#25: Tom Rogers: Stowe Land Trust Executive Director and Wildlife Biologist

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Tom Rogers, Executive Director of Stowe Land Trust . A certified wildlife biologist with a master’s degree in Biology and Ecology, Tom came to SLT in 2024 from The Nature Conservancy, where he was Associate Director of Philanthropy for the past five years. Tom lives in Stowe with his wife and two daughters. He is an avid mountain biker and backcountry skier, and he’s often out on the trails in the early morning before work. Tom also worked as a part-time ski instructor at Stowe Mountain Resort for five years and has served as a volunteer EMT with Stowe Mountain Rescue since 2012. 

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This episode of the Octagon is sponsored in part by archery close. Hey, this is Chris and Taste from Archery Clothes, your go-to boutique. For men's and women's fashion, we carry a curated selection of clothing, footwear, and gifts from unique and emerging brands. We're proud to sponsor the Octagon and even prouder to be local business owners here in Stowe. We love how the Octagon captures the history and characters of this incredible town. After coming off the slopes or the trails, stop by archery close. Located at 1650 Mountain Road in Stowe. Open seven days a week, or always open online@archeryclose.com. Welcome listeners to the Octagon Podcast, where we explore the stories, people, and places that make STO Vermont so legendary. I'm your host, Ted Thorndyke, joined by my co-host Mike Carey. We are excited to introduce our guest today, Tom Rogers, executive director of STO Land Trust. A certified wildlife biologist with a Master's degree in biology and ecology. Tom came to Stow Land Trust in 2024 from the Nature Conservancy, where he was Associate Director of Philanthropy for the past five years. I. Tom lives in STO with his wife and two daughters. He's an avid mountain biker and backcountry skier, and he's often out on the trails in the early morning before work. Tom also worked as a part-time ski instructor at STO Mount Resort for five years and has served as a volunteer EMT with STO Mount Rescue since 2012. Welcome, Tom. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Yeah. Welcome. Great to have you on. Could you share your journey from studying biology and ecology to becoming the executive director at Still Land Trust today? Sure. Yeah. it's, one of those things where every step along the way was not the step that I pictured following the one before. Yeah. I came to Stowe in 2011 having just graduated from the East Montana with a graduate degree in, wildlife biology. I'd spent a lot of that time chasing around grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area out west, and pictured myself doing that kind of work moving forward. like continuing to do field work and wildlife biology. My first job in Vermont was working for a wildlife consulting firm where I was radio collaring bears here in Vermont. Oh wow. So doing a lot of fun stuff like that. And then ski instructing on the weekends. and that was actually where I first met my ba way back in the day. I used to teach his, daughters. Oh, wow. Skiing back in. Yeah. Long time ago. I didn't know that connection. Yeah. Wow. So lot of time outdoors. Lot of time outdoors. That's awesome. And then, a position with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department came up and it was not as a wildlife biologist, but it was basically as the public spokesperson for the organization. I've always been a big nature photographer and somebody who really loves talking about wildlife and conservation and the outdoors and. so did that for a little while. It was a just fascinating work. I got to participate in every part of the department's work, so I'd go down in bat caves with the biologists To check out the bat, hi vernacular. We'd go into the, rattlesnake dens down in southern Vermont. A lot of people don't know this. We have rattlesnake populations here in Vermont. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Yep. like all kinds of cool work going night, T trawling, for fish to do surveys on Lake Champlain in the middle of the night. And it was really interesting my wife always teased me that I wasn't a wildlife biologist, but I played one on tv, so I was gonna cue that one off. Yeah. And that was really just super fun. Fascinating work. And after a little while, I realized it was all about making that connection to nature and to conservation for people. So when The Nature Conservancy approached me about being a fundraiser, which is about as far from a wildlife biologist as you can get, I was Ugh, no way. Never. I'm not gonna go out and, ask for money for conservation. And then they described for me what the job actually entailed. And it was getting out with people on the ground, taking it for hikes, taking'em, paddling, doing these kind of things that build that connection. Between nature and the outdoors and the work of a group like the Nature Conservancy. oh, so it's a little bit like being a guide. Yeah. Which was what I was doing before grad school. I was, living out in Jackson Hole, ski instructing, raft guiding, taking people for multi-week mountaineering and back country wilderness trips and things like that. And at the end of a day of guiding, what you hope is that the customer, has a great day, builds a connection, and gives you a tip. And that's not that different than fundraising, right? I mean, you're it's a good point. I'm gonna take people out, build a big connection to nature and the outdoors, and at the end I. Hope that, they like it enough that they really wanna fund our work. Yeah. And so it's very similar to what I'm doing right now at STO Land Trust, which is, building that connection, building community around all of these things that surround us in these amazing hills. of Stove, Vermont and drawing people into that. Yeah. That's cool. was there a moment growing up, were you always in the outdoors or was there some moments that kinda led you on this path? Yeah, this has always been a thing for me. I've always been really excited about nature in the outdoors. I remember as a kid, I always took a seat in the classroom closest to the window, and the one thing that I got scolded for the most is my teachers would always say he spends all his time staring out the window. It was no. That's where I want to be. I wanna be out there. I don't wanna be in here. Totally. And I was a decent student and I did well and all that, but man, spending time outdoors was just, it was the bee's knees for me. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned your work at Nature Conservancy. What was that transition like? Toto Land Trust, how did that all happen? sto, land Trust and Nature Conservancy are close partners to each other. TNC is just a phenomenal organization. I think that they're really moving in a lot of great directions where more and more they're, yeah, they're doing on the ground work and they're doing their own projects, but they're really providing the backbone, the foundation for organizations like STO Land Trust to be doing our work. So they're doing the science that's prioritizing which properties we really should be putting conservation effort into. They're doing that on a statewide and regional level. they're thinking across borders and across boundaries and saying. here's where we need to be moving. And they're also, providing more and more financial support for organizations like STO Land Trust to bolster our efforts. there's still a really close partner and it's when you're two organizations working really close together, it's not that big a transition being from one organization to the other, Yeah. So for listeners who may not be familiar, what's the mission of STO Land Trust? It's protecting the lands and waters. For everyone connected to the STO area. So it's about this big picture if you're a visitor here, if you're a resident our work is really for you. When did it start? when did, so Sto Land Trust started in 1987 and our first project actually is all around us right here at the studios. So it was Mayo Farm, now Farm. Yeah. So it was a group of really concerned citizens. Mayo Farm came up for sale and they decided that they really wanted to get together and conserve it because it's so essential to the character of the community. Yeah. And so they decided to get together and, form a 5 0 1 C3, and get the town to purchase the land, raised a lot of the funding for it. And at the time, STO Land Trust just transferred it to the town. There wasn't a conservation easement on it. In 2003, they decided that they wanted to further protect Mayo Farm. So they went back, Toto Land Trust and said, we want you guys to put a conservation easement on this to protect this. Because at the time there were, as any period of time, there's a lot of issues that the community's going through and people could say, if we just develop Mayo Farm, that would solve some of these issues. And they said, we don't wanna, be solving the issues of today and really not looking down the road at what we're really gonna want as a community tomorrow. Yep. Cool. Yeah. Could you speak to what role recreation plays in conserved properties? Yeah, it's a huge thing. so many of us came to conservation through recreation. I know I did personally. Yeah. it was really just about getting out there and enjoying these things, sometimes people conflate the two. In other words, the idea that, by getting out there and mountain biking and canoeing and doing these things. That, that in, in itself is an act of conservation. And I think there is a little bit, but I think more and more we're starting to realize that just like anything, there are trade offs. and when we build a mountain bike trail or when we, put in a hiking trail or things like that gets people in the outdoors, that builds a conservation ethic, that builds that strong connection. But at the same time, it's more infrastructure in the outdoors. It's more people out there who potentially displacing wildlife. And so I think conservation organizations like ours and. trails recreation organizations like STO Trails Partnership more and more we're really working together. Yeah. With them and thinking more holistically about where it makes sense to be putting some of that concentrated impact of recreation or where it makes sense to be. Kind of conserving things away from that concentrated impact. Yeah. Doing it. Yeah. Thoughtfully doing it very thoughtfully and mindfully. And even as recently as 10 years ago, there was kind of perception that those two things were in conflict. Yeah. I really see that change in both in the stow community, and I think in the conservation and rec community writ large. Yeah. That's always a trick one.'cause I always think when we, a property gets conserved, there's trails there That people have built, and then everyone's oh, we can just continue to use those trails. And I'm always challenged by both sides of that. oh, yeah, there's trails there, we should be able to use them. And then the other side says. No, we have to think about the impact of people and all these things on that. yeah, absolutely. Yep. and would you say, nature Conservancy assists your organization in performing the science and the analytics about where to put trails, for example, I know you mentioned they assist in figuring out what properties might be better than others to conserve. Yeah, they've done a lot of studies on, as has UVM actually on kind of the impacts of recreation to nature and to wildlife. And so again, they'd be a, a big partner of ours in terms of siting recreational areas. and when we think about different projects, we think about'em from different purposes. So we've got, as any given time, three, four projects in the hopper right now that we're working on at different stages. One of them we're actually really hoping to close down a sparsely used kind of rogue trail because it's an area that it's private land, so it's already private property. We're not taking anything away from the public, but it's. an important wildlife corridor, important migrate area, and it's been identified as such. We've got another project it's also private land and we're looking to conserve it and there's a rudimentary trail system that we're actually looking to really develop. Yeah. when we conserve that one and it's connected to other trail networks in, this valley and we're like, let's really expand on this and Really concentrate this recreational impact here. That doesn't necessarily mean that everything has to be like a Kingdom Trails or a Katy Hill, where you have, a lot of trails that are really highly used. but it does mean that we need to be really thoughtful about the places that we're putting these recreational centers. Yeah. Are there other land trusts around the country that you look to and say, Hey, wow, they're doing it amazing and I'd like to emulate what they're doing? Yeah, that's a great question. it's a very timely question. I'm on a bit of a land trust tour right now. Okay. So I've been talking to some of the other land trusts that are in town similar to Stowe. So I mentioned that I have roots in Jackson Hole. That was where my wife and I met, and I moved, indirectly via Missoula, Montana, from Jackson to Stowe. and they are dealing with a lot of some of the same issues that we are right now where, there's, decreased housing opportunities for local residents. a lot of development pressure, land prices really skyrocketing. I would say Jackson's, probably 20 years ahead of where we are, and all of those things. you can still. Buy a house in the million-ish dollar range in the stow area, whereas you can't get one out in Jackson in that range. you're talking two, 3 million just to get a little three bedroom family home out there. but while I was out there, a few weeks go skiing, I met with the executive director of Jackson Hole Land Trust and brainstorm a lot of the ideas of what our communities are doing and how we're solving them. The other ones that I've been talking to are the Aspen Valley Land Trust. Again, very similar. Yeah. And then, the Lake George Land Trust, big kind of, recreation and nature based kind of community like ours and. yeah, there are definitely ones that we're looking to that have started to solve some of these problems in creative in different ways. Cool. yeah, on the housing note, what role do you seeto Land Trust playing? is it at odds with that because we're conserving land or do you view it as an opportunity to, really partner with that mission? Yeah, so this is the million dollar question right now. Totally. Isn't it? I think that when done really well, conservation and housing actually bolster each other. I think some of the best conservation and housing projects out there are ones, for example, where you can concentrate some housing. Say you've got a hundred acres, you set five acres or 10 acres aside, that's closest to the road, closest to sewer and public works and public transportation. You set that aside and you can do a housing project there, and then you can conserve the back 90. And that can be public space, not just for the community, but for the people in those houses. there are a few projects like that up in Morrisville that have been done, not just the kind of big apartment buildings that are right downtown, but some that are more out in the woods, where there'll be a collective of people that get together and they say, Hey, here's, 150 acres. Let's put a dozen cabins all together in this little community, and then let's share the rest of it. And we'll all, put biking trails out there, be able to fly fish along the river, things like that. I think about some of the places we can serve and we really want to target places that are not ideal for housing. So our last big project was the Adams Camp Connector. Yeah. Super steep hillside. Yeah. Yeah. Really forested right above the river, would perpetuate some of the crowding and traffic issues up by the ski resort. Really not the best place for a big housing project to be going in. if something were to come up. That was right here in the downtown center and it was surrounded by, housing and development and all sides of it. That wouldn't be a property we'd be interested in. That wouldn't be one we'd go after. Or maybe it would be something that if Community Housing Trust or Land Trust wanted to come in and partner with us on, we could all raise the funds together and do a little bit of housing, a little bit of open space, maybe add to the size of Mayo Farm or something like that. yeah. So there's no, there's nothing active for you to say, Hey, we've got this block of land and we would actively look at housing on a parcel of it. So once it's preserved and it's not like a look back to say, Hey, I don't know if that's possible or not. Yeah, that's a great question. the, easements that we do on the properties, those are all legally binding agreements. And with the exception of Mayo Farm, which is a really rare exception, easements in general are in perpetuity. Okay? Meaning they can never be made less strict. You can always make them more strict. say you have an easement that allows for say farming, eventually you say, we don't wanna allow farming anymore. Just natural, things like that. You can always make them, more strict. It's almost impossible to make them less strict. And that's because of federal rules from the IRS. The reason being that when somebody does an easement, there's a lot of tax implications, things like that. And so what they didn't wanted was people getting a tax benefit by conserving land. And then turn it around 10 years later, renegotiating with the land Trust and be like, actually, I do wanna put a housing development up there. It's worth something now and gonna sell it. Yeah. But thanks for that tax break 10 years ago. I'll keep that. What would you say is the typical day, in the life of the executive director of Theto Land Trust? Oh man. One of the things I found, and there is no typical day. Every single day is different. That's probably why you like it. I don't know. Going out to Jackson Hole and meeting with them out there sounds pretty right. yeah, that's not typical day. That was a very typical day. Aspen, little Aspen trip. Aspen, the Jackson home trip is exemplary of the fact that when you're an ED of a community organization like that, especially one that's held profile, you're never not the ed. So I was just out there, skiing with some friends and staying, and I was I'm out there. This is such a great opportunity to meet with this other executive director. Yeah. And so that was just attack on, I wish that STO Land Trusts had the funds to be sending me to places like Jackson for a great ski vacation for a meeting, but that's not the case. so much of it is just responding to what comes at me during the day. I'm sure a lot of you guys have jobs like this where you think, this is what I'm gonna be doing for the day. For sure. Yeah. And it turns out that it's not. I spend a lot of time out walking properties with, landowners, we manage what, 41 42 properties in the area. And so there are issues that come up, people that. Own that land. Say, Hey, I know that it says that I'm allowed to do events on this property, but does that include weddings or are you thinking just nature walks and then we have to say, what is the legal language? What does our attorney say about that? Yeah. what's actually allowed on this property? I know I'm allowed a barn on this property. Yeah. But does the barn have to be used for animals or can I just build a garage that's shaped like a barn and then I'm gonna put my car collection out there or something like that. And the thing about land conservation that maybe this is the thing that most people miss, is that it's not just about signing the papers and then you're done, like raising the money, you sign the papers, we think of it almost like a marriage where the wedding day, that's not when you're finished, that's when you're starting, right? So that paperwork signing is like day one. That's the wedding day for us. And then after that, it's a lifetime of commitment, of protecting and stewarding that land. Doing right by the community for that land and doing everything we can to preserve those values that we've agreed to preserve. Yeah. Yeah. I was a volunteer steward at Pinnacle Meadows Oh, nice. For a bunch of years. Yeah. there was a lot to address. Yeah. just re flagging boundary lines and just issues with the trail and things to figure out. Yeah. Yeah. it takes management to do it. I was working on a project with the Nature Conservancy before I came and, It was this incredibly generous family that had donated this unbelievably beautiful. This was in the, project in the Midwest. They had donated this beautiful property. It had this old growth forest on it, had wolf populations on it, all these things, and they had donated it. they donated an easement it, and they were planning to donate the land itself too. And in the meantime, because their home was adjacent to this property, they built a garage. And six feet of the corner of the garage had gone over the boundary onto the property where they donated the easement. And even though they'd done everything right, they donated the easement and then they wanted to donate the land, and were doing all this. We still had to enforce that little garage, that little corner and thankfully in this case we were able to talk to all the attorneys and redraw the boundary slightly. Yeah. And they gave up a little bit more land in exchange to make it all, above board. But man, like when we make those agreements, we have to enforce them Whether we want to or not, and whether they want to or not. It's just legally binding. Yeah, it's, they're all totally legally binding. Or even interpretation. I would think that's probably one of the hardest things is the interpreting what the original. Rules and bylaws said, and now does it meet that or not? yeah. Yeah. Dealing with the legal aspects is always challenging. it's funny, we had somebody new in our office the other day and we were all sitting at one of their first meetings and we were joking afterwards, We're all a bunch of biologists that were trained to identify plants and now we sit around interpreting legal documents. Yeah. Like we should gotten, you might be a lawyer after this, right? We should have gotten law degrees rather than, all these biology ecology degrees. Exactly. Now I know why they asked my dad to be part of the stellar interest, right? That's right. He was, he loved that stuff. He loved that. I don't know how he did it every day for work, but he was good at it. Boy was he was so good at it. He was just such a crucial part of the land trust for so long. Yeah, for sure. Was he one of the founding members? I think so. Wow. he was president. I knew he was president for a long time, but I could never keep track of who's been around the longest. he got me really into the outdoors. Grateful for that. I'm curious, the Adams Camp connector project, that's done, that's completed. take us through the whole process. Did someone, say, Hey, we want that land, or did somebody say. Hey, we think this land should go into that, and then how does it all happen? That's start to finish. that one was very different than most other projects start out. We actually have maps that we've created that prioritize every parcel in the town of Stowe, plus a two mile radius around. So our entire service area, we've actually gone through and said, what is the, biological value? What's the recreation value? What's the potential farm value? All these different things. And prioritize them into tiers one, two, or three or a lower priority. And so we already know the properties that as much as possible if a landowner's interested and willing to conserve it, we want to talk to them. Yeah. So sometimes we'll reach out to them and we'll just send them a letter and say, Hey, your property a priority of ours for conservation. We're out here as an option. If you're ever interested in selling or doing an easement or something like that, other times, they'll call us up and say. we're thinking of selling, we just have such a beautiful landscape and we really don't think that this is an appropriate place for development. We'd love to see this conserved, or you'd be interested and we'll go out and take a walk with them and consider it within that. right now we're in the process of really expanding our service area too. So instead of just being, a land trust that concentrates on the town of Stowe, like most things, we're starting to think valley wide. we think of ourselves more and more as a larger community in the valley. And so I think this land trust really needs to reflect that. So we're starting to talk to landowners in Morrisville and Waterbury more often. maybe even Elmore getting out there a little bit, a little bit further afield to see, how can we think more holistically about this valley in terms of our conservation priorities and how that really reflects things like all of our challenges, housing, development, traffic, all of these patterns that we're seeing. the last thing we'd want is for Stowe to be an island of conservation with a lot of development on both sides. Or conversely for STO to have all of the benefits of conservation that, are a double-edged sword. we have all the recreation, let's say in Stowe, everybody flocks here at a mountain bike and then our trailheads are crazy and the impact and the erosion. So we're really trying to think holistically about spreading those benefits out and thinking about how we can think about this from a value wide perspective. No.'cause I have noticed when I'll go to some bordering towns, maybe make my way up north a little bit and it's different, I think we're very lucky to not only have these conserved properties, but establish trailheads. Yeah. Established trails. So I. I think it's cool to hear that, that you're looking to expand it a little bit and give others the same opportunity, because I have noticed that, I like hiking off trails, so I'm psyched. Yeah. And I'll just see these, totally remote pieces of wilderness, but for a lot of other people, it allows them to get out that into the outdoors easier. Yeah. with the access and. Exactly. Maps, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Is it easier to, fundraise for projects where there is mountain biking or hiking versus just, Hey, we wanna preserve this land?'cause it's just beautiful to look at different donors, honestly. Like different pools. different care about different things and different, foundations have different priorities. people think that. Fundraising is just asking people for money, but really it's more about matchmaking, right? there are people out there who really care about certain things and wanna support them, and we do a variety of different things that have the potential for support. So it's more about finding, all right, this project's really all about, wildlife habitat. Who are the foundations who are the donors that are really jazzed about that and are willing to kick in some money for something like that versus, the mountain biking one. it's easy to get a big high profile thing. Like we were at the, that event at The Alchemist. that was huge. The community came out for that big time. Because it's a recreation based project. yeah. but yeah, it's all different. It's really surprising that way. I'm sure it depends on the project or the property, but somebody contacts you, Hey, I want to conserve this. How long does that process take? I'm sure it's different. Yeah. and some, there may be many factors at play. just curious on timelines there. we tell people it's six months to a year. Yeah. And so that's one down. I was thinking year. I don't know why in my head. Yeah, no, it, it takes a little bit. there's a lot that we have to do. yeah. We have to do all of our due diligence. First of all, you have to do a title search, just like everything and make sure they own the property. Yeah. You don't wanna buy it from somebody who doesn't technically own it. Yeah. but then we have to go out and document what's there already, right? Yeah. So if they put a barn up, for example, and we come in and say, Hey, you know what you told, we put a barn up, we conserve this. You can't put a barn there. And they're oh, that barn's always been there. you have to go out and be thorough really thoroughly. Document the property, see what the ecological values are. Make sure there's not oil tanks under the ground or it's not a Superfund site, or all these things that might pop up later that you didn't know about. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit of a process and it takes a while, and so it takes usually a more patient landowner. This episode is sponsored by Edelweiss Mountain Deli located on the mountain Road. I know for me it is the perfect stopping point after day on the hill to grab my favorite Waitsfield sandwich and a cup of coffee, and for me grabbing my favorite Sweet Sensation bar. Whether you're looking for fresh Vermont pastries, farm to table prepared meals or local Vermont products to add your barbecue, make sure Edelweiss Mountain Deli is your next stop. When it comes to luxury real estate in Stowe Trust, Meg Kaufman of Land Vests, Christie's International Real Estate. Meg Kaufman knows the market inside and out. She's been a part of the Stowe community for over 20 years. Whether you're buying or selling, Meg Kaufman offers a concierge level of service. Taylor, just for you. Backed by the power of land vests and Christie's International. She brings proven success and local insight to every transaction, luxury real estate, local expertise. Meg Kaufman and Land Vests are the team you want on your side. any, you got any projects in the hopper? Any, any, things you're currently working on or Yeah. Coming up? Yeah, we have several actually. And, so this is always the million dollar question because, one of the things about land conservation is that everything's confidential until it becomes public. Yeah. And so you have to get to the point where you have a purchasing sale agreement and then makes sense. You're starting to fundraise publicly. And so until then, people say, oh, I get this question three, four times a week. whatcha are you guys working on right now? So here's how I answer it. I always say, and this is true in this case, we've got a project that we're working on in Chuts Hill Wildlife Corridor. It's at a real pinch point at what's been identified as the corridor. And this one we're a little bit further along and. Are really working to protect that corridor in this spot. We've got some really generous neighbors that are helping us do that and so Nice. That one I'm really excited about. That's gonna connect to some other conserved land in the chutes with hill by the corridor. we're talking to, a landowner actually up in the Morrisville area. and it's a property that's adjacent to a big mountain biking network. it's just beautiful. We took a walk on it last Friday. one of our long-term board members says If we conserve this is gonna be the prettiest piece of land stole land trust has ever conserved. Wow. I was just blown away. It's got this fabulous gorge, it's got a swimming beach. it's just amazing. And then it's right adjacent to several other trail networks where the landowners actually already built a trail network of his own. That he's working on. So that's a project that we're working on with a fellow partner in the area. Mike's not gonna stop asking you about that. Yeah. He's not gonna sleep. I'll fund that. Yeah, exactly. So that one's really exciting for us. Nice. gosh, we've got a few others that, that we're working on, but, there's always a few in the hopper. Patience. I'm sure it's, it's a patience. Just a patience game of, yep. And the other thing, it's a game of knowing that, For every three, four projects that you start down the road on, maybe one or two gonna come to fruition and you could have the most talented, or the least talented executive director in the world, or fundraisers or all that's still gonna be your ratio. Yeah, this is probably gonna be somewhere in that range. What are some of the other, would you say marquee? properties, thatto Land Trust has worked on. I love that I can brag about Sto Land Trust because I'm not bragging personally,'cause I had nothing to do with any of these projects. It is all you, Tom. Every single one of them came well before me, so I'm gonna just layer it into it and say that STO land has really conserved just some amazing properties. Just an example of this. I was sitting on the front deck of, black Cap recently and talking to someone who was interested in partnering with us. And I said, from where we're sitting on the front deck of Black Cap, you can see three Stone Land Trust conserve properties. So if you look to the left from the, from front porch, you can see Ka Hill, that's ATO Land Trust, conserve Property. It's owned by the town, but we conserve that. If you look forward, you can see Mayo Farm, huge property that's really central to the identity of town. If you look to the right, you can see Sunset Rock. Yeah. So literally from the front deck of a property in downtown Stowe, you can see three different properties. we also conserved the mill trail, which takes you to, oh yeah. Bingham Falls. My dad was fired up about that. I remember. Yeah. that's a huge one. Wiesner Woods is our most popular. Yeah. Kirschner Woods. Everybody walks that a lot. We just did, the shoots with ledges. Our most recent fee owned project, meaning we actually own and manage it. It's not privately owned or owned by the town or things like that. I know I've been there recently. Most people haven't. And that one's, again, one of those ones that's really focused on wildlife conservation. So it's right in the chutes with the Hill Wildlife Corridor. That one we probably wouldn't develop a trail system in. It's really a more wildlife based one. gosh, what are the other iconic ones? Mayo Farm. Certainly is one of the most iconic ones. And it's where we all play soccer and lacrosse and the polo fields and the events fields and all these things, yeah. Is Adams camp? Is Adams camp? Adam's camp. Adams camp. And trap, forest. All that land. All that land was conserved by Brownsville. Brownsville is another recent one that's my favorite. Just gonna put that in. That's my favorite brown spot. Brownsville is stunning. Love it. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. That's my favorite one. For some reason. I've walked, the last two years on peak foliage day at Brownsville, that one day of the year where it's 55 degrees, no clouds, no humidity, and the leaves just could not be more spectacular. Brownsville is such a good place for that, a favorite one. And you might see a handful of other people out there if that, but usually no one can get out there. Yeah. What's your favorite, do you have a favorite property? everything He named, everything you named. Didn't know if had one. All of those emotion all connected to or anything. Mayo Farm, just'cause I live on Mayo Farm and I sit on my front porch in the winter, in the spring and the summer and the fall and it changes and. The cows are out there in the summer. Yeah, it's amazing place. We've got a, some, a couple of little inholdings in, in Sterling. So that area's just beautiful. Sterling's. Sterling's cool. Sterling's cool. Although, I will say a lot of that's from Mont Land Trust they were really involved in. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that was before my time. I assume anything in this area, STO Land Trust was a partner in some way, but they were really the spearheads for that. And then, another one I really liked Dumont Meadow over in Moscow. that's the area all along the river there. The Moscow rec fields, that's also ATO Land Trust project. Yep. Amazing. you've had a long career in conservation, wildlife, biology. any wildlife sightings or experiences that blew your mind. you mentioned grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes. And rattlesnakes too. The grizzly bears though rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes are really cool. there was, oh gosh. There was one that they had done a pit tag in where you actually insert a little tracking device in the rattlesnakes to see where they're traveling. And so I got to be involved in that project just as they were actually capturing the animals and taking the tags out with a veterinarian. They put it on their anesthesia. They do surgery. On a rattlesnake and then take the pit tag out, and I got to carry in a backpack, an enormous rattlesnake up to the side of a mountain and release it back into the wild, which was a pretty neat experience. I think I'd rather see a grizzly bear right, than tag a rattlesnake. Wow. Yeah. That's fascinating. between college and grad school, I worked in this fascinating project. We were live capturing bald eagles and golden eagles in Wyoming. And so the way that you capture an eagle is, there's a lot of roadkill, things like that. Eagles do a lot of scavenging, A lot of people don't know this. They think of them as just eating fish, but in the winter they scavenge quite a bit. And so in that area, in the Jackson Hole, Yellowstone area, there's all kinds of great things for them to scavenge on. So you got bison, moose, elk, all these things that are dying throughout the winter, getting hit by cars or all that. And so we would drag. a dead moose or a dead bison out into a field make a big bloody mess to attract their attention. And then we'd sit in a blind and wait sometimes 12 hours, these long days for an eagle to come in so we could spring the net and go grab them and tag them. Wow. And there was a morning where our only problem with that was that sometimes a predator would come in and eat our bait.'cause you've got half of a moose carcass out there and maybe a grizzly bear comes in or some wolves and, yep. Before you know it, two, three days your bait's gone. And so we'd do everything we could to get them off of our bait. We'd put stinky things out there. Sometimes we'd go and mark our territory, pee all around the carcass. So they knew there were humans around. and there was one time where I went out in the early morning'cause we'd always set the traps before light. And I saw lights, or I saw, eyes reflecting back on me. It was a grizzly bear. I could see it, on the other side of the bait. And so I pulled my bear spray out, ready to go, ready to get him if he ever came a little bit closer, walking. Stealthily. And as I'm pulling the safety off the top of it, it goes off and hits me right in the face from point blank range, from arm length range. And so I'm in the woods in the dark at night in the cold. Wow. And I'm, all of a sudden now bear sprayed myself directly in the face. And thankfully there was another guy with me there who. Had he not been there? I don't know if the bear would've gotten me, if I would've just, that's what I'm wondering. spray yourself and then the bear attacks you. exactly. Yeah. They're like, why is this guy all covered in bear spraying? Is it just brutal? oh, it was the most painful thing and oh, it was just brutal, wow. what are they? peppers, hot peppers are measured. I learned a lot about this afterwards. They're measured in scoville heat units. And so a normal hot one that you and I would eat might be in the hundreds or even thousands. The ones that the crazy people eat in those contests are like 300, 500,000. Bear spray is 3 million Scoble heat units, so six times hotter than the hottest peppers in the world. Concentrated going directly into your eyes and mouth and nose. So it made it into your mouth? Oh yeah. Everything. Because the guy with me were how do we rinse this off? I'm screaming in pain. He takes a water bottle and rinses it down instead of actually rinsing it out. Because as we all know, you don't use water to get rid of spicy things. All it did was just rinse it down my throat, have my throat start closing up. Wow. So yeah, so I got taken to the ambulance. I was about 90 minutes out in the wilderness and met an ambulance halfway who gave me some steroids to open my throat up so I could breathe again. Oh, what a story. Right? Oh my God. Phenomenal. What about other wildlife in Stowe? I've seen coyotes, fox, moose. I'm trying to think. Bear, I'm sure Bears. Bears. You seen bear bears? I've seen bears outside your house. Lots of bears around. What about cat mount? Do we have cat mount here? Yeah. That's a good question. Yeah, I think so. That's my theory is yes. Yeah. Are Mountain lions? Same thing. Yep. Has anyone spotted'em? So people say they have, right? I think somebody spotted Bigfoot riding in one recently. I don't know. yeah, so that's a really good question. We used to have Catamounts in Vermont. Yeah, they were all extricated. If I remember correctly, it was in the late 18 hundreds, the year 18 97, 18 95. Somewhere in there was the last one that was shot. The last one that was shot in the state of Vermont is actually at UVM. It's mounted. Oh wow. and since then there have been sightings, but the fur bearer biologists at the Fish and Wildlife Department. check out every site and to see if it potentially is, because it's not unreasonable. It's not saying, sure. It's not like you're saying there are I don't know, cheetahs here or something like that. Holy mammoth. Which actually may happen, right. thus far they've never confirmed. Mountain Lions in Vermont, there was one that came from South Dakota that ended up dying on the roadside, I wanna say 10, 15 years ago in, in, Connecticut. And so did that one pass from South Dakota through Vermont, maybe it came up through Canada and then passed down through. Or maybe it came through the Adirondacks. Yeah. but that's the only one that to my knowledge has been confirmed in the northeast. Yeah. We have a lot of forest cover. We've got perfect cat mount habitat. Yeah. So there's nothing to say that they're not gonna migrate into the area in the near future. Yeah. same with wolves. I. The question of do we have wolves in Vermont is a tricky one because we don't have wolves themselves. But we have wolves genes, right? So coyotes are not native to Vermont. They're native to the American Southwest. They are obviously very present in Vermont, but as they transitioned across North America, they bred with wolves. Yep. So the coyotes that we have here are a wolf, coyote hybrid, a lot bigger than the coyotes in the southeast where they might be. a 30 pound animal. Yeah. There are coyotes here that weigh in the eighties. Yeah. I have a lot of game cameras out in the woods. I'm still holding out for the cat, mount cat. I'm thinking, hey, maybe up in like the Northeast Kingdom. They're just, there's one hiding out close. I know. cool to think about it least, right? Yeah, I know. Yeah. And we've got Lynx in Vermont too. Yeah. That're definitely. That's a cool looking animal. Yeah. That's cool. We have bald eagles. Oh yeah, we have, I've never seen a bald eagle. Oh, really? Oh, you can see Yeah. Have, yeah. You can see'em on the north end of Waterbury Reservoir sometimes. Okay. Yep. Yeah. There's a nesting pair that was there. Yeah. Owls, I love owls. I never see owls. I always wanna see owls. I never see owls. Yeah. Rarely. Cool. we're gonna, switch gears into some rapid fire questions. Sure. Go for it. Just so our guests can get to know you a little better. Mountain biking or backcountry skiing. Oh, good. Backcountry skiing beats mountain biking because it's so rare. Right? Mountain biking's usually good. Any given day. The mountain biking's pretty good, but if the backcountry skiing's good, can't beat that. Good analysis. Yes. your favorite view in sto? Oh man. From maybe Bingham Falls. Bingham Falls is just so stunning. Winter and summer. Yeah. Yeah. Map Encompass or GPS? I'm on the mountain rescue team and we use a lot of GPS. map encompass is fun, but to get there fast, we're all about GPS to be effective. Yes, correct. Protecting forests or preserving wetlands? Oh man, I'd have to go with wetlands. Yeah, wetlands are really the sponges of the landscape. they can. What is it? An acre of wetland can protect something like a million gallons in a storm event. It's just, wow, insane. I think I read that we can do, I mean there's one of your articles I think. Yeah, I read that. Yeah. I should know it off the top of my head. I think moose are really cool animals, so I. Have learned to get into their habitats. A lot of beaver ponds. Yeah. And it's been fascinating just to study those. Yeah. And see, and I'll hang some cameras up there and it is a hotbed. Nice. Or, and I'll put one in Brownsville hardwood forest. Weeks will go by. Yeah. There's nothing, it's fascinating. Beaver ponds. Yeah, I bet. Yeah. Hotbeds, winter or summer. More and more. I'm a summer guy, actually. I never would've pictured that, but yeah. one of the things I find in winters in Vermont is I get stressed about the weather. This winter is the exception because it wasn't that stressful, but. My mood follows the snowpack, like to a t you could do one of those side by side graphs. It's like Tom's mood and the snowpack and they are exactly synonymous. we all have the town mood changes for sure. Yeah. which is more challenging, A winter mountain rescue of a lost back country skier, or a summer rescue of a lost hiker. Definitely the winter, anytime you bring that temperature down, hypothermia. Is always a consideration. So many of the people that we bring to the trailhead, there's only a few weeks a year where we're not bringing people at least slightly hypothetical by the time we get'em outta the woods. So yeah. An animal you've always wanted to spot in the wild. Oh man. I've never seen a lynx in the wild. I'd love to see a lynx. I haven't either. On camera yes. But yeah. Yeah. Majestic animals. Yep. All right. Favorite back country ski run. I really love the one right out my door. there's some backend ski runs off Stow Pinnacle. Yep. that I can do. Just, I can be out my door and I can be to the top of them in about 45 minutes, which is pretty amazing. I love that. Can't beat that. Yeah. Favorite mountain bike trail? Gosh, I don't wanna be cliche and say flow. There's just something about that feeling of being at the top, of flow. Especially taking my kids down at these days where they're just whooping and hollering and just loving it. tough to beat, right? It is tough to beat. I wish I could say some really obscure trail that makes me sound all cool but really flow. Is it the only one that's close for me as Lollapalooza? Lollapalooza is the other one because it's longer. I love Tougher for kids maybe, but yeah. Yep. Yeah, I thought a Hardee's Hall was pretty cool back when I mountain bike. Totally trail Hardee's was the first real flow trail in the area, and at the time you were like, this is amazing. How does it get any better than this? And it turns out you can make some pretty amazing flow trail these days. No doubt about it. Kim ERs, when you do that trail's amazing. And some of the updates they've done to ERs lately with some of those features are so much fun. Amazing. Yep. Yeah. Yep. All right. go to trail snack. I used to be all about carbs and lately I've switched to protein and I think that's the fad these days. I used to just be high fructose, anything to get a lot of sugar in there, and now I'm all about the more endurance. a protein bar is really what I've been doing lately. minimize sugar, minimize calories, maximize protein. Nice camping in the summer at Green River Reservoir, or spending a night in the winter at the Stone Hut. Oh boy, those are both great. You gotta make me choose. But Green River Res is like our second home. Yep. during the pandemic when they closed it down and it was only locals within driving distance that would use it. We spent so much time up there and it was the only time during the pandemic where at least early on, things felt normal to me. Yeah. you could be out there and camping and the entire world was, totally normal and leave all your cares behind. And I still get that feeling when I get out there. Like that sense of Calm relief. Just leave it all behind. Yeah, just love that place. It's amazing. Cool, cool spot. Yeah. That was a Nature Conservancy project, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right. Last question. Coming across a patch of perfectly ripe, wild blackberries, or a patch of Perfect wild Chanterelles. Oof. Ooh, Mike. Bring in the heat. Yeah, the I the blackberries. I think blackberries just eating them. Just eating them right there. Yeah. There's something about that. There are people I know who go out picking berries and they're all about putting them in a jar and eating them later, and like that just put'em in my mouth. How often do you get to just eat something right off the vine like that? Yeah. Although Terrell's are pretty amazing when you come home and cook those, but yeah. Oh, I agree. Just talk about STO a little bit. when did you first come to sto? why sto? Vermont had always been the dream for me. I grew up in upstate New York over in Potsdam. We used to come to, Vermont to do ski trips, at Sugar Bush. Actually, my dad had a medical conference that he would take us over to all the time. And I just remember crossing over into Vermont, it, there was just something about this state. I was just oh, this just feels like home to me. Just something about it that I couldn't put my finger on. And When I was in high school, I did a bike trip with two other friends. We just on our own, took our bikes over to Vermont and pedaled all around. And for them it was just a great way to get out. And for me, I was actually community hunting, believe it or not. I was 16 years old and I was where do I wanna settle down? And this was one of the areas that just really struck me. I was just. so taken by the OW community, the Waterbury area, this valley in general. believe it or not, I'll admit this'cause it's 25 years later, but we camped right on Spruce Peak, right on the ski slopes up there. Just plopped our tents down. I hope they don't follow up and ticket me for that, but I think I was 16 years old. Yeah, you're good. I'm sure. But yeah, so that was really when I decided this is where I wanted to be. And ironically, when I was living out in Jackson Hole, I met this woman, Julia, and went for, on our first date, which was a walk in the woods. And she was yeah, I grew up in New Jersey, but I've always wanted to live in Vermont. My family grew up coming to Stowe for vacations, and it's where I, my, my parents always wanted to land there and they never swung it, but. like a ski town like STO in Vermont's where I've always wanted to be. And I said, that's a crazy coincidence. Yeah. That's where I've always wanted to be. This could work out. And so we finally rolled into town in 2010, Julia's parents actually were moving up to town at that exact time. It was amazing timing where I was finishing grad school, we were moving back east and her parents were moving to snow that exact same week. And so we rolled into town. We actually left all of our stuff at their house. What little stuff we had at the time and actually traveled internationally for a year and then settled back down here in April of 2011. Nice. And yeah, so we rented their house from them for about a year and a half, and then we bought our house in STO Hollow and been there ever since. And if we hadn't bought in 2011, we wouldn't be living here now. Yeah. So you've got a unique perspective. We always try to ask our guests how has STO changed and what's your hope for STO in the next 5, 10, 20 years? What's your perspective? You've been here 15 years And you've got this really good perspective on the community and land preservation and development. So how have you seen the change and what's your hope for it? Yeah. STO is an amazing community. I just have so much pride in this community and it's hard to claim the credit of being from here. Like Ted, you probably claim, you were born and raised, right? I was, yeah. And, but some people would say, where are your grandparents born and raised here? Are your grandparents? So how far back you, I'm a first generation Vermont. Exactly. My, my parents are transplants. But, I just feel insofar as I can claim to be from here, I just feel incredibly proud to be from this community. I think about the fact that like we've raised Olympic athletes in this community that we ha some of the first skiing in North America was here, that, there's just such incredible rich history and traditions and all that, and I. I think it's, just something we really have to be aware of, that we maintain that while at the same time, welcoming new people, welcoming new families, continuing to be a tourist hub, because that's probably always gonna be the heart of what STO is. but maintaining that balance so that, we're not making trade-offs that we don't wanna make as a community. So in other words, yes, we need this tourist economy, but if we're promoting tourism to the point where. it's not just a weekend, it's weeks out of the year where you can't drive from one place to another without Los Angeles style traffic. Yeah. We're gonna really lose a lot of that Essence of what makes this community special. Yeah. same thing for, if a young family wants to move here, more and more you're gonna need to have a little bit of more money in the bank in order to buy a house here. But if we're getting to the point where the only people who can afford to live here are, bajillionaire and it's closed out to everybody, then I think we're gonna have lost some of that sense of community. No doubt about that. And so it's about maintaining a balance. It's about maintaining a balance that keeps our community healthy. And I think that one of the things that I think we've been doing right so far that we really need to hold onto. Is, we're not pitting different groups against each other. I feel we maybe, tease that a little bit in the short term rental conversation, but I think we have to think of ourselves as one community, right? So we've got seasonal visitors, we've got second homeowners, we've got tourists that come here. We've got, the third, fourth, fifth generation stoics. I think we have to think of ourselves as one community, and what's that mixture? What's that vibe that we need to maintain a healthy and thriving community? yeah. You mentioned Jackson Hole, they're 20 years ahead, right? Yeah. Because it's been more rapid and have they lost their ability to tackle these things or not? Yeah, there was a family that actually lived in Jackson Hole and they were raising their kids there that moved to Stowe, around the time that I moved here, and he said that. they've just lost a sense of community out in Jackson, that they have almost exclusively the extremely wealthy, And that have purchased most of the real estate out there. And then they have a community that's working to be their caretakers, their lawnmowers, All of those things. But he said that there's not really that spectrum, that middle class that, that's really holding onto that sense of community. Yeah. And so I think we really need. To maintain that here and stuff where we got people from different walks of life that can make this their home a hundred percent. I think we can look at towns like Jackson, as and I love Jackson, don't get me wrong. Oh yeah. I'm not trying to Jackson Mass or anything, but get it, a little bit of a cautionary tale of a road that maybe we don't want to go down, and the nice thing is that I hear that support from everybody, Again, it's not to vilify any group of economic background, anything like that. Everybody that I hear from says, we wanna maintain a community here, that's something that matters, that's important. And so it's that idea of not pitting one of those groups against each other. Agreed. It's about bringing us all together and saying, what do we want as a community? how can we have an intentional approach to this? And how can we bring people together? Yep. What would you say is the biggest conservation opportunity or threat to STO in the next 10 years? I think the biggest threat is if we start to see conservation as getting in the way of the things that we want as a community as opposed to being essential to the things that we want as a community. So the example is that. I sometimes hear people who on the very extreme end of housing say, anything that gets in the way of housing is just nimbyism, right? That idea of not in my backyard, nimby And I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that, conservation has its own value. Nature has its own value. I fundamentally don't believe that the entire face of the planet was put here just for people. That nature is allowed to exist. Yep. But even if the entire face of the planet let's step back and say, okay, even if we don't follow that moral code and say it's all here for us, it, with that we need nature. Like we need these spaces to be protected. I think about some of our flooding problems, Vermont is not immune to the effects of climate change. And if we don't protect some of these forested landscapes, these floods that seem to happen on the same day every summer they're only gonna get worse. They're gonna be more devastating. it's gonna wipe out, portions of our community. Oftentimes they hit hardest and the most vulnerable people with the community who, usually live in floodplains or, in homes that aren't as resistant to some of these things. I think we really need to be thinking about how we can protect. nature and the outdoors to protect ourselves as well. Yeah. and I think we need to be thinking about housing and I think it's absolutely a priority. We need to be creating housing for our community that somebody can live here and afford to live here. but I don't think that it has to be a trade off to conservation. I think the two could absolutely work together. A hundred percent. Good point. All right, we'll wrap up. We do ask all of our guests one question. If STO did not exist, where would you be living? Oh man. If I could afford it, maybe I would be living back out in Jackson Hole. I was gonna say Jackson Hole, probably right? Jackson Hole maybe. Yeah. Yeah, Montana. Montana's pretty cool. Montana was great. I've often thought about the Canadian West too. the Canadian Rockies seems like a pretty spectacular place. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Tom. Yeah, thanks Tom. That was great. Great conversation. Thank you. Hope you enjoyed that episode of the Octagon Podcast. Remember to like us on Instagram and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. See you next time.