Board of Trustees
Jack Travelstead, West Woodbury (Chair)
Jack joined the NRLT in 2016 and currently serves as Chair of its Board of Trustees. Jack has spent his professional career managing nature resources at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. He has a BS in Biology from Old Dominion University and an MA in Marine Science from The College of William and Mary. An avid birder, he resides in West Woodbury with his wife, Ellen, and enjoys hiking, snowshoeing, and nature photography in his spare time. Jack said, “The land trust is important to me because it provides a unique opportunity to conserve and protect one’s property for future generations, whether that property provides a scenic vista, contains an important wildlife corridor, or operates as an active farm.”
Will Bunten, Hardwick
Will Bunten grew up in the Champlain Valley, studied Forest Management at the University of Vermont, and now lives in Hardwick with his family not far from NRLT conserved properties in and around Wolcott Pond. He has varied experience in forestry, including inventory work in coastal Alaska, consulting with landowners in Vermont, and working in local sugarwoods. He currently works for the Ryegate Power Station as their Regulatory Forester.
Paul Cillo, Hardwick
Paul Cillo is a founding trustee of the Northern Rivers Land Trust. He lives and owns land in Hardwick and was the first easement donor to NRLT (2007). Paul was a member of the Vermont House for ten years (1989-98), serving as Majority Leader for four of those years. Later, he founded Public Assets Institute, an independent nonpartisan Vermont public policy think tank, and led the organization for 19 years. Paul has served extensively at the local level as well, including Hardwick’s Select Board, Village/Town Merger Committee, and Planning Commission. He has been a member of numerous nonprofit boards and advisory committees, including Hardwick Community TV (President), Lamoille Housing Partnership (Treasurer), Northern Counties Health Care (President), the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, National Conference of State Legislatures, and the Energy Foundation. He is a lifelong Vermonter, originally from Castleton. His parents, with Paul and his three siblings, ran a small summer restaurant and marina on Lake Bomoseen. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Vermont.
Ethan Dreissigacker, Albany
Ethan grew up in Morrisville and spent his childhood exploring the Vermont woods as an avid birder, tracker, and nordic skier. After earning an engineering degree at Dartmouth College Ethan returned to Vermont, spending several years as a semi-professional biathlete based out of Craftsbury. Ethan now lives in Albany where he operates a small business making biathlon equipment and works as a biathlon coach at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. In addition Ethan serves on the board for both the Craftsbury Outdoor Center and the New England Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. He is passionate about conserving both the wild (and less wild) places that serve as critical habitat for wildlife and people living close to the land. Ethan is an athlete and avid outdoorsman, spending as much time as he can running, hiking, hunting, fishing, biking or skiing.
John Elwell, Craftsbury
John grew up in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies and developed an early appreciation of open spaces, the mountains, and streams. Returning to Colorado in later years, he was struck by the growth, sprawl, and changes to the natural environment. He also lived on Nantucket Island for nearly 30 years, where he witnessed big changes in the island due to an influx of wealthy vacation home buyers. John believes that, fortunately, Nantucket had a land bank that raised money on real estate transfers. It also launched an active land conservation campaign that has been able to conserve private property and to purchase land to preserve at least some of the island’s natural and scenic integrity. Becoming a Vermont resident, John said, “I realize the importance and necessity of preserving the land, the lakes, streams, and wildlife of our state. I am on the board of Northern Rivers to contribute to the continued preservation of the open spaces, waterways, and wildlife of Vermont.”
Cate Garvey, Wolcott
Cate is a self-employed landscape gardener and designer who has lived, worked, and played in Vermont for over 30 years. She is involved in many local conservation efforts including serving on the Wolcott Community Forest Stewardship Committee, as a monitor for the Loon Conservation Project with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, and as a board member for the Friends of Wolcott Pond. She has been an NRLT trustee since 2018 and serves as secretary.
Clive Gray, Greensboro
Clive received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1965. He spent most of his career as a Fellow of the Harvard Institute for International Development, doing residential tours in Nigeria, Kenya, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Morocco, and consultancies in 15 other countries including in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Retiring from Harvard in 2001, he moved to his long-time summer home in Greensboro, VT, serving 20 years as chair of the Greensboro Land Trust, and helping to found the Northern Rivers Land Trust in 2006. Most of our landowners know Clive well, since he has coordinated development of most easement documents for the NRLT. He chairs the Monitoring & Stewardship Committee with Laurie Gullion.
Laurie Gullion, Craftsbury
Laurie retired in 2018 after leading outdoor education programs for colleges and non-profit organizations for 40 years. A long-time paddler with more than 35 years of northern canoe trips, she belongs to numerous river and outdoor organizations. An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Laurie enjoys adventures in her Craftsbury “big backyard”. Also a member of the Bear-Paw Greenway in Deerfield, NH, she volunteered as an easement monitor for conserved properties in southern-tier towns before moving to Vermont. She has been a long-time NRLT member and has served as a trustee since 2020. “I believe in the land trust’s mission to protect the relatively pristine watersheds of northern Vermont. Too much is changing to ignore the health and beauty of this resource.” She chairs the Stewardship & Monitoring Committee with Clive Gray.
Bob Hawk, Walden
A retired organic farmer and ecologist, Bob is now a full-time homesteader on 54 acres in Walden, VT. Bob completed a full-year tracking course with Sue Morse in the early 2000s, and he is especially knowledgeable about state-designated wildlife corridors. With others, Bob helped launch NRLT in 2007. He said, “I recognized the need to protect the critical and rapidly disappearing wildlife habitat in our area.” As a member of the Lands Committee, he has walked many properties with landowners during initial development of conservation easements.
Susan Houston, Craftsbury
Susan has been a trustee with Northern Rivers Land Trust since it was just an interesting idea being bantered around the table. She has found it a real joy and privilege to witness the idea develop into an important service to the surrounding area, appreciated by many landowners. As chair of the NRLT for 10 years, Susan brought enormous energy to its early development and growth. She is passionate about the importance of thoughtful land conservation in these unsteady times, saying “we all need a place in the woods to go to.” Susan grew up in a hunting and fishing family and has spent many hours tramping through fall foliage woods and in trout streams looking for the elusive species, fish, or fowl. High mountains, rock climbing, ice climbing, paddling, hiking, camping, skiing, and backpacking have continued to keep her outside as much as possible. Now the flat rail trail on her new bike is the perfect way to spend a sunny fall afternoon. She lives in Craftsbury Common with her husband Ned and their house and barnyard critters.
Lydia Menendez Parker, Hardwick
Lydia Menendez Parker lives in Hardwick with her family, and brings a decade of conservation and stewardship experience from working with the Vermont River Conservancy, and more recently, The Nature Conservancy. In her younger years, she followed her love of nature to pursue a degree from the Field Naturalist / Ecological Planning Master's program at UVM. Now, she volunteers with Four Winds to bring nature into her son's elementary school, and enjoys spring ephemerals, waterfalls, and old forests.
Alex Peltz, Woodbury
Alex Peltz grew up in Woodbury and attended Hazen Union before earning his BA in Anthropology from Hamilton College. Alex spent 16 years in Philadelphia where he worked at Design for Social Impact as a creative director before starting his own branding and design studio. His area of expertise is in public interest communication and strategic design. In 2018 Alex returned to his childhood home in Woodbury, where he lives with his wife and two children. By reconnecting to his roots and the natural landscape of Vermont, Alex is committed to stewarding this land for the next generations.
Diana Peduzzi, Woodbury
Born in Barre into a granite-industry family, Diana left UVM in 1973 with a B.S. in Natural Resource Economics. For 30 years she worked for the State of Vermont, first in the State Energy Office during the early “Energy Crisis” years, and later for the District Environmental Commission. After retirement she became a permit consultant, helping smaller developers and business owners navigate the environmental regulatory process. Concurrently, she was the Woodbury Town Clerk for 10 years and has served more recently on the Woodbury Select Board. Her Energy Office friend Paul Cillo invited her to join the NRLT Board and take on the role of Treasurer in 2015.
Peter Watkinson, Greensboro
As a magna cum laude graduate in Computer and Information Science from Syracuse University in 1980, Peter Watkinson had an early start in consulting and software. This evolved into sales and business development roles in technology for the bulk of his career. A decade ago, Peter essentially got a Masters in Clean Energy and Climate Change as a founding member of the British American Business Council’s Environment and Energy Committee, writing a blog called Cleantech Compass, attending lectures at a number of colleges and universities in the Metro Boston region and studying the subject. His most recent role was developing utility scale solar projects in the eastern US as Director of Solar Energy and Storage for Schneider Electric.
Relocating to Greensboro VT with his wife in 2021, Peter has thought further about how to volunteer in areas that benefit the regional community, conserve land and address climate change. He has been a long time supporter of the AMC and President’s Society, recently joined the Advisory Committee of the Greensboro Land Trust, the Greensboro Conservation Commission and the Greensboro Association. He is an avid outdoor athlete often hiking, biking and skiing throughout the area.