Current Board Members

Elizabeth Corrigian — Vice President

Elizabeth is a botanist and has been on our Board for eight years. Currently, her main foci are habitat restoration and non-native invasive management. Some of her previous work includes assisting municipalities identify and locate areas of known and potential ecological importance for natural resource inventory projects, and conducting landscape-scale vernal pool surveys. She co-authored the state’s first invasive plant list and has written conservation and recovery plans for endangered plants.

Billy Gridley — President and Acting Executive Director

Billy focuses on sustainability and land protection. He believes that radical collaboration between NGOs, companies, policy-makers and people will be critical to rising effectively to meet 21st century systemic challenges and crises (including climate change, nature/biodiversity loss). Former Treasurer of Great Mountain Forest (GMF), a 6,000-acre working forest in Norfolk, CT. Former President of the Doolittle Lake Company a 2,300-acre and forested owners association in Norfolk, CT, and Aton Forest’s neighbor to the west. Former Director, Ceres, Inc. a nonprofit organization with a focus on climate change. Former Climate Editor, Climate & Capital Media. Current Member of the Investment Committee of Coldspring Harbor Laboratory, Coldspring Harbor, NY, and Managing Member of Benedict Partners, a sustainable investment consulting firm.

Benjamin Haskell

Ben has been with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for 29 years working to protect special ocean places such as the Florida Keys and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuaries. He currently serves as the Deputy Superintendent for Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary located in Scituate, MA. His responsibilities include facilities and vessel management, management planning, maritime heritage resource management, fisheries policy, enforcement coordination, international marine protected area coordination, and diving. Prior to coming to NOAA, he worked at a variety of marine labs on the East Coast and received his Master’s degree in marine and coastal policy from the University of Maryland in 1997. He co-edited the book Ecosystem Health: New Goals for Environmental Management published by Island Press in 1992. Ben grew up in Colebrook on 130 acres adjacent to Aton Forest and one of his first jobs was pruning trees with Dr. Egler.

Matthew Johnson

Matthew is a Connecticut native. He has a Masters degree in Earth Science with a concentration in atmospheric physics, and a minor in mathematics. One of his interesting research projects while studying CT geology and its paleontology was mapping dinosaur footprints. Matthew also has a teacher's certificate, as well as a nursing degree. As residential faculty, he taught science at Oxford Academy and chaired its Science Department. Matthew is an avid amateur astronomer; his column, Celestial Sphere, appears monthly in Norfolk Now.

Susan Masino

Dr. Susan Masino is the Vernon D. Roosa Professor of Applied Science at Trinity College and a joint appointment in Neuroscience and Psychology. Her research focuses on promoting and restoring brain health, and on the dynamic and evolving relationship among metabolism, brain activity and behavior. She is particularly interested in adenosine as a molecule that links among cell energy, neuronal activity and gene expression, and in the ketogenic diet as a metabolic therapy used for over 100 years to treat and reverse chronic and intractable medical conditions. In addition to her laboratory research Dr. Masino is interested in nature and brain health - with a special focus on New England’s amazing forests - and involved in local educational and environmental issues. During 2018-2019 she was a Charles Bullard Fellow in Forest Research at Harvard and collaborated with a climate scientist and an ecologist on the quantified benefits of the practice of proforestation for a subset of the landscape. She is President of the CT State Grange Foundation, Vice President of the Simsbury Grange, Hartford County Coordinator for the Old Growth Forest Network, and on the Board of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

Thomas Murtha

Thomas (“Tom”) O. Murtha serves non-profit organizations focusing on biodiversity conservation and regeneration as well as the systemic risk from global heating, ecological degradation, and wealth inequality. These organizations include This-is-My-Earth.org, Preventable Surprises, Global Carbon Reward, among others. After Tom retired from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) where he managed corporate engagement with extractive industries, he has continued work focusing on energy, mining, and infrastructure issues related to energy and resource development. Earlier in his career in finance, Tom worked as an analyst and investment banker in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York for the investment bank Jardine Fleming. At T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Tom was a portfolio manager for the International Stock Fund and the Global Technology Fund. At Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Tom is a part-time adjunct lecturer on sustainable finance and investing.

Leslie Watkins

Leslie Watkins is a plein-air landscape painter and an artistic descendant of the Old Lyme Art Colony. She has exhibited widely. She instructs enthusiastic students online and offers plein-air painting and watercolor workshops throughout New England. Leslie’s also a gardener. She owns and maintains Dandelion Cottage, her home and art studio, where you’ll find various perennial borders, a kitchen garden, a native woodland garden, an orchard and a hard-working flock of bantam chickens. She’s a Connecticut Master Gardener and holds a certificate in horticulture from Northwestern Connecticut Community College. She designs, paints, and maintains gardens in NWCT. Watkins' garden design illustrations are featured in Rodale's "Perennial Combinations" and her botanical watercolors appear in magazines including Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Kitchen Gardener, The New York Times and educational materials. Her illustrated gardening column, "Through the Garden Gate" is published monthly in Norfolk Now. www.dandelioncottagedesign.com

Fran Zygmont

Former president of the Audubon Council of Connecticut, and Litchfield Hills Audubon Society; Board of Directors, Litchfield Hills Audubon Society; Member of Audubon Connecticut's Important Bird Area technical committee. Fran has led many bird walks and trips over the past 25 years and has extensive knowledge of birds in northwestern Connecticut and bird migration. He has traveled internationally to seek birds — Iceland, Australia and Venezuela — and maintains a life list of over 1,000 bird species and participated in many bird censuses and competitions including the NJ World Series of Birding, and currently holds the Connecticut State Big Day birding record (with a team of 5) with 192 species in a 24-hour period. Birding is his hobby; his day job is Assistant Director of Digital Marketing for a prominent insurance company.

Elizabeth Corrigian — Vice President

Richard Golin — Treasurer

Andy Gregory — Secretary