None The Nature Conservancy in Vermont Press Releases Search All Press Releases Emily Boedecker Phone: (802) 229-4425 x112 eboedecker@tnc.org

Nature Conservancy Elects Four New Vermont Trustees

Montpelier, Vermont—11 September 2003—Over 400 hundred members of The Nature Conservancy from its Vermont, Adirondack, and Eastern New York chapters met recently at Fort Ticonderoga, on the New York shore of Lake Champlain, for their first-ever tri-chapter Annual Membership Meeting. The gathering celebrated the chapters’ jointly managed conservation program at the southern end of Lake Champlain. This community-based project, known as the Southern Lake Champlain Valley Program, owns over 9,000 acres of preserve lands near the lake in both Vermont and New York, including the 3,500-acre Helen W. Buckner Preserve at Bald Mountain in West Haven and several miles of frontage on both sides of the Poultney River.

At a dinner event for donors, Trustees and friends in the King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga on the evening before the membership meeting, guests heard Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and former Governor Madeleine May Kunin speak on land conservation accomplishments and challenges in the Lake Champlain area.

Governor Douglas joked to attendees that the last time so many Vermonters invaded the Fort, the results were not good for New York, but, "This time, I come as a friend." Douglas noted recent agreements between his administration and Governor Pataki of New York to work together in protecting the ecological integrity of the Lake Champlain basin.

The Governor also congratulated the Conservancy for its work in protecting wetlands, natural areas and the working landscape on both sides of the lake, and cited the Conservancy’s "consistent and thoughtful" support for and use of funding from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board "for protection of important lands in Vermont."

To emphasize his "I come as a friend" message, the Governor noted that "…wetlands on both sides of Lake Champlain have been protected with… federal funds from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. These grants require matching contributions from state and other sources, and we can be proud to note that the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, as one source of such matching funds, has actually protected lands in Vermont and in New York."

During the membership’s annual business meeting, the Vermont chapter of the Conservancy elected four new members to its Board of Trustees. A total of 24 members of this Board serve renewable three-year terms in an advisory capacity to the Conservancy’s Vermont staff.

At the meeting, Board Chair Allen Clark of Plainfield also acknowledged the contributions of five Trustees who are retiring from the Board: Nan Jenks-Jay and Carolyn Jackson of Middlebury; Warren King of Ripton; Sarah Reeves of Norwich; and Gale Lawrence of Richmond. New Trustees are:

Peter Silberfarb, Norwich, VT

Peter Silberfarb is the Raymond Sobel Professor of Psychiatry, a professor of medicine, and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. He lives in Norwich, VT with his wife Anne, who is also a Trustee of the Vermont chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

Silberfarb’s medical specialty is in the area of the emotional effects of malignant disease, especially on the cognitive effects of cancer and its treatment. He received his Bachelor of Science degree at Bucknell University, his M.D. at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, and did his residencies in medicine and psychiatry at Dartmouth Affiliated Hospitals. Between completing these residencies, he performed military service as a surgeon with a rank of Lieutenant Commander in the US Public Health Service.

Both Silberfarb and his wife are active in the conservation arena. He is a member of the Norwich Conservation Commission and serves as Vice President of the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. He is a longtime member of the Vermont chapter of the Conservancy and is an avid birdwatcher and outdoorsman.

Kathleen James Ring, Manchester Center, VT

Kathleen James Ring is the owner, with her husband Brad, of Battenkill Communications, which publishes "Brew Your Own" and "Winemaker" magazines. Both of these publications are the leading periodicals in their respective fields of home beer brewing and winemaking. Prior to starting this business, Ring was senior editor for 6 years of "Snow Country" magazine, for which she covered political issues in ski towns as well as land conservation issues from the ski industry perspective. She has also worked for Time Magazine, and was a Capitol Hill reporter for Roll Call magazine. She holds a Master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Ring and her husband live in Manchester Center and have two daughters. She is a member of the Manchester School Board, is a member of the Friends Foundation for Manchester Elementary School, and served for 3 years on the Board of the Manchester School Fund, where she managed the Fund’s public relations and marketing efforts. She also serves on the Board of the Zion Pre-School in Manchester, where her youngest daughter is a student, and is a former member of the Board of the Northshire Community Foundation.

Ring grew up in Nebraska, where her father, Philip James, founded the state chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Her father is currently a member of the Conservancy’s National Board of Governors and is a former Trustee of the Alaska and Colorado chapters of the Conservancy.

Ring is a lifelong alpine skier. She also enjoys snowshoeing, backpacking, camping and hiking, and has established a personal goal of becoming a snowboarder before she reaches the age of 40.

Alex Wilson, Dummerston, VT

Alex Wilson is president of BuildingGreen, Inc., a Brattleboro-based company that publishes Environmental Building News (EBN) and other resources on green building. He is also co-author with Rocky Mountain Institute staff of Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate, co-author of the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, and editor of Greening Federal Facilities – Second Edition. He has written hundreds of articles on energy conservation, building technology, and the environment for such magazines as Fine Homebuilding, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Popular Science.

Wilson is Secretary of the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council, and is a trustee of the Conservation and Research Foundation, which has supported conservation initiatives since 1952 and was instrumental in the establishment of The Nature Conservancy in the early 1950s.

Locally, he is chair of the Black Mountain Stewardship Committee, which oversees the Black Mountain property owned by The Nature Conservancy, he served on the Dummerston Planning Commission from 1989 until 2001, and he is active with several other organizations, including Cities for Climate Protection in Brattleboro and Friends of the West River Trail.

Wilson is an accomplished explorer of New England’s lakes and ponds. He has written a series of books, with a natural history focus, on quiet-water paddling for the Appalachian Mountain Club. Alex lives with his wife and two daughters in Dummerston.

Clive Gray, Greensboro, VT

Clive Gray is a Harvard PhD in economics who retired in 2001 to his long-time vacation home in Greensboro after 34 years with the Harvard Institute for International Development. He served resident tours as an economic adviser/trainer in the governments of Kenya, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Morocco, along with short-term assignments in other parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He continues to consult part-time in developing and transition economies.

Since 1978 he has chaired the stewardship committee for the Conservancy’s Barr Hill Preserve in Greensboro, donated by his father in 1972. For over 30 years he has worked with Greensboro neighbors to conserve Long Pond, the largest undeveloped lake in northeastern Vermont, where the Conservancy recently expanded its holding to 666 acres.

Halfway through a two-year term as chair of the Greensboro Land Trust, Gray is working with the Conservancy and the Vermont Land Trust on additional projects for protecting undeveloped land in Greensboro.