Trustees

Jared Duval is a Fellow with Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization, where he is at work on a book about the Millennial generation and the next 40 years of social and political change. He is also a member of the World Future Council, which seeks to identify action gaps in the global community and design efforts that speak up for the rights of future generations. From 2005 to 2007, Jared was the National Director of the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), the national student chapter of the Sierra Club and the largest student environmental organization in America. As Director, Jared conceived and fundraised for the "Climate Summer" campaign of 2007. The campaign, which employed 30 students and engaged more than 10,000 citizens, seeks to build a clean energy economy. A tenth-generation Vermonter, Jared led a successful campaign during high school to save the Great Hollow Wetlands in the Upper Connecticut River Valley from a major construction project, for which he received the David Brower Award. He was the youngest member of Howard Dean's policy team during the 2004 Presidential election and has done international public health work with "Straight Talk St. Mary's," a student run, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention program that he started while teaching economics in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Jared's forthcoming book is tentatively titled History In Progress: A Millennial's Vision of the Next Forty Years; most recently, his writing appeared in Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark A Movement (Island Press, 2007). A recipient of the Morris K. Udall and Harry S. Truman scholarships, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2005.

Ed McMahon is an attorney, community planner, lecturer and author; he is currently Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., where he holds the Charles Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development. Before joining the Urban Land Institute in 2004, Ed spent 14 years as the Vice President and Director of Land Use Planning for The Conservation Fund in Arlington, Virginia. He is also the co-founder and former President of Scenic America, a national non-profit organization devoted to protecting America’s scenic landscapes. Before that, he taught law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center for nine years and served in the U.S. Army at home and overseas. He is the author of 15 publications and over 150 articles, including: Ten Principles for Smart Growth on the Suburban Fringe (ULI, 2004); Green Infrastructure: Connecting Landscapes and Communities (Island Press, 2006); Land Conservation Financing (Island Press, 2003); Better Models for Commercial Development (Conservation Fund, 2004); and Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities (Island Press, 1997). He also writes regularly for Urban Land Magazine, Planning Commissioners Journal and other periodicals. Over the past 20 years, Ed has drafted numerous local land use plans and ordinances. He has organized successful efforts to acquire and protect urban parkland, wilderness areas and other conservation properties. Ed has an M.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Alabama and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law School.

Gary is a nationally recognized regionalist—a facilitator of collaboration of unique place-based regional cultures working together in productive harmony, while protecting, nurturing and celebrating their uniqueness. He recently retired as Executive Director of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, a regional organization in the high elevation rural resort area of Colorado, where he led efforts to constructively address regional issues ranging from affordable workforce housing to forest health and from energy conservation to economic diversification. Gary was congressionally recognized by both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives for his admirable leadership in regionalism. Gary earned the USDA’s Rural Community Leadership Award for his work in building regional multi-jurisdictional collaborative relationships in land management. He currently serves as a consultant to federal land management agencies, state and local governments, and private sector enterprises in regional approaches to land and resource management. Gary brings to the Orton Family Foundation 40 years of public and private sector experience working with communities across the nation with an emphasis on the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. He earned degrees in public address and group communications from Drake University. Born and raised in Iowa, with a strong Midwestern community ethic, Gary is a 41-year resident of Colorado and makes his home with his wife Bert in the sub-alpine forest at 10,000 feet above sea level near Breckenridge, Colorado.

Noel’s 40-year active participation in land use planning reaches back to his appointment in 1965 as Environmental Commissioner of Passaic Township in New Jersey. With a grant from the Ford Foundation, he originated and led an inventory and study of the Township's natural resources. As a precursor to the development of CommunityViz, he produced a slide show that demonstrated the likely visual and financial impacts of alternative development scenarios. Foreseeing the surge of development to come, he joined with three others to form a local land trust. In 1971 he left his position as Director of Strategic Planning at Allied Chemical Corp. to become an Assistant Commissioner of Education in New York where he served as Director of the State Museum and Science Service. Upon relocating to Weston, VT, Noel was appointed President of the local historical society where he served a two-year term. During this period, he helped produce a set of 20 computer-based GIS data layers for the Planning Commission of Weston. This was selected by the state as a model for local land use planning. His intimate connection with the land led him to join two other residents to form the Weston Land Conservation Trust in 1983, where he continues to serve as a director. In that role, he led an effort to conserve 1500 acres of forest land in the Town of Weston. In 1986, he joined the Board of the Vermont Land Trust and served in that capacity for six years, the last two as Chair. In 1994, Lyman Orton asked Noel to develop a proposal for a new non-profit organization, suggesting a program focused on land use in rural communities. In 1995, Noel joined with him to establish the Orton Family Foundation and served as its first President & CEO as well as a founding Trustee. During his tenure, Noel oversaw the initial research and development of CommunityViz software, the publication of Hands on the Land and the creation of several other successful programs since transferred to other organizations. Since leaving his Trustee position in 2005, Noel has maintained his lifelong commitment to land conservation and lives and works with his wife on the family farm in the mountains of Weston.