Upper Valley Land Trust Elects Trustees, Board Officers

Chris Nesbitt has been elected to serve as Chair of the Upper Valley Land Trust Board of Trustees effective July 1. Nesbitt is a founding partner at Focus Acquisition Partners where he works with a broad array of clients interested in financial services, medical devices, manufacturing, business services and off-shore opportunities in both Europe and Asia. He is a veteran entrepreneur and a former commercial banker. During his career Chris has owned and successfully grown a series of middle market manufacturing and business services companies. Chris is a published author and an active community volunteer. He is a member of the West Windsor Conservation Commission and lives in Brownsville, Vermont.

The UVLT Trustees have elected Board officers for the 2014 fiscal year:

 – Bob Wetzel, of Lyme will serve as Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of the Development Committee. Wetzel is a ‘gentleman farmer’, passionate gardener and private investor, who retired in 2002 after a 20-year career with Accenture, formerly Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting. He serves on the Board of Overseers of the Hopkins Center and is the Co-Chairman of the Hopkins Center Members. He received an AB in Economics and Theater from Dartmouth in 1975; and an MM in Finance and Marketing from the J.L. Kellogg School at Northwestern in 1982. He lives on a small farm in Lyme, NH.

 
 – Susan Renaud, of Hanover, NH will serve as Treasurer. Renaud is an experienced senior finance/general management executive with roots in Vermont . Presently the Director for Strategic Integration at Dartmouth Hitchcock, Renaud has a master’s degree in management from London Business School. Her professional experience also includes two years as Chief Financial Officer at King Arthur Flour, four years as a mergers and acquisitions consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, England and many years working in various capacities for Ben & Jerry’s in both Vermont and France.

 

 – June Hemberger, a longtime Norwich, VT resident, will serve as Secretary. Hemberger has a BS in Zoology, an MS in Education and an MBA from UNH. Now retired, Hemberger most recently was practice manager for medical specialties DHMC and previously worked as an independent consultant focusing on team and leadership development, and strategic planning. She formerly owned a successful retail business and, prior to that, worked in the Lebanon Public School system. 

 

At the Annual Membership Meeting of the Upper Valley Land Trust, four new Trustees were elected to serve three-year terms:

 – Reggie Greene recently moved to the Upper Valley from Burlington, Vermont to join Ledyard National Bank as Senior Vice President and Senior Lending Officer. He has 25 years of overall banking experience and 13 years of commercial banking experience in senior-level roles. Greene is currently a member of the Hanover Rotary Club and formerly served on the school board for the Town of Chittenden, Vermont.  He is a past board member of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, Rutland Economic Development Corporation and United Way of Rutland County and a past Chair of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee.

 

 – Liz Russell has been involved in land conservation since she first arrived in Norwich, VT more than 25 years ago.  Russell served on the UVLT Board from 1999-2005 and has been a volunteer easement monitor for more than ten years. She is a member of the Norwich Trails Committee and served on the steering committee for the Norwich Hartford Greenway Project, the Conservation Commission, and Norwich Special Places.  In 2002 she bought and conserved 123 acres of land on Cossingham Road and provided public access on its trails.

 

 – Nick Russell is a partner a Tuckerman Capital, a value-added private investment fund focused on manufacturing companies. Russell is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Prior to Tuckerman Capital, he was a Principal at North Star Advisors, a boutique investment advisory firm affiliated with J.H. Whitney and based in New Canaan, Connecticut. He recently served as an advisor to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) and is an active member of the Dartmouth Alumni Council.

 

 – Willis Wood and his wife have operated Wood’s Cider Mill in Weathersfield, VT for more than 40 years. Their specialty boiled cider syrup was recently featured in the renowned culinary magazine Saveur. The Wood’s farm has been in his family for more than 200 years. Wood returns to the UVLT Board on which he served from 1996-2002.  Since then he has been active on UVLT’s Advisory Board and Lands Committee.  Wood has served on the Weathersfield Planning and Conservation Commissions and is president of the Weathersfield Historical Society.

 

Also re-elected for a second three year term was UVLT Trustee Chuck Wooster who owns and runs Sunrise Farm in White River Junction, Vermont, on land he and his wife conserved with UVLT in 2007.

The Annual Membership Meeting marked the 28^th year of UVLT’s operation.  President Jeanie McIntyre noted that UVLT conserves farmland, forest, water resources, wildlife habitat, trails and scenic areas. Ten properties were conserved in the fiscal year ending June 30 and UVLT now stewards conservation protections on well over 43,500 acres of land.