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Diana Marckwardt - Business Manager
Bringing with her more than two decades’ worth of accounting and administrative skills, Diana’s involvement with NorthWoods began shortly after its inception as the Vermont Leadership Center in the early 1990’s.
As one of its original staff she has had the pleasure of being part of NorthWoods' transformation from a proprietor-owned business - offering a single middle-school program - to the diverse educational organization it is today.
As with all the Center’s past and present staff members, Diana’s job title does not begin to encompass the range of roles she has taken |
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on along the way, which in addition to her financial and administrative duties, have included everything from graphics and publication design to network administration and equipment troubleshooting. Shortly after she began working at the Center, she returned to college to earn her associate's degree in accounting.
Diana lives in West Charleston with her daughter and several four-legged household members. Her son, Isaac, lives nearby. She has served in the past as a Cub Scout den leader and treasurer of the Charleston Home and School Association, and was recognized with a Friends of Education award in 1990.
She maintains a small bookkeeping/tax side business, and in her off time, enjoys reading, kayaking, hiking and, most of all, gardening. |
| Contact Diana at 802-723-6551 Ext. 114 or email Diana at diana@northwoodscenter.org |
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Jayson Benoit - Operations Director, Land Management Coordinator
A fifth generation Vermonter raised near St. Johnsbury, Jayson has maintained a lifelong interest in ecology and human culture, focusing more recently on the integration of these themes through active land stewardship. He developed these interests through early experiences hiking, hunting and working on dairy farms in northeastern Vermont.
They were further refined through travel and work in 13 countries and 22 states in environmental education, wildlife research and management, raptor rehabilitation, and through employment with the United States Forest Service and several youth conservation corps. |
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In 1990 Jayson earned a BA degree from St. Lawrence University in Spanish and later obtained additional credits in biology and botany from state colleges in Vermont and New York. In summer 1998 he participated in a USFWS seabird nest monitoring project in the Bering Straits of Alaska. Jayson serves as coordinator of the Island Pond Christmas Bird Count, co-coordinator for Orleans County for Vermont’s Breeding Bird Atlas project, and is actively involved in Vermont Coverts and the Forest Stewards Guild.
He is also a regular volunteer in several regional biological monitoring projects including the Breeding Bird Survey, peregrine falcon cliff watch, Forest Bird Monitoring Program, Mountain Birdwatch, FrogWatch, USA and the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. He currently owns and manages a 130-acre property in Charleston. |
| Contact Jayson at 802-723-6551 Ext. 113 or email Jayson at jayson@northwoodscenter.org |
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Ross Stevens - Director Conservation Service Corps
Ross grew up on his family’s sixth-generation farm in nearby Island Pond where he still spends much of his time managing the family woodlot and sugaring operation.
Ross graduated from Unity College in Maine with a B.S. in Environmental Science with a concentration in Ecology. He worked seasonally for more than 10 years with the Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation as a Naturalist, a supervisor for Hazardous Tree Removal crews, and as a Park Ranger managing a number of local parks including Maidstone, Brighton and Elmore State Parks. |
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During that time he also worked as an Instructor and Site Coordinator for Stone Environmental Schools of New England at various locations from the Coast of Massachusetts to the White Mountains in New Hampshire.
In addition Ross has also worked for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science as a field technician with the Loon Recovery Project and for the National Wildlife Federation as coordinator of a lead sinker exchange program. Ross traveled extensively through Europe, Central America and the U.S. working random jobs and learning about different cultures. He is the owner and operator of Nulhegan Guiding LLC. and has been the Director of the Kingdom Corps since 1998.
Ross currently lives with his wife, Tamara, and his two sons, Jed and Quinn, in East Burke, Vermont. Through both his personal and professional interest, Ross serves on a number of local Boards and Committees, operates the Community Drinking Water System in East Burke and is a Hunter Education instructor. |
| Contact Ross at 802-723-6551 Ext. 117 or email Ross at ross@northwoodscenter.org |
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Luke O'Brien - Development Director, Trails Coordinator
Luke grew up in northern Vermont and graduated from Bates College with a B.A. in Geology and a secondary concentration in History. He began his work at NorthWoods as an AmeriCorps volunteer and eventually assumed a major role in the coordination of its Conservation Service Corps.
In his role as recreation director, Luke coordinates many of NorthWoods' ski, snowshoe, hiking, and canoe events and oversees maintenance of its 30k trail system.
In addition, he continues to work closely with the Corps, assisting in the coordination of various trails projects and contributing to the planning and implementation of tree planting, river restoration and wildlife enhancement work – projects that relate well to his background in environmental stewardship. |
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Luke's interest in recreation and conservation has led to strong partnerships with the Green Mountain Club, the Westmore Trails Committee and the Vermont Trails and Greenways Council. Luke’s personal interests reflect his commitment to the outdoors and include hunting, hiking, backcountry skiing, canoeing and ultimate frisbee. L uke lives in Newark with his wife, Kerry, and his beautiful new daughter, Riley Bea, born in February 2007. |
| Contact Luke at 802-723-6551 Ext. 115 or email Luke at luke@northwoodscenter.org |
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Maria Young – Education & Outreach Coordinator
Maria Young has joined the Northwoods Staff as Education and Outreach Coordinator, Maria has recently returned to the Northeast Kingdom, the place she has always called home.
Maria graduated from Middlebury College, where she majored in environmental studies. Since working as Crew Leader for the Northwoods' Kingdom Corps in 2002, Maria has been exploring the West and the wider world.
She made a home away from home in Jackson, Wyoming, where she worked as a nordic coach, interned at a Conservation Alliance, gardened, and explored the Tetons on telemark skis. Maria has led a |
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community service trip in Costa Rica, helped build a small library high in the mountains of the Himalayas, explored outdoor recreation inside the classroom and out in New Zealand, and studied conservation efforts in the highlands of Guatemala.
Through each of these explorations, travels, and homes it is the connection between people and their landscape that has most captivated her. The Green Mountains of home have called her back, and Maria is delighted to be working at NorthWoods, once again learning, teaching, sharing and exploring in her favorite place of all. |
| Contact Maria at 802-723-6551 Ext. 115 or email Maria at maria@northwoodscenter.org |
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Betsy Tahtinen - AmeriCorps Education Assistant
Betsy joined NorthWoods in August 2009 for a one-year AmeriCorps position as an Educator/Outreach Coordinator. Betsy grew up in the flat farm country of southeastern Wisconsin.
She attended Northland College by the shores of Lake Superior, where she earned a B.S. in biology with a minor in geoscience; she also took additional classes in writing, art, music, and outdoor education. After graduation, Betsy worked as a field biologist at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute in Ashland, Wisconsin. Since her college graduation, Betsy has moved eight times. |
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She has migrated back and forth several times between New England and Wisconsin to work as a seasonal naturalist and environmental educator for many organizations -- Maywood Environmental Park, the Cable Natural History Museum, Audubon Vermont, Trees for Tomorrow Natural Resources School, Audubon Vermont (again), W. Alton Jones Environmental Education Center, and again at Trees for Tomorrow.
Wherever she is living and working, Betsy strives to connect to place through tracking local phenology and eating local food. In addition to baking bread, making jam, and cooking veggie dishes, she enjoys reading, writing, hiking, IDing birds and plants, knitting socks, contemplating watersheds, and playing guitar, fiddle, piano, and dulcimer. Betsy looks forward to her year at NorthWoods and getting to know the Northeast Kingdom. |
| Contact Betsy at 802-723-6551 Ext. 115 or email Betsy at betsy@northwoodscenter.org |
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Greg Coyle - AmeriCorps Conservation Assistant
Greg was born in southern Illinois and grew up largely in the suburbs of Chicago and, in his later teens, in the foothills of the Appalachians in northeast Georgia. It was there that he began to learn to hunt, fish, and otherwise enjoy the benefits of outdoor recreation.
After attending college for one year at Georgia Southern University, Greg decided to explore the country outside of the classroom, moving to Manhattan, where he became involved with the community outreach organization known as FFPIR (Fund for Public Interest Research).
Greg worked to coordinate funding and activism around important legislative and environmental issues such as fuel-efficiency requirements, climate change mitigation and, in Miami, FL, the Everglades restoration project. |
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Greg moved to Vermont in the fall of 2008 and began working with Northwoods in the spring of 2009. He led a crew of Youth Conservation Corps members for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Nulhegan Basin Division of the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge, and is now thrilled to be committed to helping Northwoods advance its educational and community conservation efforts for the next year as an Americorps volunteer. In his free time Greg can be found hiking, hunting, fishing, or studying to further his knowledge of ecology and natural resources. |
| Contact Greg at 802-723-6551 Ext. 117 or email Greg at greg@northwoodscenter.org |
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