Staff Biographies

Maura Adams, Program Director
Maura Adams brings diverse environmental and community outreach experience to the Center. She joined the staff in April 2013 as a Program Director focusing on renewable energy initiatives. Most recently she worked as Environmental Stewardship Manager at St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH, building a comprehensive sustainability program. She has also worked as a green building consultant and managed a municipal natural resource protection program for the Jordan Institute, and coordinated a campus energy reduction program at Harvard University. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master of environmental management degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she focused on restoration ecology. She serves on the board of the Central New Hampshire Bicycling Coalition and volunteers for the Friends Program. She lives in Penacook, NH with her husband, a building energy consultant. She loves being active outdoors, practicing yoga, cooking with food from her garden or local farms, and reading books of all kinds. Send Email.

Lisa D. Challender, Staff Accountant
Lisa obtained her Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Rider University and her MBA from the University of Central Florida and has worked in both private and public accounting for more than 20 years. Lisa currently lives in Bow with her husband, Jim, and their son James. In her free time she is active in her church parish and has recently become a hospice volunteer with the Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association. She is happiest spending time in the outdoors gardening and walking. Send Email.

Julie Renaud Evans, Director of Forestry
Julie has more than 20 years’ experience working in the Northern Forest within forestry and community development. She worked in the City of Berlin (NH) Planning Department during a time when the region’s forested landscape and community’s dependence upon the paper industry were beginning to change dramatically. She also taught environmental and forestry courses at White Mountains Community College. Julie consulted for the White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and many landowner clients, including the Town of Errol as it established its 5,300-acre Community Forest. Julie earned both her M.A. in Environmental Education and B.S. in Forest Management from the University of New Hampshire. Send Email.

Collin Miller, Director of Wood Products Initiatives
Collin comes to The Center after 7 years in the Catskill Mountain Region of the New York City watershed where he worked on a variety of issues relating to watershed hydrology, forest management and wood manufacturing & marketing. Through the internationally-recognized source water protection programs of the Watershed Agricultural Council, Collin administered the Watershed Forestry Grants Initiative—a multi-million dollar federal grants program geared toward improving the region’s secondary wood manufacturing industry. He worked directly with forest-based business owners to create opportunities for more value-added wood processing, coordinated logger and sawmill education efforts, developed the online marketing network Catskill WoodNet, and initiated studies to catalyze community-scale applications of woody biomass energy. Collin’s work focuses on coordinating the Regional Wood Products Consortium to catalyze innovation in wood product manufacturing in the region. Collin is a graduate with honors from the New York State Ranger School at Wanakena and the SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, and holds professional certification from the Society of American Foresters. Send Email.

Catherine A. Moore, Operations Manager
Catherine has more than 20 years of experience in non-profit management in organizations ranging from a symphony orchestra to a National Historic Landmark museum. Born and raised in Berlin, NH, with family roots in Maine dating back to the Revolution, Catherine recently returned to NH after several years working in public lands conservation in the West. She earned a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. from Colorado State University, both in History, and has a special interest and expertise in the federal historic preservation programs administered by the National Park Service. In her spare time, Catherine enjoys hiking in the White Mountains, letterboxing, and the fiber arts, and she entertains herself on road trips by guessing the construction dates of old houses. Send Email.

Doreen Oliveira, Director of Philanthropy
Doreen brings to the Center more than 25 years experience designing, developing and implementing administrative and management systems and working with executives on organization and board development. Doreen joined the Center in 1999 as office manager and executive assistant to Steve Blackmer. She became the Center’s development director in 2003 and coordinated the Center’s $6 million Campaign for People & Place. Currently, she is responsible for building and maintaining strong relationships with Center investors. Doreen graduated from Katharine Gibbs Business School and completed the year-long Complete Fundraiser Program from the Institute of Conservation Leadership. She is a member of the New England Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and New Hampshire’s Continuing Education in Fundraising Association. Doreen has lived in NH since 1995, has two grown sons and an adorable grandson. She hunts buried “treasures,” and can be found antiquing on weekends. Doreen enjoys water sports, but her true passion is dancing. Send Email.

Rob Riley, President
Rob was appointed as President of the Center in April 2008. Rob joined the Center in 2007 as Director of Programs, leading development of new programs emerging from the Center’s Sustainable Economy Initiative. Prior to joining the Center, Rob served as director of MicroCredit-NH, an award-winning statewide community economic development program. Before that Rob founded and served as executive director of Main Street Plymouth, Inc., which received New Hampshire’s “Main Street Program of the Year Award” in 2000. His other professional experience is wide ranging both in scope and geography: he’s been director of Youth Programs at Sagebrush Arena in Hailey, Idaho, and a farmer and logger in Andover, Vermont. Rob lives in Canterbury, New Hampshire, with his wife Tabitha and their two children Alice and William. The New Hampshire Union Leader included Rob in its 2003 list of “Forty Outstanding Leaders Under 40 in New Hampshire.” Send Email.

Steve Rohde, Vice President for Innovation & Financing
Steve Rohde has more than 35 years of experience working on policy formulation and program development and implementation relating to economic development and community development, including specialized expertise in the workings of private markets and the financing of small- and medium-sized businesses, real estate and sustainable forestry. His past positions include deputy director and chief of policy and programs for the federal Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, director of Private Institutions Programs for the Michigan Strategic Fund, deputy director of the Governor’s Cabinet Council on Jobs and Economic Development (in Michigan), director of Real Estate Finance for the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (in rural Easter Kentucky), and staff member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Steve has lived in New Hampshire since 2000. Send Email.

Joe Short, Vice President
Joe directs public policy, biomass energy and ecosystem services programs and oversees basic operations for The Center. He is a key member of the Northern Forest Investment Zone management team, working closely with partner organizations across the region to create revenue streams from the forest, build regional policy, and initiate place-based, pilot projects and replicable models.

Joe first came to the Center in 2003 as a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow, and joined the staff full-time in 2004. He helped coordinate the initial work of the Center’s policy program, convening regional dialogue and developing consensus strategies for public policies focused on community, economic, and conservation needs in the Northern Forest. This work led to the Center’s Sustainable Economy Initiative, which Joe managed from 2005 – 2008, helping a 4-state steering committee create a sustainable economic development strategy for the Northern Forest based on economic revitalization tied to continuing land conservation. Joe has an M.S. in Resource Ecology and Management from the University of Michigan and a BA in Biology from Carleton College. Earlier in his career he worked for four years for The Nature Conservancy, first in Nebraska and then in northern California. Send Email.

Kelly Short, Communications Director
Kelly has been communicating about the Northern Forest for 25 years as a writer, editor, graphic designer and public relations manager. Before joining the staff at the Center, Kelly provided communications consulting for regional and national non-profit organizations. Prior to opening her business, Kelly was communications director for the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), where she managed corporate communications and publishing programs and contributed to strategic planning as a member of AMC’s senior management team. Outside the office, Kelly chairs the Canterbury Conservation Commission and has served on the Board of the NH Rivers Council and the NH Advisory Committee for the Trust for Public Land. She was co-named New Hampshire Conservationist of the Year in 2005 by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests for her work on the Merrimack River Initiative. She earned a BA in communications from Boston College. Send Email.

Mike Wilson, Senior Program Director
Mike joined the Northern Forest Center in 1997, and served as principal researcher and author of the Northern Forest Wealth Index: Exploring a Deeper Meaning of Wealth. Most recently he has led development of the Center’s National Endowment for the Humainties-funded mobile museum, Ways of the Woods: People and the Land in the Northern Forest. Over the past ten years Mike has organized five Northern Forest conferences and led development of several publications including Cultural Connections: Organizations Working with Culture & Heritage in the Northern Forest; What’s in a Name: Exploring the Stories of the Baskahegan Landscape; and HandMade in the Northern Forest: A guide to fine art and craft traditions in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. Before joining the Center, Mike worked as a grassroots organizer for the Northern Forest Alliance and the Maine People’s Alliance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from James Madison University and a master’s in Resource Management and Administration from Antioch New England Graduate School. He was awarded a Switzer Environmental Fellowship in 1998, and a Switzer Leadership Award in 2000. In 2006, Mike finally earned his commercial drivers license allowing him to be behind the wheel when Ways of the Woods is on the road. Send Email.