Suzanne Whittemore, Swanzey (President)
A native of the Keene area, Suzanne recently retired from Keene State College after more than 18 years in technical services and project management. She received her B.A. in History from Keene State, and, during the completion of her degree work, she wrote and published an historic guide to Cheshire County, In the Shadow of Monadnock. Suzanne is also a graduate of the HERS Leadership Program at Wellesley College and the Monadnock Leadership Program.
In the early 1990s, she served as chair of the Land Conservation Investment Program Swanzey Task Force, which successfully preserved four important Swanzey properties. She has served on the Swanzey Open Space Advisory Committee (a model for other towns developing open space plans), Swanzey Open Space Committee, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Historical Society of Cheshire County, Swanzey BikePed Committee, HHCS Hospice volunteer, and a variety of on-campus and professional committees and organizations.
Tom Hanna, Westmoreland (Vice President)
After graduating from Dartmouth College (where he played center field for the baseball team that went to the College World Series), Tom began his career as a newspaper reporter. He then attended Boston College Law School and has practiced law in Keene for nearly three decades, concentrating his practice in the area of land use. He has represented several landowners who have donated conservation easements, which he has done himself on his woodlot in Chesterfield.
Tom is a past member of the Board of Governors of the NH Bar Association and of the Supreme Court Professional Conduct Committee. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Monadnock United Way, was a ten-year member of the Westmoreland Planning Board, and serving his second stint on the Conservancy's Board of Trustees. He is an avid hiker, tennis player, and local baseball historian. Tom and his wife, Elke, have three sons.
Sheldon Pennoyer, Greenfield (Secretary)
Sheldon received his architectural degree from Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied architecture and landscape architecture. After working in the studio of one of his professors, he co-founded OPA (O’Neil Pennoyer Architects), where he helped implement the firm’s current practice of integrated design. He strengthened that commitment by becoming a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional in 2004. Currently living on a farm in Greenfield, Sheldon has served on the Greenfield Planning Board and designed several community buildings for the town.
Mike Krinsky, Marlborough (Treasurer)
Mike is president of The Mountain Corporation, a socially responsible and environmentally friendly wholesale T-shirt manufacturing company. He and his wife Jenny have lived in New Hampshire for over 30 years and in Marlborough for 25. Instrumental in land protection issues in Marlborough, Mike chaired the Zoning Board of Adjustment for several years and the Conservation Commission for about 15 years. He currently chairs the Open Space Committee and, additionally, is a trustee with The Nature Conservancy, New Hampshire Chapter.
Carol Thompson, Jaffrey (Immediate Past President)
After graduating from the University of Michigan, Carol entered a lifelong career in academic administration, working primarily at Princeton and Harvard Universities. Before her retirement, she held the position of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Harvard, where she was responsible for academic planning as well as all policies and practices relating to the faculty. For 3 years following her retirement from Arts and Sciences, she served part time as a Senior Adviser to the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where among her other responsibilities, she oversaw the Kennedy School’s successful bid for accreditation by the leading public policy organization.
Carol is an avid birder and has a lifelong passion for outdoor life and land conservation, especially the Monadnock Region, where she has owned a home since 1992. She and her husband Dennis split their time between Jaffrey and Cambridge.
Karen Bennett, Antrim
Karen is the UNH Cooperative Extension Specialist, providing education to private landowners, land managers, conservation volunteers, and public decision makers. Prior to this, she was the Hillsborough County and Merrimack County Forester. Karen has served on the NH Forester Licensing Board and the boards of NH Project Learning Tree and Beaver Brook Association.
Rick Church, Nelson
Rick graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in history. He also holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Following Dartmouth, he joined MARKEM Corporation in Keene where he worked for nearly 30 years. While at MARKEM, he held positions in marketing, manufacturing, finance, and general management, retiring in 2001 as Vice President of Human Resources and Quality after returning from a two-year assignment in Nottingham, England.
He serves on the boards of a number of local organizations and has a long association with the Monadnock Conservancy, serving as a board member from 2001 to 2007 and as its president from 2003 to 2006. Rick has lived in the region since 1972 and in Nelson, where he serves as town moderator, since 1978. He and his wife, Betsey, have four grown children.
Tom Duston, Chesterfield
Tom has a Doctorate in Economics from Brown University and is a retiring faculty member from Keene State College. His current research interest is in the economics of open space protection, and he is working on a related book, Is There Space for Open Space? A previous book discussed the economics of recycling. Tom is also currently serving as Chair of the Chesterfield Conservation Commission. He and his wife Paula, a faculty member at UMass/Amherst, have a large immediate and extended family spread all over New England.
Stephen Gehlbach, Jaffrey
Stephen is Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he served for sixteen years. He continues to teach epidemiology and conduct research on osteoporosis at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
Stephen now lives the "semi-retired life" in Jaffrey where his wife, Carol's, family has enjoyed summers since 1949. He is also active with the boards of the Sharon Arts Center and The Peterborough Players. He devotes spare time to gardening, walking, and gazing at Monadnock. A consuming project is capturing the seasons of the mountain and its environs with his digital camera.
Nancy "Pooky" Hayden, Marlborough
Pooky (as she prefers to be known) calls herself a project undertaker, not one who buries projects but one who is most stimulated by their start-up phases. She has lived at Too Bad Farm in Marlborough since 1970 and has raised vegetables, cows, children, and chickens there. Before that time she had graduated with honors from Radcliffe College and done graduate-level work in landscape design and urban planning and worked for the children’s television program Zoom.
She served on numerous boards: The Harrisville School, The Harris Center, the Monadnock United Way, Women’s Crisis Services, the Grand Monadnock Arts Council, Tricinium, the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests, the Keene Elm City Rotary, Monadnock Community Foundation, Historic Harrisville, Monadnock Music, and Giving Monadnock. Even more proudly, Pooky served on the Zucchini Central Committee, which produced the first, second, third, etc. Annual International Zucchini Festival.
During this time she also became a certified mediator and conducted her own (losing) campaign to be a New Hampshire state senator. For her, the common thread of these diverse activities is the fostering of community. The Greater Keene Chamber of Commerce recognized this fostering by naming her their Citizen of the Year in 2003.
Jeff Miller, Marlborough
Jeff is a Dartmouth graduate and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. He retired in 2007 as MARKEM’s last president. He is currently a director of four companies, including Cognex Corporation, Watlow Electric Manufacturing Company, and two other privately held companies.
Jeff lives with his wife and two daughters on 240 protected acres in Marlborough, where ledge is never more than inches away. He is using much of his spare time giving back to the Monadnock Region, following the MARKEM community culture instilled by the Putnam family for whom he worked for twenty-six years.
Richard Pendleton, Peterborough
Richard holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geosciences from Hobart College and a Master of Science in Hydrology from the University of New Hampshire. He has worked in environmental consulting – including soil and groundwater assessments and cleanups – since 1987. He started Eastview Environmental, Consulting & Field Services of Peterborough in 1997 to serve private, commercial, and municipal clients in southern New Hampshire and Vermont. He holds New Hampshire Professional Geologist License No. 58.
Richard is a former member of both the Peterborough Conservation Commission, where he worked extensively on conservation easement monitoring projects, and the Water Resources Advisory Committee. He led the updating of Peterborough’s aquifer zoning. He is a founding partner of Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm residential community, the first co-housing project in New Hampshire. He enjoys exploring the Monadnock region’s open spaces by foot, skis, snowshoe, canoe, and bike with his wife and daughters.
Diane Schott, Dublin
A long-time resident of the Monadnock Region, Diane has always been active on in land conservation issues and interested in the intersection of conservation and land use planning: serving as a trustee for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and on her second tour of duty on the Conservancy board. Previously, she served on the Fitzwilliam Planning Board; she was a member of the Jaffrey Planning Board for 25 years, 9 of those years as Chair. Prior board service includes serving on and chairing the NH Charitable Foundation Monadnock Region and the Sharon Arts Center. She and her husband John also own and manage a 350-acre tree farm in Francestown.
Ken Stewart, Keene
Ken has proven his financial management acumen as a dedicated member of the Conservancy's Finance Committee for several years. While serving on the committee, he was an extremely helpful advisor throughout the restructuring of the Conservancy's dedicated funds and investments. A former MARKEM executive, Ken is now employed by the Putnam family in their 1911 Office in Keene. Ken and his wife, Mary Lou Caffrey (a Keene attorney who has frequently represented both the Conservancy and landowners in conservation transactions), have been loyal supporters of the Monadnock Conservancy for many years.
Elizabeth Story Wright, Dublin
Story comes to the board of the Monadnock Conservancy with a strong array of service on other non-profit boards. She has served on the Monadnock Family Services Board for six years, two as chair. In 1975, she helped form and chaired The Harrisville School (now the Harrisville Children 's Center); served six years on the the ConVal School Board, two as chair; and chaired the Supervisory Union Board (ConVal and Jaffrey/Rindge). She has served on the boards of the Peterborough Players, Sharon Arts Center (eight years with six as treasurer), Cheshire Medical Center and Foundation (nine years, two years each as chair), and the Hospice Board prior to its merger with Home Health Care.
She served eight years on the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Board, was a founder and served four years on the Monadnock Community Foundation Board, served eight years on the Monadnock United Way Board (two years as chair and three years on the Allocation Committee), served on the New Hampshire Public Television Board (eight years), and was on the founding RiverMead Board.
Story and her husband Tom live in Dublin, where her hobbies include horseback riding, gardening, and reading.
