State Director
CurrentThe executive director and conservation strategist for the Alabama Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and plays a leading role in the Southern U.S. Division, which spans several adjacent states and supports major cross-boundary initiatives to advance strategies in the landscape systems that span the region from the Central Appalachian Mountains to Long Leaf Pine and Gulf of Mexico. I implement organization priorities to address nature-based solutions for climate adaptation (storms and floods), climate mitigation (forests); climate policy in advancing a low carbon future; land and water protection/restoration with direct TNC action, through partnerships, and public policy/funding; coastal and marine fisheries management; and prescribed fire management. I am accountable for Alabama’s success in creating a vision to implement TNC’s Shared Conservation Agenda, leading by example in living our values and code of conduct, producing tangible and measurable conservation results at scale, managing teams, advancing fundraising initiatives to raise revenue for conservation, and ensuring financial sustainability of the Chapter. For nearly 30 years, the Alabama Chapter has protected some of the most ecologically priceless part of the state, from the Walls of Jericho to the Cahaba River and on to the Gulf Coast. In 1989, The Conservancy’s first project protected a modest three acres at Coosa River Bog near Centre, AL. From the modest beginning, and with a host of partnerships, the Conservancy has protected over 160,000 acres, and manages 15 preserves that conserves a wide variety of plants and animals. The Conservancy is the go-to partner for results-oriented leadership in on the ground conservation and restoration of forest, freshwater and coastal/marine systems and carbon sequestration through working woodlands.
