT II) Cooperative Agreement between TNC, USDA Forest Service and the Department of Interior agencies. This agreement supports the Fire Learning Network, Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX) and Indigenous Peoples Burning Network. I previously served as the US Fire Learning Network Director and spent nearly a decade with the Conservancy’s Virginia Chapter as the Allegheny Highlands Program Director, overseeing the organization’s conservation work in the western mountains of Virginia and serving as co-lead of the Central Appalachians Fire Learning Network. Before joining the Conservancy, I spent 11 years with Mecklenburg County, NC working as Environmental Education Supervisor and Natural Resources Coordinator. I grew up in Lynchburg, VA, have a bachelors in biology from Virginia Tech and a masters in biology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In my spare time, I enjoy cycling, hiking, birding, tending to our city chickens, traveling with my wife Lisa, and attempting (usually failing) to recreate Rick Bayless' recipes in our kitchen. And during most Saturdays in the fall, I can be found decked out in Chicago maroon and burnt orange while cheering on one of the best college football teams in the country. Go Hokies!

Listed skills include Collaboration, Strategic Planning, Adaptive Management, Public Lands Management, and 1 others.