Commissioners

	Chair: Larry R. Kueter is an attorney with The Law Office of Lawrence R. Kueter in Denver, Colorado. His law practice is limited to land conservation. For thirty years he was with the law firm of Isaacson Rosenbaum, a firm nationally known for its conservation practice. Since 1990, his practice has included representing numerous landowners, local land trusts, governmental entities, and statewide and national conservation organizations in land conservation matters. He currently serves as legal counsel to the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts and has been legal counsel to the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust since its creation in 1995. In 2003 and 2004, he served on the Land Trust Alliance's Standards and Practices Revision Committee, and in 2004 and 2005, he co-chaired the Land Trust Alliance's Standards and Practices Program Design Steering Committee.
	Secretary: Ann Taylor Schwing is of counsel for Best Best & Krieger LLP. in Sacramento, California, where her practice is limited to appeals, motions and research. She is author of Open Meeting Laws 2d (2000), California Affirmative Defenses (2010) and The Regulation of Money Managers (with Tamar Frankel, 2009), and editor of Tamar Frankel's Securitization (2005). She received the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Ninth Circuit in 2004. She has been a Commissioner and Secretary with the Land Trust Accreditation Commission since 2006 and has served on nonprofit boards - American Inns of Court Foundation, Sacramento Law Foundation and The Land Trust of Napa County for which she is also a multi-committee member, volunteer and land and conservation easement donor. She has been a master and member of the governing board of the Anthony M. Kennedy Inn of Court since 1989. She was selected in 2007 to be a Fellow in the Fellowship of the American Bar Foundation, a national honorary organization of attorneys, judges and law professors who demonstrate outstanding dedication to the welfare of their communities and to the highest principles of the legal profession publicly and professionally.
	Treasurer Lucinda Hunt-Stowell (Cindy) serves as a board member for several environmental and land trust organizations in Connecticut and is a consultant to not-for-profit organizations through the NonProfit Assistance Initiative with the Connecticut Community Foundation. She is currently chair of Flanders Nature Center & Land Trust board in Woodbury, Connecticut. Her corporate and consulting background includes over 30 years experience in Project and Strategic Planning, Business Process Management, Quality Improvement and Organizational Development.
	Elizabeth “Liz” Crane-Wexler is a certified forester who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Forest Management from Clemson University and a Master of Forestry degree from North Carolina State University. She initiated the Forest Legacy Program in the Southern Region as an employee of the Forest Service in Atlanta. She began her forestry career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica, and worked seasonally in Alaska in addition to working as a hydrologist and rural development specialist for the Forest Service. Currently Liz is a Conservation Easement Specialist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington, DC.
	Scott Dickerson has served as the executive director of Coastal Mountains Land Trust, an accredited land trust, since 1998. A resident of Maine all of his adult life, Scott designed and made custom fine furniture for a national clientele from 1972 through the mid-1980’s and authored articles for the journal Fine Woodworking. Since 1986, he has worked in conservation as a land planning consultant and as staff for non-profit organizations. He is author of the book celebrating the Ducktrap Watershed conservation program, To Save a River, with photographer Dennis Shultz, published in May 2002. He received a Bachelor's degree in environmental planning in 1972 from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and a Master’s degree from College of the Atlantic in 1995 for his thesis research on ecological reserve planning.
	Molly Doran has served as the executive director of Skagit Land Trust, an accredited land trust in Washington, since 2002. Prior to working in land conservation, Molly spent over 20 years managing schools and teaching outdoor education in North and South America and Africa for the National Outdoor Leadership School. She holds a masters degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences with an emphasis in managing and consulting from the Leadership Institute of Seattle, Bastyr University. A Canadian, she graduated from the University of Waterloo with an emphasis in Environmental Studies. She and her husband raise their two sons in Bow, Washington.
	Tom Duffus is the upper Midwest director for The Conservation Fund (TCF). In addition to his current position with TCF and leadership roles on volunteer boards, Tom has served in management positions over the past 24 years with Adirondack Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy. Tom has directly closed on over 387,000 acres of conservation projects – both land and conservation easements in 7 states and two Canadian provinces and is an experienced conservation easement practitioner. He has extensive experience conserving forestland as well as farm, open space, biodiversity and wilderness lands. Tom has been engaged in all aspects of running land conservation organizations as well as the work of protecting and managing conservation land. He is currently serving on the Alliance's Conservation Defense Advisory Council. Tom holds a Master of Forest Science degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
	Jean Hocker, president emeritus of the Land Trust Alliance, was the Alliance’s president from 1987 to 2002, where, among many other things, she oversaw the initial development of Land Trust Standards and Practices. She is now president of Conservation Service Company, LLC, where she provides consulting services that draw on more than 25 years of land conservation and nonprofit experience. From 1980 to 1987, she led the Jackson Hole Land Trust (WY) as its founding executive director.
	Cary Leptuck is president of the board of French and Pickering Creeks Land Trust in Pennsylvania. In 2005 he retired after 26 years as president and CEO of an accredited nonprofit health care organization. He now provides governance consulting for nonprofits.
	Kevin McGorty is the director of the Tall Timbers Land Conservancy, which is a department of a larger organization named Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy – an accredited land trust. Kevin manages an annual budget of approximately $600,000, supervises five full-time employees, and has helped save 110,000 acres of land on 80 conservation easement properties in northern Florida and southwest Georgia. In addition, he is involved in land use planning and environmental advocacy. Kevin previously served as director of the Historic Tallahassee Preservation Board, an agency of the Florida Department of State. Kevin has also served on a number of special committees and panels for the Land Trust Alliance, including the steering committee that developed the framework of the accreditation program.
	Anne Murphy is the Conservation Stewardship Director for the Minnesota Land Trust. In this role, Anne is responsible for leading the stewardship and conservation planning efforts. She is the also author of several case study guides on strategic conservation planning for the Land Trust Alliance and has served as the online expert for the land protection and stewardship forums on The Learning Center. Prior to joining the Land Trust, Anne gained valuable experience in stewardship, conservation planning, and land protection at Western Reserve Land Conservancy in Ohio and Little Traverse Conservancy in Michigan. Anne graduated from Alma College in Michigan with bachelor’s degrees in biology and piano performance. She has a graduate certification in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Cleveland State University in Ohio.
	Heather Richards is the vice president for conservation and rural programs for the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), an accredited land trust in Virginia. Prior to her work at PEC, she was director of the headwaters conservation program at the Potomac Conservancy. In addition to her work with PEC, Heather is current past-chair of Virginia's United Land Trusts (VaULT) and is a current executive committee member. Prior to her land trust career, she worked on wildlife reintroduction programs for everything from wolves to trumpeter swans with Defenders of Wildlife. Heather holds a Masters of Environmental Management from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
	Aimee Rutledge is proud to work with two accredited land trusts. Aimee has been Executive Director of the Sacramento Valley Conservancy, an accredited land trust serving the Sacramento region, since October 1996. At the Conservancy, Aimee has completed over 30 conservation real estate transactions and built the organization from a $10K annual budget to a $500K annual budget. Since 2009, Aimee has additionally worked as California Program Manager for The Wilderness Land Trust (also an accredited land trust). Previously, Aimee helped found the Friends of the Sacramento River Greenway, worked with the American Institute of Architects, California Council as Director of Governmental Relations, and ran her own consulting firm. She holds a BA in History from Pomona College. Aimee spends her spare time with her family in the Sierras or on the coast, enjoying California’s open spaces.
	Jennifer Sims has been on the board of the Columbia Land Trust, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, for the past 11 years. She is currently in her fifth year as Board President. She began her professional career as a land use planner with Metro, the Portland, Oregon area regional government. She transitioned to a management role and retired in 2010 as the Chief Financial Officer with the City of Portland. She holds a Bachelors degree in Geography with a Certificate in Urban Studies from Portland State University and a Masters in Public Administration from Lewis and Clark College and is a native Oregonian and an avid hiker.
	Steve W. Swartz is general counsel to the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based international land trust affiliated with The Humane Society of the United States. Since joining the Trust in 1999, Steve has been involved in virtually all aspects of managing a nonprofit organization and has assisted in nearly 100 conservation transactions. He also serves as corporate secretary of the Trust.
	Tom Trinley is Director-Finance & Administration for the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, a position he has held since 2002. He is responsible for oversight of the organization’s accounting, financial reporting, program- and mission-related investment portfolio, policies, information technology, human resources, and other administrative matters. Mr. Trinley has worked in the finance field for over eighteen years. His experience includes both for-profit and non-profit financial and administrative management. Tom has been involved with numerous nonprofits as a volunteer and board member. Tom is also an Emmy-nominated television documentary producer whose Notes from the Field environmental history series aired on PBS member stations nationally. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration-Finance from St. Xavier University, Chicago.
	Michael B. Whitfield (Commissioner Emeritus) is the Coordinator of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, a partnership of land trusts in three states and two Canadian provinces in the Northern Rockies. In this role, Michael coordinates a large landscape initiative to protect high priority lands through collaborative planning, capacity building, and capital fundraising. He was previously the long-term executive director and founding board president of the Teton Regional Land Trust in Idaho. He is also a conservation biologist and research associate with the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative, through which he investigates the ecological needs of sensitive wildlife species and partners with management agencies to conserve their habitats.
	Jessica Whittaker is an attorney in Massachusetts concentrating on real estate and estate planning, where she also represents land trusts. She is a former board member of the Rochester Land Trust and currently serves on The Coalition for Buzzards Bay's Watershed Protection Committee. Jessica is the former executive director the Sippican Lands Trust, an accredited land trust in Massachusetts. At Sippican, she managed the operations of a small, single town land trust, including negotiating all land deals. She was directly involved with policies, stewardship management, development and outreach. Jessica almost doubled the Trust’s acres under conservation since joining in 2004 and oversaw over 75 stewardship volunteers.

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