Board of Directors
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Mick Huppert, President, lives in Petersham. He has served on several town government boards. Several years ago he worked with Mount Grace in placing a conservation restriction on his land. Mick is associate dean for community programs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. He serves as chair of the Petersham Cemetery Commission and as a board member of Community Health Connections–Fitchburg Community Health Center. He is interested in the education of primary care physicians for rural and under-served areas.
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Mary Williamson, Vice President, and her husband John moved to Warwick from Boston four years ago when they bought on old farm which is completely surrounded by state forest. Having spent time growing up on the family farm on Martha’s Vineyard, where the development pressures are so extreme, Mary has a strong appreciation of the importance of taking initiative to preserve open space. Since moving to Warwick, Mary has become chairman of the open space committee and is also secretary of the conservation commission. In addition to being active in the town, Mary has maintained close connections with the Eastern Orthodox parish in Boston where her husband is a deacon. She is a tonsured reader there for church services, secretary of the board of directors, and sings in the choir. Return to Board List
Bill Ames, Treasurer, and his wife Nancy purchased Indian Meadows Farm on South Mountain Road in Northfield in 2000 and moved there full time in June of 2004. The farm is a tree farm, currently produces some hay, and Bill hopes to clear a new field for a small vegetable co-op (CSA) operation. Bill knows the area, having attended Deerfield Academy and later the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he received a masters degree in agricultural economics. Their original farm in Boxford, Massachusetts (where 100 families came and grew their own fresh vegetables) went into an APR in 1986, and they continue their interest in conservation, particularly open space in the northern tier hill towns. Bill assisted in Northfield’s adoption of a town right-to-farm bylaw at its most recent town meeting and was one of the organizers and advocates of the Northfield Agricultural Commission, of which he is currently chair. Bill has also served on the Essex County MFBF Board, holds a degree in history from Princeton University, and spent his later business career in venture capital.
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Celt Grant, Clerk, is a resident of the Butterworth Farm community in Royalston where he moved five years ago from Boston. It was a welcome return to the rural living he knew as a youth on the family farm in Andover. Unfortunately, the mansions are the only crop growing there now, a telling commentary on the relentless loss of open space in our state and region. Celt’s enduring passion is preserving the New England landscape including farms, forests and historic structures. He serves on the town historic district commission, enjoys outdoor activities, and continues his work of preserving and adapting old buildings.
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Allen Tupper Brown, his wife Sandy and their three children left Washington, DC in 1984 where he had been working in a law firm for 16 years. They bought an old farm in Gill, and for a number of years kept a small herd of Dexter cows and continue to manage the hayfields and pasture. Since moving to Gill, Tupper works as a consultant to engineering, manufacturing, and construction companies in connection with large litigation matters. Tupper serves on the zoning board of appeals and the finance committee in Gill and participated in Gill’s open space planning project and in the rewriting of Gill’s zoning by-laws. Over the years Tupper has served on the Greater Northfield Watershed Association Board of Directors, and recently assisted with Mount Grace’s Bascom Hollow land conservation project in Gill. Currently, Tupper and Sandy are working on further conservation projects in their immediate neighborhood along the Connecticut River, including their own land.
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Bonnie House lives in Phillipston where she has served on the zoning board of appeals and the conservation commission. She was responsible for
updating the 2001 Open Space Plan for the town. She became a full time glass artist after retiring from teaching graphic design at Fitchburg State College.
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Mary Eliot “Pat” Jackson’s grandparents were active in The Trustees of Reservations and in protecting land in the Boston suburb where she grew up. Looking for such a place as that town was in the 1920s, she stumbled on Royalston and Mount Grace. Now living here full time, she is retired from midwifery which she had practiced in inner city New York and Boston and where she was one of the team who began the obstetrics service at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1994. She has been on the boards of Planned Parenthood, Emmanuel Church in Boston, and the West Chop Trust on Martha’s Vineyard. There she was involved in learning the regulations necessary for filing under Chapter 61B. She spent a year in India and maintains interests in linguistics and the Far East.
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Wendy Lavallee is a resident of Northfield and Boston and a native of Ware. She was co-founder and president of LNS Communications, a public relations agency sold in 2001 to Chime Communications, the largest independent communications company in the United Kingdom. Previously she worked as a journalist and executive with United Press International, an international newswire service. She also held positions with Corporation for Public Broadcasting and CBS affiliates and freelanced for CBS Sports. She created a series of children’s programs for which she won an Emmy Award. She was on the board of the Beacon Hill Civic Association and now serves on the board of overseers for the Bank of America Celebrity Series in Boston.
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Howard Mathison is the proprietor of Main Street Millwork in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which produces custom wooden millwork including moldings for frames and flooring. Howard lives in Warwick, Massachusetts.
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Mike Roche is the social studies department coordinator at Mahar Regional High School where he has taught since 1974 except for four years when he worked as the regional director for Ducks Unlimited in Massachusetts. Mike serves on the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Board as board secretary. Over the past 25 years, Mike has served as advisor to the Mahar Fish and Game Club, believed to be the oldest high school fish and game club in the state; a Massachusetts volunteer hunter education instructor; a member of Massachusetts’ Project WILD advisory committee; and as director and assistant director of the Massachusetts Junior Conservation Camp; as chair of the New England Outdoor Writers Association Scholarship committee for the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and as a writer for the Athol Daily News. Mike lives in Orange.
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Kasey Rolih is a research associate in the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she is a forest ecologist working on small and large-scale conservation projects, primarily in western Massachusetts. She also consults with the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory Analysis Program as a lichen ecologist. Her lifelong passion is the conservation of rural landscapes for the plants and animals, including humans, who live there. Kasey lives in Warwick on land protected through Mount Grace’s Tully Initiative, with her husband, wildlife biologist Brad Compton, and several farm animals.
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Colleen Sculley resides with her husband, Chris Polatin, in Montague Center. She is a wildlife biologist with the Division of Federal Assistance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Hadley, Massachusetts where she administers grants to state fish and wildlife agencies to conserve wildlife throughout the northeastern United States. In this position, Colleen focuses primarily on working with states to develop landowner incentive programs that provide technical assistance and financial incentives to private landowners protect habitat for rare and endangered species. She holds a B.S. in biology and environmental science from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and an M.S. in natural resource management from the University of Michigan.
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Jon Waidlich has lived on the Waidlich family farm in Millers Falls for his entire 53 years. This former dairy farm is located at the confluence of the Millers and Connecticut Rivers. In addition to caring for their horses, cows, chickens, and goats, Jon grows sweet corn and hay. The Waidlichs are also active forest stewards and harvest timber and cordwood. Jon Waidlich’s father, Henry now 87, is a past president of the board of directors of Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, a founding director of the Millers River Watershed Council, and served on the board of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.
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Staff
Leigh Youngblood, Executive Director, has completed or supervised more than 160 land protection projects since joining Mount Grace in 1994 as assistant to founder Keith Ross. Her belief in the effectiveness of a cooperative approach to achieving Mount Grace’s mission has led to many successful partnerships with land trusts of all sizes, state agencies, and multi-level collaboratives. While at Mount Grace Leigh has served as an officer of the Mass Land Trust Coalition and on various national Land Trust Alliance committees. She has consulted for Equity Trust on projects in Oregon, New Hampshire, and Georgia. In addition, she has played a key role in establishing and maintaining the North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership, which brings together diverse groups in the region to help protect strategic open space. In 1987 Leigh began working with landowners as staff for the conservation and planning departments in Ware, Massachusetts, and studied conservation economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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David Graham Wolf, Conservation Director, specializes in working with private landowners on strategic landscape-level conservation planning projects. As a conservation biologist, naturalist, and educator, David is well-versed in taxonomy, natural history, and survey techniques of New England’s native flora and fauna. He has run a conservation consulting business and served as adjunct professor of environmental science at Franklin Pierce College. As part of his work, he has conducted field investigations to assess wildlife habitat, map natural communities, and inventory rare and imperiled species. David has served on his town’s conservation commission, worked to establish a local conservation society, and led educational field trips for the Harris Center for Conservation Education. He has two master’s degrees, one in education from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and one in conservation biology from Antioch University-New England.
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Paul Daniello, Conservation Project Manager, has a strong technical background and a history of working on complex environmental problems. He joined Mount Grace in 2006. Previously, Paul worked for nine years as a water quality specialist with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, coordinating development of total maximum daily loads, assisting municipalities in meeting regulatory requirements, and writing wastewater discharge permits. He also has 15 years of commercial laboratory experience as a manager and chemist overseeing organic pollutant analyses such as dioxins, furans, PCBs, and volatile organics. Paul is a life-member of Trout Unlimited and assists the Buffalo Field Campaign in its efforts to expand habitat for wild Yellowstone bison. He also conducts water quality monitoring with the Ashuelot River Local Advisory Committee. Paul has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Hofstra University and is completing a master’s degree in resource management and administration at Antioch University-New England.
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Jay Rasku, North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership Coordinator, worked as an environmental organizer for 12 years before joining Mount Grace in 2006. Previously, Jay was the Southern New England States Director of the Toxics Action Center, where he worked with community groups to clean up and prevent toxic pollution from landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste sites, polluting facilities and pesticide applications. Jay started his career with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, first as a campus organizer and later as organizing director for the group’s environmental, consumer and democracy programs in central Massachusetts. He has bachelor’s degrees in biology and studio art from Bates College.
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Tom Wansleben, Stewardship Biologist, specializes in avian and forest ecology. He joined Mount Grace in 2006. Tom brings a wide range of conservation-related experience to his job, including exemplary stewardship practices, wildlife population assessment techniques, forest ecosystem analysis, and habitat management planning. Previously he worked on wildlife- and conservation-related programs throughout the United States for a variety of organizations, including the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy. He is a member of the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wildlife Society, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, National Audubon Society, and the Athol Bird and Nature Club. Tom has a bachelor’s degree in natural science from Lyndon State College and is completing a master’s degree in conservation biology at Antioch University-New England. Return to Staff List
Amanda Lewis, Land Conservation Associate, specializes in conservation planning, GIS, and database development. She joined Mount Grace in 2008. Amanda began her conservation work as an intern at Lava Beds National Monument, assessing bat populations, maintaining trails, and creating a GIS database of all trails and caves in the park. She has worked for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as a GIS technician and forestry assistant. Amanda also works as a consultant for DCR on an ambitious project to inventory all roads and trails on DCR state parks and forests. Amanda has a B.S. in geography from Penn State and an M.S. in geography from UMass Amherst.
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Pam Kimball-Smith, Development Director, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars while at Mount Grace for land protection projects and the operating budget through her work in securing grants from public and private funding sources and through donations. Since joining Mount Grace in 2002, Pam has helped to manage organizational growth and development, including the expansion of the North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership. With a vision of a sustainable world developed through social ecology studies during travel worldwide, Pam has worked since 1990 with organizations such as EarthAction Network in Amherst, Earthlands in Petersham, and The Farm School in Athol. She has a bachelor’s degree in business from Babson College and has completed post-graduate studies in social ecology and elementary education.
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Nathan Rudolph, Director of Donor Relations, is responsible for managing Mount Grace’s communications and individual giving programs. Nathan joined Mount Grace in 2006 after working for more than 12 years in nonprofit development with the Oregon Humane Society, Bentley College, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Greenpeace USA, and other organizations. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Minnesota.
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David Kotker, Membership Coordinator, joined Mount Grace in 2007. He is responsible for thanking members for their support, coordinating the planning and promoting of membership events and activities, and managing and expanding the volunteer program. He has worked in fundraising for nonprofit environmental and conservation groups for over ten years, including four years with Greenpeace and four with the Citizens Awareness Network. He has a bachelor’s degree from Columbia College.
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Sean Pollock, Operations Manager, manages day-to-day operations at Mount Grace, including finances, human resources, technology systems, and building facilities. He joined the organization in 2006. Sean worked for five years as the operations and technology coordinator for the Environmental Leadership Program, taught outdoor education in the Redwoods of California, and spent two years in AmeriCorps doing environmental education, land restoration, and trail-building. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Skidmore College.
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Lisa Cormier, Office Manager, joined Mount Grace in 2007 after working seven years for the United Way of North Central Massachusetts. Prior to that, she worked for many years at Simplex Time Recorder Co., starting as a payroll clerk and promoted to administrative assistant in several departments due to her software skills. Lisa specializes in database management and office efficiency. She appreciates nature and exploring the back roads of New England. She is also an artist who favors drawing in pen and ink.
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