Board of Directors
Kevin Berend
Board Member
Kevin Berend is an environmental scientist and freelance writer from Rochester, New York. His first encounter with the Adirondacks came as a DEC intern in the High Peaks, where he remained for two more summers as a summit steward with the Adirondack Mountain Club. In his graduate research, he studied the ecology of alpine snowbank communities on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, with a focus on how climate change may affect sensitive plant populations. He is currently working for Grand Staircase Escalante Partners in Escalante, Utah.
Lars Botzojorns
President
Growing up in Massachusetts, Lars took frequent family hiking trips as he climbed all of the New England 4,000 footers. After both working in the AMC’s hut system in the White Mountains in the 80’s, he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to Vermont. He immediately adopted the alpine portion of the Sunset Ridge Trail on Mount Mansfield. He received a Masters Degree in Natural Resources Planning from UVM, including a summer collecting visitor use data at Acadia National Park, and an internship with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy supporting the Summit Steward program. Lars became the Green Mountain Club’s Director of Field Programs in 1992. His time with the Club included production of a regional newsletter focused on the alpine zone, entitled Prenanthes, and hosting the regional alpine stewardship gathering. He also had a six month stint as Interim Executive Director. Upon leaving GMC in 1999, Lars became Executive Director of Keeping Track, a regional organization devoted to wildlife conservation planning and education. In 2004, another passion took hold and he changed careers to education, and he now works at the Burke (VT) Town School. He did not leave his career in natural resources behind, as he has taught third and fourth graders about forest ecology and Vermonters’ interaction with the land. Lars served as chairperson of the Bolton (VT) Conservation Commission and over ten years led efforts to protect and manage the town’s 400 acre Preston Pond Conservation Area. He and Jennifer live in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
David Crews
Education and Outreach Committee Chair
Originally from the state of New Jersey, where he served for fifteen years as a public high school Literature teacher, David Crews now lives and works at Clear Brook Farm, an organic vegetable farm located at the edge of the Hoosic river watershed in the Vermont valley, ancestral land of Muhheaconneok and Abenaki peoples. He is author of Incantation, a limited-edition handmade chapbook of poems designed and produced by Josh Dannin of Directangle Press (2022), Wander-Thrush: Lyric Essays of the Adirondacks (Ra Press, 2018), and High Peaks (Ra Press, 2015)—a poetry collection that catalogs hiking the “Adirondack 46ers” in upstate New York. His newest work, Mônadenok, is a long lyric poem about Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire.
Steve Crowe
Treasurer
Steve Crowe is a long-time member and volunteer with the ATC and GMC, including experience working as Trails and Shelters Chair for the Worcester Section. He also served as Nelson Crag Trail Adopter for the upper half of the trail to the summit of Mount Washington. He has served as treasurer for many other organizations and runs Sunshine Landscaping Co, Inc. in Massachusetts. "My specialty is pruning Krumholtz and maybe scree walls," he writes. And Steve thinks he has attended nearly every Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering, an ecologically-minded stewardship conference hosted and run every other year by The Waterman Fund.
Alicia DiCocco
Secretary / Development Chair
Alicia is the Director of Development & Communications at the Green Mountain Club where she works to raise funds to maintain and protect the Long Trail while employing communications strategies to elevate the importance of this work and providing opportunities for individuals to connect with the trail. She has previously worked in development at Spectrum Youth & Family Services and various environmental education non-profits in Massachusetts. Alicia lives in Vermont with her family and in her free time you can find her exploring the Green Mountains by foot or ski.
Jason Mazurowski
Board Member
Jason is an ecologist, naturalist, and adjunct faculty member at the University of Vermont where he teaches graduate courses in the Field Naturalist MS program. After graduating with a BS in Geology from SUNY Buffalo in 2011, Jason assumed a rotating role of seasonal jobs in New Mexico, Minnesota, and Montana before finally discovering his passion for the northeastern mountains as an AMC hut crew member. In 2019, he earned an MS from the University of Vermont’s Field Naturalist program where he studied the relationship between prescribed burns and endangered shrubland bird habitat in the Ossipee Pine Barrens Preserve. Since 2020, he has worked with UVM’s Gund Institute to study native bee populations in agricultural systems. Jason currently lives off-grid in Woodbury, Vermont and spends most of his spare time running or skiing above tree line with his pup Raven.
Sean Robinson
Vice President
Sean worked as an Adirondack High Peaks Summit Steward in 1999 and 2000. He received his M.S. at SUNY-ESF and his Ph.D. at the University at Albany, specializing in bryology (the study of mosses, liverworts, and hornworts). In 2010, he joined the Biology Department at SUNY Oneonta. He teaches courses in Botany including Bryology, Vascular Plant Systematics, and Dendrology. His research is focused on understanding how mode of reproduction in plants, particularly bryophytes, affects colonization of new habitats, range expansions, and gene flow within and between island populations. The alpine summits of northeastern North America have been the primary site for his work. Sean also conducts research focused on vegetation dynamics in the Adirondack alpine.
Laura Waterman
Founding Board Member
Laura was married to Guy for nearly 30 years. They undertook the trail maintenance and stewardship of the Franconia Ridge in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in 1980. It was through this work of nearly two decades that they formed a close attachment to the Alpine areas of the Northeast, which became central in their lives and in their writing. The books they wrote together on the mountain history and environmental issues of the Northeast include Backwood Ethics and Wilderness Ethics. Laura now resides in East Corinth, Vermont.
Visit Laura's website to learn more about her work.
Kayla White
Grant Committee Chair
Kayla White is the Adirondack Mountain Club’s (ADK) Stewardship Manager. She has worked for ADK for a decade and manages the Adirondack High Peaks Summit Stewardship Program which works to protect New York’s alpine ecosystem. She is passionate about protecting wild places and in 2019, received the Emerging Alpine Steward Award. Serving on the board of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates since 2018, Kayla became the board chair in 2021. She enjoys paddling, skiing, gardening, yoga, and fermenting things. She lives in Jay, NY with her husband and dog, Yodel the Brave.
Past Board Members
Brendan Wiltse
Will Kemeza
Ryan J. Harvey
Nancy Ritiger
Seth Jones (2015-2020)
June Hammond (2017-2019)
Kim Votta (2014-2019)
Peter Palmiotto (2014-2018)
Charlie Jacobi (2011-2016)
Matt Larson (2011-2016)
