2023 Conference Presenters
The Maine Land Conservation Conference brings together talented speakers from across the country with those from right here in Maine. We are so grateful to be working with all of them to bring you this series of thought-provoking webinars!
N.B.Aldrich
N.B.Aldrich is a New Media artist, musician and educator residing in Sedgwick, Maine, USA, who creates installation, video, performance and acousmatic art. He is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Maine. The work focuses on collecting, refining and redistributing information, both aesthetic and practical, across varying mediums. In the process, the methods and metaphors of the “information age” become instruments of their own critique.
Aldrich has had work shown internationally at such venues as Artists Space, Engine 27, Art Interactive, the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, the Festival de Arte Sonore, Hipersonica Festival, The National Museum of Singapore, the Optica Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop, Bates College Museum of Art and many others.
He has interviewed and written about Sound Art and sound artists such as Chris Mann and Stephen Vitiello, and has taught Music, Electronic Music, Electronic Art and Installation Art courses at Bennington College, Rockport College and the University of New Hampshire and is currently on the faculty of the Intermedia MFA Program at the University of Maine at Orono.
Judy Anderson
Judy Anderson of Community Consultants has worked in the land trust sector for over 25 years. Judy currently assists nonprofit organizations on practical strategic conservation initiatives, incorporating local communities, climate change, governance, communications, and community-based fundraising strategies.
She also coaches land trusts on inclusive conservation, easement drafting and stewardship, and building greater community relevance to ensure their work withstands the test of time. Judy is a regular presenter at national and regional land trust conferences and provides trainings on topics including fundraising/outreach, easement drafting/stewardship, climate change and land protection, and inclusive community conservation.
Lynda Clancy
Lynda Clancy is editorial director of the Penobscot Bay Pilot, an online community hub that covers a large region of coastal Maine. The beauty and complexity of small towns have inspired her as a writer and photographer in Maine since the 1980s. An award-winning journalist, she serves on the Maine Press Association’s Board of Directors, the Maine Legislature’s Right To Know Advisory Committee, as well as Legacy Rockport, a nonprofit that works to enhance the community, and the Camden-Rockport Pathways Committee, a municipal committee that works to build alternative public transportation infrastructure that accommodates all ages.
Brandon Hayes
Brandon Hayes is Founder and Principal at Bold Bison Communications & Consulting. Brandon earned a reputation for creative, hands-on, grounded communications and strategy solutions during his 20 years in the non-profit sector. For seven years, he was Director of Communications at Openlands, Chicago’s regional land trust and leading conservation organization, where he directed all aspects of external communications, including messaging, printed pieces, website, traditional and digital media, creative design, and photo and video content. He also served on Openlands’ Program Impact and Climate Change task forces.
Brandon regularly presents talks and workshops at national and regional venues like Land Trust Alliance Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference, Prairie State Conservation Coalition, and River Rally. He was co-chair of the Communications Working Group of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative. He served on the Vital Lands Illinois leadership team. He was an invited participant and impromptu facilitator of the inaugural “Inspiring Conservation Leadership” gathering at Oak Spring Garden Foundation.
Daniel Hohl
Daniel joined Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Land Protection Department in 2021 as a project manager. He works on land acquisitions and conservation easement transactions throughout Midcoast Maine. He is the chair of the 12 Rivers Conservation Initiative, a regional conservation partnership working together to connect the natural landscapes of Midcoast Maine. Daniel started his career in conservation as a forester. Between 2010 and 2019 Daniel worked in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington implementing sustainable forest harvesting and management practices for State and Federal agencies. From 2019 – 2021 Daniel worked for Washington State purchasing term easements on forest riparian habitat and permanent easements on forest habitat critical for state-listed threatened or endangered species.
Steven Hufnagel
Steven has served as Executive Director of Coastal Rivers (formerly DRA) since 2009, having previously been DRA’s Director of Lands and Stewardship starting in 2003. Steven grew up along the Mianus River in Bedford, New York where he was active in the Mianus River Gorge Preserve and Town of Bedford Conservation Board. He attended Williams College, majoring in Geology (B.A.), and the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan (M.S.). His land use planning focus took him from Ann Arbor to Belize to study collaboration at a watershed scale among local land trusts and international NGO’s. Prior to graduate school, he worked for three years in Seattle as a project manager at the Cascadia Consulting Group assisting public agency clients in their outreach efforts to promote watershed stewardship and waste reduction.
Steven is interested in the intersection of land use planning, land conservation, public outreach and water quality. He loves trails – creating them and hiking on them – and islands. Steven and his wife Liza live with their two children in Damariscotta just a few blocks from the harbor.
Doug Innis
Skip Lisle
Skip Lisle has a BS in Geography from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and a Master’s degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Maine. He started his professional habitat management career at the Penobscot Nation where he worked for six years. Here, he developed early-model Beaver Deceivers and Castor Masters. These essentially sneak water away from beavers and protect roads and other properties in a reliable, non-lethal manner. By the late 1990s, this helped the Penobscots become the first large landowners in the world to completely beaver-proof their lands non-lethally.
Skip has been running his own business, Beaver Deceivers, LLC, for 25 years. During this time, he has constantly improved his high-quality, industry-leading flow devices, inventing every detail of their designs. He has worked at thousands of sites around the world, produced an extremely high success rate, and has never had to recommend that beavers be killed. This has indirectly led to the creation of thousands of acres of wetlands and directly led to the saving of millions of dollars for society in the absence of constantly battling beavers and repairing damaged properties.
Shelley Megquier
Shelley manages Maine Farmland Trust’s federal, state, and municipal policy work and oversees the design, completion, and dissemination of its research work. She brings to her role as Policy & Research Director a deep commitment to using solid evidence and compelling storytelling to inspire lasting political change. Before joining MFT, Shelley spent more than 10 years working on international health and development policy including managing research and advocacy projects and partnerships at Population Reference Bureau in Washington, DC. Shelley holds a Master of Arts degree in Sustainable International Development from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from Saint Lawrence University.
As a native of Hampden, Maine and a lover of all things dirt, farm, and food, Shelley is committed to advancing evidence-based policies that protect Maine farmland, support the state’s diverse farming communities, and advance the future of Maine farming and local food systems.
Misha Mytar
Prior to joining MCHT, Misha was a Senior Planner at the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, where she worked to enhance the economic and community development potential of the Bureau’s Downeast properties. She has also worked for a number of local conservation and planning organizations including Blue Hill Heritage Trust, Frenchman Bay Conservancy, Sunrise County Economic Council, and Washington County Council of Governments.
Misha grew up in Surry, graduated from Yale University with a degree in anthropology, and earned her master’s degree in community planning and development from the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. She is currently a Senior Project Manager with MCHT and staffs the Conservation Limited Development LLC.
Misha lives in Bar Harbor with her husband Dan Farrenkopf and their two children.
Steve Norton
Steve Norton is a sound artist, musician, researcher and educator living in Orono,
Maine. He is focused on understanding the world by listening to it. His practice has
gradually shifted from music performance to field recording and soundscape
composition over the last decade, tapping into his life-long interest in biology, ecology
and the outdoors. His field-recorded sound is used in soundscape study, electroacoustic
composition, and performance and presentation contexts.
Steve has been exhibiting, composing and performing in the United States and Canada
for over thirty years. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music and a
Master of Fine Arts in Intermedia from the University of Maine. He is co-founder of the
Island Soundscape Project and a board member of the Bangor Land Trust.
Betta Stothart
Betta Stothart, President of Betta Stothart Consulting, is a writer, editor, and public relations consultant with 20+ years of experience in the fields of sustainability, conservation, and Maine food and lifestyle brands. She started her career as a journalist and was director of marketing for two natural food companies before moving into the nonprofit sector. Betta’s professional work has focused on high-quality public relations campaigns for large and small Maine brands, such as Maine Coast Heritage Trust, The Ecology School, blueshift Aerospace, New England Outdoor Center, Saddleback, Maine, Grandy Oats, Thos. Moser, Gifford’s Ice Cream, the Wild Blueberry Association of North America, and many others.
Sandy Walczyk
Sandy has had a life-long passion for wildlife, plants, and all things outdoors, which she has translated into a career in natural resources management. After studying wildlife biology and conservation policy at College of the Atlantic, she worked as a wildlife research technician at a variety of positions around the country. She also tried her hand at carpentry, landscaping, and arboriculture before returning to school at the University of Maine for a Masters degree in Forestry. Since graduating she has worked in a variety of positions in the Maine forest industry including four years as a District Forester with the Maine Forest Service. Sandy has been the conservation forest manager for the Blue Hill Heritage Trust for almost five years.
Patrick Williams
Patrick Williams is Director of Creative Services at Bold Bison Communications & Consulting. Prior to joining Bold Bison, Patrick served as Marketing Manager at Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, where he designed and implemented a robust video content strategy which sustained the museum through a 15-month pandemic closure and consistently generated the most digital engagement among all Chicago’s museums. Previous to his tenure with the Nature Museum, Patrick served as Manager of Communications at Openlands, where he reshaped the organization’s brand narrative around climate change — positioning the organization as a sector leader in private land conservation — and implemented a dynamic digital advocacy initiative.
Patrick regularly facilitates skills-building workshops at national and regional conferences including at the American Alliance of Museums: Annual Meeting and Museum Expo, the Land Trust Alliance Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference, the Vital Lands Illinois Summit, and the Prairie State Conservation Coalition Annual Meeting.
Patrick holds a BA, International Honours in History having graduated from a joint degree program between the College of William & Mary and the University of St Andrews, and is also proficient in German.
Ethan Winter
Ethan Winter serves at American Farmland Trust’s Northeast Solar Specialist where he helps set and implement AFTs strategy for solar energy generation and farmland conservation. Prior to joining AFT, Ethan Winter worked as Project Developer and Senior Community Engagement Manager for Cypress Creek Renewables, an integrated solar and storage company with a 1.6 GW solar fleet spanning 14 states. In this role, Winter led community outreach strategy and helped to secure zoning approvals for a $100 million+ portfolio of community distributed generation (2-5 MWac) solar projects in New York and Massachusetts. Ethan also brings a background in program development, natural climate solutions, and conservation practices, having led the Land Trust Alliance’s flagship New York Program for 13 years prior to his shift to the solar sector. Ethan earned a Master of Forestry at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and attended Bowdoin College.
Originally from Illinois, Ethan lives in Saratoga Springs, NY with his wife Anne and three tween-age children. Ethan serves on the City of Saratoga Springs Climate Smart Task Force and on the board of the Adirondack Council. He is an avid gardener and loves to paddle, mountain bike and cross-country ski whenever the conditions are right (sometimes at night).