Board officers
| President: Jeff Darlington | SelectRead more |
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Jeff Darlington was hired as the first Executive Director of Placer Land Trust in May 2002. He made an immediate impact in PLT’s conservation projects completion, outreach, and fundraising efforts. He grew up in Auburn, and is the 4th generation of his family to reside in Placer County. Jeff has a BA in History with a Minor in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. He came to Placer Land Trust from the Mono Lake Committee, a highly successful nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to the preservation of the Mono Lake Basin in the Eastern Sierras. Jeff is also a freelance writer, and has been published in several regional and national publications. Jeff lives in Auburn, California.
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| Vice-President: Ben Miles | SelectRead more |
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Ben Miles is the Executive Director of Shasta Land Trust, was hired to be the organization’s Land Projects Manager in the summer of 2007. He earned his Master’s of Science in Environmental Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, while also spending two years working for Tennessee State Parks and the North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy. Before enrolling in graduate school, Ben worked a variety of jobs in the environmental field, including two years with a conservation corps in northern Arizona, one year on an organic farm in northern California, and a season as a teacher at an environmental education facility in the mountains of Georgia.
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| Secretary-Treasurer: William Thauvette | SelectRead more |
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William Thauvette is an at-large board member having been elected in 2009. Bill has lived at Donner Summit for the last thirteen years with his wife, Mary Alice, where they enjoy cross country skiing, biking, hiking, and kayaking. After receiving his bachelor’s in business administration from Bowling Green State University and MBA in finance from Wayne State University, Bill had a thirty year career with Ford Motor Company in the areas of finance and test planning. Since retiring to California, he has served on the board of his homeowners’ association as chair of the government liaison and roads committees. He has also been on the board of the Truckee Donner Land Trust where he has served as board secretary, treasurer, and chairman of the finance committee. Bill’s two passions were discovered relatively late in life – cross country skiing and the land conservation movement.
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Board members
| Marty Coleman-Hunt | SelectRead more |
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Marty Coleman-Hunt holds a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Linguistics and an M.B.A. from San Francisco State University. She has had a 30-year career as a business and marketing professional for non-profit organizations and in the business sector. Soon after moving to Nevada County for the sheer beauty of our landscapes and access to first class outdoor recreational activities, Marty became a fundraising volunteer, then a Board member for Nevada County Land Trust, now Bear Yuba Land Trust. Four years later, in 2007, she became Executive Director and today she works to protect the quality of our rural community. She is on the Boards of Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council and the Bear-Yuba Partnership. In the past, she held a Board seat for the San Francisco Special Olympics for five years, she ran an anti-toxics campaign under Mayor Dianne Feinstein. She also launched Green Communications Group, which promoted Green initiatives for business and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In 2003 she was given the Leadership Award from TWIN (Tribute to Women in Industry) and also for the 2020 Vision and Leadership Award.
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| Alan Ehrgott | SelectRead more |
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Alan Ehrgott is the Executive Director of the American River Conservancy. Alan was a founder of SCLTC and served as Board Secretary for 3 years. He has served as ARC’s executive director for 20 years overseeing its education, stewardship and conservation programs. Alan has completed more than 50 conservation projects protecting and enhancing over 10,000 acres of fisheries, endangered species habitat and recreational lands within the American and Cosumnes River watersheds.
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| Karen Ferrell-Ingram | SelectRead more |
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Karen Ferrell-Ingram is the Executive Director of the Eastern Sierra Land Trust and was a founding Board member of this organization in 2001, serving as secretary, Projects Committee chair and on the Executive Committee until accepting a staff position in 2005. Karen and her husband, Stephen Ingram, donated the ESLT’s first conservation easement, which helps protect a critical wildlife migration corridor in southern Mono County. Karen grew up in the Owens Valley and is gratified every day that she was lucky enough to return to her hometown of Bishop in 1994. Once back in the Eastern Sierra, she spent about ten years learning about and propagating native plants for restoration and home garden purposes.
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| Paul Hardy | SelectRead more |
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Paul Hardy is the Executive Director of Feather River Land Trust, and is a Past President of Sierra Cascade Land Trust Council. Paul was born and raised in Portola and is a founder of FRLT. Paul is a wildlife biologist by training. As the homeland increasingly beckoned and their college years came to a close, Paul and his wife Rhonda chose to move back to Plumas County in 1998. Paul is grateful for the opportunity to give back to the lands that have given so much to him. He enjoys spending high quality time with his family and friends, often in nature. Paul especially cherishes the opportunity to rediscover the places he loves with Rhonda and through the experiences of his daughter, Emmalyn, and son, Drew.
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| Brian Kermeen | SelectRead more |
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Brian Kermeen is President of the Tuolumne County Land Trust, where he has been a director for more than 12 years. He is employed by the USDA Forest Service in recreation management and is a licensed Landscape Architect. Brian has lived in the Central Sierra Nevada since 1976. He is currently a director for the Tuolumne County Visitor Bureau, the Tuolumne County Trails Council, and is active in many other community activities.
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| Sopac McCarthy Mulholland | SelectRead more |
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Sopac McCarthy Mulholland is the Executive Director of the Sequoia Riverlands Trust. Soapy joined SRT as the first paid Executive Director in March 2002. She brings to SRT a unique history with experience in ranch management, land development and agriculture that guides her conservation vision. Since 1989, she has served as the general manager of her family’s 40-year old River Valley Ranch in Springville and has owned and operated the McCarthy Creek Ranch in Porterville for over 10 years. Through her sole proprietorship, Sopac and Associates, she actively engaged in the field of real estate entitlements and government and agency land use. She previously served as interim President of the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation and as Director of Development for the California Agricultural Education Foundation.
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| Perry Norris | SelectRead more |
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Perry Norris is the Executive Director of the Truckee Donner Land Trust. He oversees a very active land conservation program as well as a popular trails project in the Donner area. He was the former Chief Operating Officer for the North Carolina Outward Bound School, and a former Deputy Director, Pacific Crest Outward Bound School. He is a past Board member of the Tahoe International Film Festival.
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| Alicia Reban | SelectRead more |
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Alicia Reban is the founding Executive Director and now President of the Nevada Land Conservancy, Nevada’s first independent “homegrown” land trust, founded in 1998. She serves as an advisor to the Community Foundation of Western Nevada, a director on the board of the Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada, and is active in the Reno Rotary Club. Alicia is a Certified Fund Raising Professional, former president of the Sierra chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and recipient of the William H. Williams Award for Outstanding Fund Raising Executive in 2000.
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| Ellie Routt | SelectRead more |
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Ellie Routt is the Mother Lode Land Trust’s Executive Director. Ellie was born and raised in Amador County where she was an active 4-H member. After high school she attended Santa Rosa Junior College with a major in Forestry/Natural Resources and Recreation. Ellie attended Humboldt State majoring in Rangeland Resource Science. After graduation she started working for MLLT. Ellie has two little boys, Collin and Isaac and enjoys hiking, camping, horseback riding and swimming, gardening and identifying plants.
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| Sahara Saude | SelectRead more |
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Sahara Saude is the Director of Development for California Rangeland Trust. Sahara has worked for the U.S. government, the private business sector, and with non-profit organizations in California, Madagascar, Central America, Europe, and Indonesia focusing on long-term conservation management, environmental policy, and stewardship. Sahara completed an undergraduate degree in English at Sonoma State University and holds a Master’s degree in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She currently lives on the ranch that she grew up on in the central Sierra Nevada. In her spare time, Sahara enjoys spending time at her family’s ranch, riding with her Dad, and being outdoors.
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| David Sutton | SelectRead more |
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David Sutton is the Director of the Trust for Public Lands Sierra Nevada Program and the Northern California Program, a position he has held since January 2000. He has been a member of TPL’s project staff since 1989, and served as the Western Region’s Director of Projects from 1996-1999. During his tenure at TPL, Mr. Sutton has completed more than 35 land conservation projects, protecting nearly 50,000 acres in California and the Southwest. Mr. Sutton has worked in the parks and land conservation field for more than twenty years. Prior to working for TPL, he helped establish and managed the San Francisco peninsula-based Trail Center, and worked for California State Parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He holds a Masters in Business Administration form the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at San Diego.
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| Jeanette Tuitele | SelectRead more |
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Jeannette Tuitele was named Executive Director of the Sierra Foothill Conservancy in February 2009. Previously, Jeannette had served as Associate and Development Director. Jeannette has been primarily responsible for working with her board, fundraising, communications and grant writing. She began working with SFC in October of 2005 as a volunteer and was brought on staff in February of 2006. Prior to working with the Conservancy, Jeannette worked as an ecological research coordinator and biological technician in Oregon and an agroforestry specialist in American Samoa. She received her B.A. degree in botany from the University of Hawai’i and her M.S. degree in Forest Science from Oregon State University.
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| Dawit Zeleke | SelectRead more |
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Dawit Zeleke, Director of the Central Valley and Mountains region, oversees The Nature Conservancy’s work in the Central Valley, Klamath, and Sierra Nevada ecoregions. He has more than 20 years of experience in agriculture, habitat management, and habitat restoration. Before he assumed his present position in December 2005, Mr. Zeleke was director of the Sacramento River Project from 2002 to 2005. From 1998 to 2002, he held the position of agriculture and restoration program manager for the Sacramento River Project. He joined the Conservancy in 1992 as restoration manager and assistant preserve manager for the Cosumnes River Preserve. Before that, he was a small-scale organic produce farmer in Yolo County, and he still owns and operates an organic mandarin orchard in Glenn County. He was awarded a two-year California Agricultural Leadership Program fellowship in 1997. He holds a B.A. in anthropology from Friends World College in Huntington, New York.
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Staff
| Coordinator: Susan Kane | SelectRead more |
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Susan Kane has been involved with SCLTC since its inception in 2003, and brings to the organization a background of 15 years in the land trust community. It all started when Susan responded to a volunteer posting for Nevada County Land Trust, where she organized (and occasionally led) a series of educational hikes. She immersed herself in learning about the work of land trusts and was soon hired to take on membership development and community outreach, grant writing and administration, and fundraising for major events. Susan holds a BA in American History and Literature from Kendall College in Chicago, Illinois, and has a background in real estate and securities administration. She currently coordinates SCLTC activities, administers this website, and is responsible for grant administration and project management.
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