UPTON OPEN SPACE COMMITTEE

Mike is a member and the former chair of the Upton Conservation Commission and Open Space Committee. He is also a board member for the Metacomet Land Trust, a regional trust serving 15 towns in South Central Massachusetts.

CHAIR, WENDELL OPEN SPACE COMMITTEE

Dan Leahy retired from a 27 year career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2018. As a Land Acquisition Specialist first for the Service’s Refuges Program and then for the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program (WSFR), Dan Leahy has helped protect 292,791 acres of land, 37,712 acres which became part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and 255,079 acres which were acquired by States and other partners using grant funds administered by WSFR. Before joining the Service, Dan spent more than a dozen years working with state and municipal governments along with private conservation organizations on numerous fishery, forestry, wildlife and land conservation projects throughout New England. He served eight years on the Board of Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, two of those years as board president. He lives in Wendell, MA with his wife Julia and is currently the Chair of the Open Space Committee.

SENIOR LAND USE & NATURAL RESOURCES PLANNER, FRANKLIN REGIONAL COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS

Allison Gage is a Senior Land Use & Natural Resources Planner at the Franklin Regional Council of Governments. She works on a variety of projects related to climate resiliency, including clean energy planning, open space & recreation plans, and municipal vulnerability preparedness plans. Prior to working at the FRCOG, she earned a Master of Science Degree from the Environmental Conservation Program at UMass Amherst.

CONSERVATION DIRECTOR, TOWN OF STOW

Kathy is currently the Conservation Director for the Town of Stow and has 35 years of experience in land conservation and land use planning in communities across the state from Pittsfield to Provincetown working for Mass Audubon, The Nature Conservancy and Cape Cod Commission. During that time, she has served almost continuously on municipal planning, conservation, open space, and community preservation committees in Grafton, Marshfield and Stow. Kathy is currently leading the effort to protect Stow’s largest remaining landscape-scale property for a mix of conservation, recreation, and affordable housing and is currently in the midst of updating Stow's Open Space and Recreation Plan.

PROFESSOR & STATE EXTENSION FORESTER, UMASS AMHERST

Paul Catanzaro is a Professor and the State Extension Forester at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Paul teaches courses in the Forest Ecology and Conservation concentration and is co-Director of the Family Forest Research Center, a partnership of the USDA Forest Service and UMass Amherst (https://www.familyforestresearchcenter.org). Paul’s research and outreach work focuses primarily on understanding and informing family forest owner decisions about the intergenerational transfer of their land and forest resiliency.

More information about Paul: https://eco.umass.edu/people/faculty/catanzaro-paul/

CONSERVATION AGENT, TOWN OF BOLTON

Rebecca Bucciaglia is the Conservation Agent for the Town of Bolton, focusing on wetlands and improving climate resilience. She serves on her local town’s Conservation Commission and is a member of MSMCP, SuAsCo CISMA and N-S-N Stewardship Council. Rebecca has a masters from University of Massachusetts Amherst in Sustainability Science, and bachelor’s from Salve Regina University in Environmental Studies. She constantly works to balance wetland permitting, managing over 2,000 acres of open space with over 45 miles of trail while encouraging implementation of more climate resilient practices.

DRACUT OPEN SPACE COMMITTEE

Bruce Cote began his conservation involvement as a land steward for the Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust. He has been volunteering in Dracut since 2012, is a member, and former chair, of the Open Space Committee, chair of the Community Preservation Committee, and Vice President of the board of directors of the Dracut Land Trust, Inc., a local 501 c organization. He is an avid cyclist and hiker.

CHAIR, CHESTERFIELD CONSERVATION COMMISSION

A retired physician, John has lived in Western Massachusetts for two periods of time beginning in 1975 and most recently beginning in 1997. A lifelong wish to live with the woods brought him here. He has chaired the Chesterfield Conservation Commission for 16 years. Currently he is spearheading the renewal of the town’s Open Space and Recreation Plan.

MANAGING DIRECTOR, BOSTON WATERFRONT INITATIVE- THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS

Nick Black is the Managing Director of the Boston Waterfront Initiative for the Trustees. In his role, Black oversees the organization’s ambitious plans to promote and create thoughtfully planned, climate resilient open space along Boston’s waterfront through planning, advocacy, and collaboration with private, non-profit, government and community partners. His focus is to leverage The Trustees’ 130-year old legacy of land conservation, public/private partnerships, and placemaking on properties involving complex natural and cultural resources to create a spectacular new open space in the City of Boston. In 2020, the Trustees secured site designation for the creation of the first park under the Boston Waterfront initiative in East Boston as part of the phased expansion of Piers Park. The public private partnership with Massport represents significant progress toward realizing the Trustees’ vision of a network of public, green open space along Boston’s harbor.

Nick joined The Trustees after serving in a variety of roles for Hillary for America--Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign--where he was responsible for strategic political outreach, communications, events, and community and volunteer organizing efforts throughout New England during the Democratic Primary campaign, and as Massachusetts State Director during the General Election. Prior to joining Hillary for America, he served as a Special Assistant to Senator Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, managing a diverse portfolio of technology, innovation economy, small business and military issues. Nick also served as the Operations Director for Warren’s 2012 race for Senate. Throughout his decade-plus career of political activism and public service, he’s held a wide range of positions, from Product Manager for the development of Spoken Hub’s HubDialer voter contact software to Deputy National Field Director for the Alliance for Climate Protection in Washington D.C., among other leadership, grassroots, and political campaign roles.

Nick attended the University of Kansas, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a focus on Journalism. He lives in Milton with his wife, Sara Garland, and two children, Henry and Emma.

PRESIDENT OF THE MATTAPOISETT LAND TRUST

Mike Huguenin volunteers with the Mattapoisett Land Trust (MLT) and serves as President. He is active in land conservation both with MLT and with the Buzzards Bay Coalition. Mike retired to Mattapoisett in 2010 after a career founding and managing an environmental consulting firm based in Cambridge. He is married with two grown sons and two grandsons.

SOUTHEAST REGIONAL COORDINATOR FOR THE MUNICIPAL VULNERABILITY PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM

Courtney is the Southeast Regional coordinator for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant program. She assists commonwealth municipalities with grant administration, technical assistance, building partnerships, and sharing adaptation lessons learned across the state. Her background is in coastal engineering and in her free time owns and operates a small family farm and loves to be out on Buzzards Bay.

BIOMAP OUTREACH SPECIALIST, MASSACHUSETTS DIVISION OF FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE

Alec Kaisand is a BioMap Outreach Specialist at MassWidlife providing user support for the newly enhanced BioMap conservation planning tool. Alec earned a B.S. in Environmental Conservation and Sustainability from the University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH) as well as a M.S in Conservation Biology and a GIS Certificate from Antioch University New England (Keene, NH). He has experience conducting spatial analysis, data management, remote sensing, GIS training, and printing services for conservation commissions, land trusts, municipalities, non-profits, and academics throughout New England.

BIOMAP OUTREACH SPECIALIST, MASSACHUSETTS DIVISION OF FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE

Sarah Wasserman is a BioMap Outreach Specialist at MassWidlife providing user support for the BioMap conservation planning tool. She earned a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont Rubenstein School of the Environment. In Vermont, she conducted research with the Vermont Limnology Lab, worked for Vermont State Parks, and consulted the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation on their Environmental Justice initiatives. In her home state of Massachusetts, she worked for the Trustees of Reservations as a steward and nature educator and researched with the Coastal Systems Group at UMass Dartmouth.