Above: Board and staff at the Conservancy offices, June 2019
OFFICERS
Heidi Trimarco, President of the Board, is an environmental attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, where she works to protect clean air, clean water, and healthy communities in New Hampshire. She is a proponent of renewable energy and a member of Sustainable Hanover’s Energy Subcommittee. She and her husband, Tom, are both Dartmouth graduates and lifetime members of the Dartmouth Outing Club. An experienced outdoorswoman, she coaches Ford Sayre Nordic skiing for K-2 skiers. In addition to skiing, she and her family also enjoy hiking, camping, and biking. She observes that through her work she has come to value the conservation of land as one of the purest and most effective forms of environmental protection. The Trimarcos live in Hanover with their three young daughters.
Mary Brown, Vice-President of the Board, is a court-appointed guardian for children in state custody. She has worked in admissions at Bates College, Geisel School of Medicine and the Tuck School of Business, and in alumni relations at Harvard Business School. Mary is a longtime board member of The Family Place and served as chair of its board. Brown has been a member of HC’s community engagement committee since 2016. An active outdoorswoman, Mary is an officer of the Dartmouth Class of 1978. She and her husband, Scott, live near the Connecticut River and are the parents of four grown children.
Marc Hiller serves as Secretary. He has worked with forestry companies, nonprofit organizations, and communities on sustainable forest management and conservation issues. He currently works with Mercuria’s Environmental Products group, supporting landowners to maintain and increase carbon stocks on forested properties through enrollment in carbon offset projects. Previously, Marc worked on forestry investments with The Lyme Timber Company and GreenWood Resources. He has served on the boards of the Willamette Partnership, The Climate Trust, and Ecologic Development Fund. Marc holds Master’s degrees in Forestry and in Business Administration from Yale. He lives with his wife, Erica, and young family on Reservoir Road.
Bruce Atwood, Treasurer, retired from teaching mathematics at Beloit College in 2019 and moved to Hanover with his wife Patricia. He is an emeritus board member of the Rockford (Illinois) Park District Foundation and served for 12 years as a Park Commissioner (a non-partisan, non-paid, elected position) with the Rockford Park District. He was also a member of the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District Land Advisory Committee and a long-term board member of the YMCA of Rock River Valley. He is currently a Pine Park Association Trustee and past President of Hanover Rotary. Bruce enjoys running, biking, hiking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing.
Members at Large
Martha Beattie has worked as a math teacher, a rowing coach, and a volunteer leader and board member for schools and nonprofit organizations. She was a national team rowing coach and the founding coach for three rowing programs. She served as Vice President for Alumni Relations at Dartmouth from 2011-18. She now serves on the regional advisory board for the NH Charitable Foundation, is a trustee of Pine Park, a board member, coach, and program chair for the Upper Valley Rowing Foundation. She serves on a number of alumni committees and is a volunteer coach with Dartmouth’s rowing teams as well as Cancer Recovery through Rowing. She and her husband Jim are often joined by their three adult children on bike rides through the hills of Vermont, hikes in the Whites, and ski trips.
Jesse Casana is an archaeologist and professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth. He specializes in reconstructing long-term histories of human settlement, land use, and agricultural practices, and has conducted field investigations around the world. Recently he has directed research projects in our area, including excavations of historical house sites on Dartmouth’s campus and a search for remains of ancestral Abenaki settlement in the Upper Valley. Jesse lives near the Mink Brook Natural Area and is a New Hampshire native.
Amy Haak recently returned to the Upper Valley after spending the past 40 years in Boise, Idaho. She has three degrees in geography with a B.A. from Dartmouth and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Idaho where she minored in conservation biology. She spent her career working in the development and application of geo-spatial analyses to land use planning and environmental characterization as well as modeling the impacts of natural resource development and climate change. While at Dartmouth, she was very active in the Outing Club and competed on the Woodsmen’s Team. She enjoys hiking, biking, backcountry skiing, and canoeing. She lives in Hanover with her partner and her dog.
Silvia Holman is an educator with 22 years of teaching experience who currently teaches Spanish and English as a Second Language at the Richmond Middle School. She also serves as the Sustainability Chair at the Ray School PTO. She has been a valuable member of our Community Engagement committee and has led several bi-lingual trips for families at the Conservancy’s Mink Brook Nature Preserve. She lives with her young family near the Balch Hill Natural Area and is originally from Peru.
Richard Howarth is Chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Dartmouth, a position once occupied by former Conservancy president Jim Hornig. Professor Howarth is an environmental and ecological economist who studies the interplay between economic analysis and the ecological, moral, and social dimensions of environmental governance, including climate stabilization policy. He is also editor-in-chief of the professional journal, Ecological Economics. Howarth holds degrees in biology from Cornell, in Land Resources from U. of Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives with his wife, Kari Asmus, in Hanover Center.
Ryan Johnson is responsible for asset-based lending direct originations at Bank of America in the Northeast. He holds an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Babson College. Ryan joined Bank of America in 2024, after spending 25 years with Wells Fargo. He is an avid outdoorsman, nature enthusiast, and was a fly fishing guide in Truckee, CA. Ryan lives with his young family near the Balch Hill Natural Area and is an active volunteer at Balch Hill.
Steve Lubrano lives on Huntington Hill in Hanover, a 500-acre parcel of land put into conservation trust by Sam Doyle. Weekends are mostly spent on the property mowing fields, rebuilding stone walls, harvesting cordwood, and doing trail maintenance. Steve has degrees from St. Lawrence University and the Tuck School of Business where he has been employed since 1994. He is a former board member and chairperson of the Howe Library Corporation. He and his wife Allegra are parents to three wonderful adult daughters. Among the items on Steve’s bucket list is a desire to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, but first needs to tackle 11 peaks to become a member of the AMC 4,000-footer club.
Russell Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College and is the author of A Lot of People Are Saying, a book about conspiratorial thinking in American politics. He also serves on the Hanover-Lyme delegation in the NH House of Representatives, where he sits on the Election Law Committee. An active hiker, Nordic skier, and cyclist, Russ lives with his wife, Antonia, on Lyme Road.
Erich Osterberg is a climate scientist in the Earth Sciences Department whose work focuses on how Earth’s glaciers and weather patterns respond to both natural climate cycles and human-caused climate change by analyzing ice cores collected from remote glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, and Alaska. Erich is also the current chair of the Upper Valley Climate Adaptation Workgroup (UVAW), a group of business, state, municipal, non-profit, and academic leaders working to improve community resilience to climate change. He lives in Etna.
Emeritus
Hugh Mellert served on the Board of Directors from 1998-2018. An energetic and dedicated community volunteer, Hugh leads outdoor trips, advises on stewardship of our natural areas, and, most recently, stepped up to lead the complex effort to replace the trail bridge at the Mink Brook Nature Preserve. He was honored as Emeritus Board Member in 2022 and is a valued voice on our Community Engagement, Lands, and Land Stewardship Committees. Hugh is also vice-chair of the Hanover Conservation Commission and chair of its Trails Committee.
Emerita
Gail McPeek served on the Board of Directors from 2007-2016, including as Secretary (2013-14). A treasured volunteer and wildlife biologist, Gail leads outdoor trips, manages the Trails Challenge program, and advises on stewardship of our natural areas. She was honored as Emerita Board Member in 2021. She continues as an energetic and imaginative member of our Community Engagement and Development Committees.
Staff
Adair Mulligan, Executive Director, holds a master’s degree in Environmental Biology from Smith College, and has worked in the conservation field for 40 years. A former loon biologist and Education Director for NH Audubon, she moved to Lyme in 1992 to join the staff of the Connecticut River Joint Commissions. As Conservation Director, she directed the task of 150 volunteers to write management plans for the 275 miles of the river’s path in NH and VT. Adair is the author of several books and of essays in Where the Great River Rises and Beyond the Notches, an anthology of NH’s North Country, and has completed the NH 4000 footers. A member of the Lyme Conservation Commission for 14 years, she now serves on the board of the Lyme Historians and is a speaker for the New Hampshire Humanities Council’s “Humanities to Go” program. Her three adult children are pursuing careers in the law, environmental economic policy, and medicine. Adair came to the Hanover Conservancy in June, 2010.
Barry Matthews, Program Manager, joined the Conservancy staff in September, 2023. Barry is a storyteller, educator, and environmental historian committed to fostering sustainable relationships with the natural world. As Program Manager he is responsible for caring for conserved lands, coordinating volunteers, and engaging the community through the Conservancy’s public events and school partnerships. Barry comes to Hanover Conservancy after working at other conservation non-profits across New England, most recently as Community Engagement Manager at Stowe Land Trust in Stowe, Vermont. He holds an MA in American Studies from the College of William & Mary, and a BA in Art History from VCUarts. Outside the office, Barry serves on the boards of Hartland Winter Trails and Central Vermont Community Radio. An outdoors enthusiast, he can often be found exploring the Upper Valley’s trails, roads, waters, and slopes.
