A forester, former university professor and, for about a decade after college, career musician, Matt Kelly has joined Stowe Land Trust as its first-ever director of land protection. The new position will oversee all land protection projects, strategic planning and partnerships, and advance the land trust’s conservation mission.
“Land conservation and stewardship bring together many important considerations in a community,” said Kelly. “From mitigating the impacts of climate change, to conserving farms and forests, to addressing housing costs and shortages. These are challenging issues that will increasingly inform conservation decisions, but I’ve always been drawn to challenging, meaningful work.”
Kelly, who holds both a master's degree and a doctorate in forest management from the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, comes to Stowe from Keene, NH where he served as the Cheshire County forester.
His strong background in education, working with landowners in Cheshire County and as a former professor at Michigan Technological University, will be central to his role at Stowe Land Trust. In those roles, he has pursued a deep understanding of landowner preferences and motivations for conservation.
“When we conserve a piece of land, we are responsible for it forever,” said Tom Rogers, executive director of Stowe Land Trust. “Matt will play a key role in helping us conserve the most essential lands and waters that ensure the Stowe area remains a place people want to live and visit.”
The Stowe Land Trust is one year into a three-year campaign to expand capacity in order to meet the needs of the greater Stowe area.