Board of Directors
Kevin Berend
Vice President
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.
David Crews
President
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 western Abenaki peoples. He cares for work that explores land and place, wild(er)ness, preservation, nonviolence, and also as editorial advisor for Writing the Land. He received an MA in Teaching from Saint Elizabeth University, then an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. Published books include 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), High Peaks (Ra Press, 2015)—a poetry collection that catalogs hiking the “Adirondack 46ers” in upstate New York. His most recent work, Hoosic River: A poem, is now available with NatureCulture (2025). Find David at davidcrewspoetry.com
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.
Lorne Currier
Secretary
Lorne grew up in Maine and graduated from Keene State College with a degree in Environmental Studies and Geology. After graduating, he joined the Wyoming Conservation Corps for a season, only to quickly return to New Hampshire and settle in the White Mountains. There, he briefly worked at a social justice and peace retreat in Albany, before finding seasonal work with Appalachian Mountain Club. He worked in various roles with the AMC: as a cook in the Pinkham Notch kitchen, as a winter caretaker at Zealand, and as a hut naturalist at Madison Springs, Greenleaf, and Lonesome Lake Huts. Then, Lorne moved west to Vermont in 2017 and began working with the Green Mountain Club, where he is currently the Volunteer and Education Coordinator, responsible for supporting the Club’s 1,000+ volunteers and delivering education programs to the hiking public. Lorne lives in Worcester, Vermont with his two dogs and enjoys rock climbing, running, gravel biking and keeping up with his sugar bush.
Lester Kenway
Lester Kenway's stewardship of alpine areas dates back five decades. After leading trail crews in Maine, he rose to become Trails Supervisor of Baxter State Park, a position he held for twenty-two years. In addition, during this time Lester has been volunteering with the Maine Appalachian Trial Club and is a member of the Appalachian Trail Museum’s Hall of Fame. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, served as a director, district manager, vice president, and was president for thirteen years. Concurrently, he was the chair of the trail crew committee for about thirty years. He also oversaw the fundraising efforts to build the Maine Trail Center in Skowhegan, Maine. Lester also worked for Baxter State Park.
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.
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.
Jill Weiss
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
Lars Botzojorns
Alicia DiCocco
Sean Robinson
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)
