Aaron Gill - Chair

Aaron has served on the PLC Board since 2013. He is a Commercial Lender at Millyard Bank in Nashua, and serves in a variety of capacities for the Town of Deering. He's currently the Chair/bookkeeper of the Trustee of the Trust Funds and Treasurer of the Deering Association, though he recently 'retired' from the Selectboard. His proudest accomplishment during his two terms was gaining voter support for solar panels on Deering's Town Hall to power town-owned buildings. Aaron lives in Deering with his husband Rob Girard; Together they enjoy travel and perennial gardening.

Joslin Bennett - Vice Chair

Joslin is a stay at home mom, homeschooling her two children ages 5 and 8. She is also a part-time consultant for GreenWood Global a nonprofit that promotes small-scale woodworking technologies to support sustainable forest management. Joslin is on the board of the New Hampshire Land Trust Coalition and prior to having children worked for five years for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests as a Conservation Easement Steward.  By volunteering for the stewardship committee and the board of the Piscataquog Land Conservancy Joslin hopes to promote the words of poet, Gary Snyder: "People who can agree they share a commitment to the landscape — even if they are otherwise locked in struggle with each other — have at least one deep thing to share." 

Marilyn Taylor - Treasurer

Marilyn has served on the PLC board since 2016. Marilyn’s career includes more than three decades as architect, planner, partner and chairman of the design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In 2008 she left practice to become Dean of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania; having completed that term, she is now Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, leading studios advancing the critical role design plays in addressing physical, societal and environmental challenges. She currently splits her time between Philadelphia, PA and South Hill, New Boston in an 1820's farmhouse which she has joyfully restored with the help of great local craftsmen. 

Mike Boyko  - Secretary

Mike is a retired manager from Verizon. Before joining the PLC board in 2015, Mike served (and still serves) as an easement monitor and member of PLC’s Stewardship Committee. In addition to his volunteer service to PLC, Mike has served on the Town of Weare Open Space Committee, and donates his time to the U.S. Forest Service as a trail adopter. Mike was named PLC's Volunteer of the Year in 2014.

Jim Shirley  - Immediate Past Chair

Jim has been a PLC Trustee since 2010, and served two years as chair. He has previously served as Secretary. He and his family are easement donors and own Shirley farm in Goffstown, NH. Jim is an attorney and shareholder at Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green PA in Manchester. For many years, Jim’s wife Sara ran a certified organic produce CSA on the land. Since 2014, Melissa and Max Blindow have run Benedikt Dairy at the farm, an operation that offers not only raw milk, yogurt, cheese and related dairy products but now includes robust vegetable production as well. Shirley Farm is one the few Bicentennial Farms in New Hampshire, having been in continuous agricultural production under the same family since before the U.S. Constitution.

Dave Butler

Dave is a member of the PLC Stewardship Committee, and was PLC’s Volunteer of the Year in 2017. He has been a volunteer property monitor since 2012, and is currently the volunteer monitor and trail maintainer at PLC’s Florence Tarr Wildlife Sanctuary. He leads outings for PLC and the Harris Center, and writes articles for the PLC newsletter that share insights about the natural and human history of our region. Dave attended UNH Cooperative Extension’s NH Coverts program in 2017. Dave retired in 2015 after working as an engineer for 35 years. He is a resident of Bedford.

Rita Carroll

Rita is one of the two former co-chairs of the Bedford Land Trust (BLT), which was recently merged into the PLC. Since 2007, she had served as administrator, trustee, chairman and co-chairman. She has also been an employee of the Society for the Protection of NH Forests (SPNHF) for more than 10 years, originally as the Policy and Reservation Stewardship Coordinator and now ‘semi-retired’ as the administrator of the NH Tree Farm Program, a forestry certification program co-sponsored by SPNHF. Rita has a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Technology and before moving to NH with her family and falling in love with the out-of-doors, she was a laboratory technologist. She resides in Bedford.

Jess Charpentier

Jess is Research Faculty at the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, University of New Hampshire, leading a project titled: Rehabilitating the Northern Forest for Economic and Climate Change Resilience. Protecting the Northern landscape has been the driving force behind Jess’ work. Her land ethic is deeply rooted in protecting the region’s most important ecosystems while promoting sustainable use of renewable natural resources. She has a decade of experience working with land trusts, towns, private landowners, and public agencies on important land conservation projects. Jess holds a BS in Environmental Science from Northern Arizona University, MS in Resource Management and Conservation and PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England. Her Doctoral work focused on disturbance-recovery dynamics and fuel loading post-wildfire in upland forests of coastal Maine.

Ben Haubrich

Ben has a B.S. in Park Administration and retired from the N. H. Division of Parks & Recreation after a 32 year career serving as park manager (Monadnock State Park), region supervisor and Director of Recreation Services (which included administering the federal Land & Water conservation fund). Ben has volunteered for the PLC since 2004, was awarded the Gordon A Russell Award in 2008 and was our Volunteer of the Year in 2015. Ben also volunteers with the Harris Center for Conservation Education, Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests (Volunteer of the Year 2016), the Monadnock Conservancy, the Francestown Conservation Commission and the N.H. Coverts program. In 2019 he received the NH Audubon Society’s Tudor Richards Award. He serves as board member and volunteer land manager for the Francestown Land Trust, tending the trust’s 580-acre Rand Brook Forest and other owned and easement properties.

Doug Powers

Doug was trained in developmental and reproductive biology. He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology at Boston College and a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he spent a number of years developing techniques focused on the diagnosis and treatment of infertility.
Doug has served on several non-profit boards including High Mowing School in Wilton, NH, where he was also the school’s Interim Executive Director. He and his wife, Doria Harris, live in in Lyndeborough, are property monitors for the PLC, and are organizers of The Rose Mountain Rumble. He is an enthusiastic cyclist and furniture maker and is a juried member of the League of NH Craftsmen. Doug currently serves as Chair of the Land Protection Committee.

Gary Samuels

Gary joined the PLC board in 2016. He has also served on the PLC Land Protection Committee since 2015. He is a member of the Piscatquog River Local Advisory Committee, the Deering Conservation Commission and the Deering Budget Advisory Committee. He is also a trustee of the Deering Public Library. He retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010, where he was a research mycologist who explored in tropical countries in the Americas and West Africa in search of microbes that could be used in the control of fungal diseases of cacao. He and his wife Patty have lived in Deering since 2011. 

Mike Thomas

Mike is a retired biologist from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station where he assisted in studies of forest insect pests and in studies on the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. He is a member of the PLC Land Protection Committee, the Piscatquog River Local Advisory Committee, the Deering Conservation Commission, and is a Curatorial Affiliate at the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Entomology. Mike also volunteers with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the NH Audubon Society. He is an avid nature photographer. His photographs have been published in magazines and books. Mike and his wife Sue live in Deering where they enjoy the outdoors and everything New Hampshire has to offer. 

Gene Van Loan

Gene has served on the PLC board since 2016. He is a semi-retired lawyer associated with the firm of Wadleigh, Starr & Peters in Manchester. He is a life-long resident of Bedford, where he served for about 25 years as Town Moderator and School Moderator. In 2000, he and his siblings donated a conservation easement over 65 acres of family land to the Bedford Land Trust. He formerly served on the Board of the Bedford Land Trust and was chairman of the boards of NH Easter Seal, Greater Manchester Mental Health, Josiah Bartlett Center, Yale Club of NH, among others. Mr. Van Loan is presently a member of the board of the Office of Public Guardian, an alternate member of the NH Ballot Law Commission and a member of the NH Supreme Court Society. He is a founder of the Amoskeag Rowing Club and actively rows, bikes, skis and golfs.

Joshua Young

Josh joined the PLC board in 2016, after serving on the Development Committee for several years. Until he took early retirement he was a personal trust and investments banker with State Street, Shawmut and other banks. His 20-year second career was as a major gift officer for Tufts University School of Medicine. Josh now serves on the Board of Advisors for the medical school. He and his wife Hollis have had a home in New Boston on the corner of Gregg Mill and Lull roads since 1972. They have two grown sons, Joshua and Andrew. Josh is continues to consult on fund raising and enjoys gardening with his wife.