OUR STAFF
Search Open
Royal River Conservation Trust is engaged in a national search for its next executive director. Reporting to RRCT’s Board of Directors, the ED leads RRCT’s dedicated team of staff and volunteers, oversees the Trust’s day-to-day operations, ensures RRCT’s financial stability, and represents the organization to stakeholders and the broader community. The executive director also partners with the Board of Directors to set the Trust’s strategic direction. Stay tuned for updates regarding the search!
Learn more about this opportunity here.
Dave Beers
Dave began work for RRCT in November 2022. Prior to returning to Maine and joining Royal River Conservation Trust, he served in a variety of constituent engagement and fundraising roles with educational institutions in New England and the Pacific Northwest including ten years at Colby, his alma mater, and seventeen years at the University of Puget Sound. When not on the trails in the Royal River watershed, Dave is most likely to be sailing in Casco Bay.
Hanae Garrison
As Stewardship Director, Hanae is responsible for managing and directing all activities associated with improving and maintaining RRCT preserves and trails. They monitor and enforce RRCT’s conservation easements and oversee volunteer efforts associated with property stewardship, including leading Trail Crew and the Trail Steward Program. Hanae cares deeply about preserving ecosystem health and managing invasive plants.
Hanae joined RRCT in November 2023. They’re originally from New Jersey and received a B.A in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College. Before joining RRCT, Hanae conducted ecology field research at Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park, monitored water quality at public beaches with Maine DEP’s Maine Healthy Beaches Program, and worked at an environmental testing lab. Hanae lives in Portland with their partner and enjoys rock climbing, baking, crafting, and swimming in the ocean.
Amanda Lessard
As Conservation Director, Amanda directs all aspects of land conservation including donations and purchase of conservation land, conservation easements, trail easements, and agricultural conservation easements. She leads conservation planning initiatives for RRCT and key partnerships with the watershed’s seven towns and cities to assist with municipal land conservation goals and projects.
Amanda joined RRCT in April 2024. She is an experienced natural resource professional with a history of team-oriented project management roles handling land acquisition, planning, and major capital projects. She joins RRCT after ten years with the Town of Windham most recently as Director of Planning where she played a leadership role alongside Presumpscot Regional Land Trust in the acquisition and development of the groundbreaking East Windham Conservation Area. She previously worked as a planner for the towns of New Gloucester and Rangeley, and for the Maine Department of Transportation and the Maine State Planning Office. Originally from Central Maine, she now lives in Westbrook with her young family.
Natalie Waloven
Natalie joined RRCT in August 2023 and will work with us until graduating from Yarmouth High School in June 2024. She provides indigenous and youth perspective and representation in all aspects of RRCT work through the year.
“Qey, ntoliwis Mahqan naka Wolastoqew nil Neqotkukew. Hello, my name is Natalie, or Mahqan, and I am a Maliseet Native American of Tobique First Nation. While the Maliseets did not historically live in this region of Maine, they were part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which included the people of this area. I am a lifelong Yarmouth resident, now in my senior year at Yarmouth High School. I am passionate about recognizing the indigenous heritage of this land. It is my belief that if we cannot change a gruesome past, we must at least recognize and educate ourselves on it. In this same way, we must acknowledge the present issues, which often are under-represented. As an intern with RRCT, I will make my goal to realize these beliefs in the towns of the Royal River and beyond.
“I prefer to be known as indigenous, Native American, Maliseet, or Wolastoqew, in range of specificity. When I was born, my grandmother gave me the spirit name of Mahqan, meaning sweet like maple syrup.”
OUR Board
Robert Greenleaf
Rob joined RRCT’s board in 2018 and stepped up as Board President in 2023 with passions for land stewardship and the ecology of Casco Bay. He grew up on Littlejohn Island in Yarmouth, where he lives today with his wife Rebecca and their three children. Rob has degrees from Connecticut College and Maine Law, working as a consulting attorney for clients including the National State Attorneys General Program and its successor organization, StateAG.org. Rob returned to Maine from Manhattan in 2014.
Beth Sturtevant
Beth was born and raised in Milo, Maine on a 100-acre family farm. She became Vice President of the RRCT Board of Directors in 2023.
She is a civil engineer and former principal owner of CCB Construction Services. Beth’s civic commitments include serving as past Chair of the Town of Yarmouth’s Parks & Lands Committee, as Board Treasurer of AGC Maine, and more. Her passions include recent training as a Maine Master Naturalist.
She has lived in Yarmouth since 2009 and previously North Yarmouth since 1995 with her wife, Tania Jo Sturtevant. Beth championed the campaign to create Yarmouth’s new Riverfront Woods Preserve.
Emily Sneath Jones
Emily has served on RRCT’s board since 2019, leading adoption of the organization’s new strategic plan, new conservation plan, and expanded staffing. Emily holds degrees from Williams and Harvard. She served as a Trustee of Merrill Memorial Library. She has worked as an educator in Santiago, Boston, and Yarmouth, and also as a business owner, consultant, and ski instructor. Emily and her husband Spencer live on the Royal River estuary in Yarmouth where they raised four sons. Her love of the outdoors began at a family home abutting vast conserved forestland in Vermont, and continues today as a runner on the West Side Trail and at Bradbury Mountain.
Bill Dunn
Bill Dunn created Sunset Point, LLC, in 2007 to continue part-time consulting in the electric utility industry after a long career and until his retirement in 2022. He holds engineering degrees and an MBA. Bill served for nine years on the Board of The Iris Network, providing services to the visually impaired. He is active in the Rotary Club of Yarmouth, through which he participates in the development and growth of Yarmouth’s West Side Trail. A resident of Yarmouth since 1998, he is also a member of its Committee for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability. Bill is a skier and a passionate outdoorsman.
Heather Wiggins Berger
Heather moved from Seattle to Yarmouth with her family in 2020 to lead launch marketing for Northeastern University's Roux Institute and marketing strategy for the institution's global university system. Now in marketing at Disney Entertainment Television, Heather is also a professional home organizer at Spruce & Nest and manages Buoys on Bates (her Yarmouth Airbnb cottage). Her prior work experience includes roles at Amazon.com, the Trust for Public Land, and Deloitte. She has an MBA from the University of Michigan, an MA from Emerson College, and a BA from Smith College. Outside of work and volunteering, you're likely to find Heather doing long distance trail runs, working in her garden, or playing soccer with her 2 boys.
Melinda Sheehee
Melinda is a corporate lawyer working as General Counsel for Diversified Communications. She has served on non-profit boards including the Maine Women’s Fund and Maine Boys to Men. She served on the Gorham Zoning Board of Appeals and the Gorham Planning Board, and currently serves on the Gray Planning Board. She lives in Gray, and is an avid trail runner, hiker, hunter, and outdoor enthusiast who is always encouraging others (especially her son) to get outside.
Steve Barr
Steve is an orthopedic surgeon with a passion for rivers and paddling. Born in Taiwan but with Maine family roots for 300 years, he lives in North Yarmouth with his wife Martha Leggat. Steve has degrees from Princeton and the University of Massachusetts, with work experience including medical service to military personnel and also to the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes.
Terry DeWan
Terry has over 40 years of professional experience in landscape architecture and community development. He has written open space and river corridor plans for the Towns of Yarmouth, Brunswick, and Falmouth, including the Royal River Master Plan for Yarmouth. He is a statewide leader on topics including park design, trail design, interpretive planning, and public art.
His involvement on the Royal River goes back to the 1970’s, when he designed the Royal River Park in Yarmouth on the site of the old Forest City Paper mill. Terry recently was named a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (the first in the state), and receive the Excellence Award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects.
He lives next to Pisgah Hill Preserve in New Gloucester with his wife Nancy Wines-DeWan.
Christine Force
Christine was born in Maine with an endless passion for exploring Maine’s outdoors. She has sailed, fished, canoed, kayaked, and hiked throughout the state. She works for Freeport Community Services. Her professional experience includes many years working in marketing and community relations at Hannaford Supermarkets, and more recently an extensive history of community support in development and non-profit management that includes managing development at Good Shepherd Food Bank where her team led the creation of purchase partnerships with 20 Maine farms. Christine is Co-Chair of the Royal River Alliance. She has served on the boards of the Maine Commission for Community Service, Maine Association of Nonprofits and Center for Grieving Children. Christine has a BA degree in English/Philosophy from the University of Southern Maine. She lives in Yarmouth with her partner Tom Cox.
Bob Humphrey
Bob is a certified wildlife biologist, U.S.C.G. licensed captain, registered Maine guide, former refuge manager and a book author and freelance outdoor writer and photographer for publications including Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, Birder’s World, Grouse Point Almanac, Wildfowl, and others. He also holds positions on the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine Board of Directors, National Marine Fisheries Service Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Striped Bass Advisory Panel and Maine Offshore Wind Research Consortium. Formerly a board member of the Pownal Land Trust, Bob lives with his wife, Jane, on Poland Range Road in Pownal.
David Kitchen
David has been a real estate agent based in Yarmouth since 1983. He recently served as a Trustee of Merrill Memorial Library. With an education in law and a land conservation passion including summers on his island on a lake in New Hampshire, he lives in Yarmouth with his partner of many years Diane Jenkins.
Melissa Libby
Melissa works for Bath Savings Institution as the Vice President Branch Manager in Yarmouth. She grew up in Pownal and settled in Durham to raise her two kids with her husband Michael. Melissa is often found walking with her dogs, hunting, fishing, hanging out at her camp in northern Maine or working with her horses and donkeys. She has previously served in non-profit leadership positions with the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce and other non-profit organizations.
Mark Power
Professionally, Mark brings 30 years of diverse engineering and operational experience. The first 15 years of his career was spent as an engineering officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine.
Mark was born in Maine and spent much of his youth as a farmhand on a Holstein farm in Falmouth. Today he is an avid fly fisher, hunter, hiker, boater, and outdoor enthusiast. He enjoys spending time with his adult children, working on his small organic farm in New Gloucester and recreational lobstering on Casco Bay.
Mark is a former chair of the land management planning committee for the town of New Gloucester and is a longtime RRCT volunteer. He was very involved in fundraising and support of both the Pisgah Hill and Lower Village conservation projects.
Daniel Waloven
Daniel joined the RRCT board in 2024. He grew up in central New York but has been a resident of Yarmouth for the past 20 years along with his wife and daughter. He's also a citizen of Neqotkuk Maliseet Nation/Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada. Neqotkuk is part of the Wolastoqiyik community, which means people of the beautiful river. His community's close connection to Mother Earth, the Wolastoq & Tobique rivers is essential to the belief in preserving this planet for future generations. Having witnessed firsthand the negative impacts of not protecting the rivers and land surrounding the rivers, is what drives his desire to be a part of the RRCT organization.
Rob Wood
Rob and his wife Gay Peterson built their house in North Yarmouth in 1980. He is retired after a career as a teacher, GED Administrator, and director of Portland Adult Education. A past member of the North Yarmouth Select Board (2007-2013), Rob has also served on various town committees including Budget, Recycling, Communications, and Foreclosure. Rob is a long-time member of RRCT and an avid paddler.