“RESTORE’s efforts have rattled the environmental establishment, angered property rights groups and frightened the forest products industry.”
Staff
Michael Kellett, the co-founder and Executive Director of RESTORE: The North Woods, has over 35 years of experience in the land conservation movement. In 1994, he wrote the first white paper proposing a 3.2 million-acre Maine Woods National Park & Preserve, and has been actively involved in efforts to restore the endangered wildlife such as the eastern wolf, Atlantic salmon, and Canada lynx; to protect federal and state public lands from unsustainable logging and development; and to revive the national parks movement. From 1986 to 1992, he was the Northeast Director and Michigan Representative of The Wilderness Society, where he helped to pass national forest wilderness and national recreation area legislation and developed a proposal for a Maine Woods National Reserve. Michael has served on the board of American Lands Alliance, Thoreau Country Conservation Alliance, Thoreau Farm Trust, and Walden Forever Wild. He has visited 258 National Park System units across America. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
James (Jym) St. Pierre, RESTORE’s Maine Director since 1995, has nearly 50 years of professional experience in conservation, including as senior staff in Maine for the Sierra Club, the Northern Forest Alliance, The Wilderness Society, and the Maine Department of Conservation, where he served as Acting Director of the agency that oversees land use across 10.4 million acres of wildlands. He has served as chair of Maine Conservation Voters and Citizens to Protect the Allagash. Jym was founding president of the Kennebec Land Trust, a trustee of Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and an officer of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. He is on the executive committee of Friends of Baxter State Park, the Brunswick Town Commons Committee, and the advisory council of his local land trust. His home is in Brunswick, Maine.
Amy Collins, RESTORE’s Development Director, has been Executive Director of TreeUtah and Development Director of Glen Canyon Institute. She has also worked for U.S. Senator John F. Kerry, Harvard Business School, Navy Oceanographics, Gomez market research, and Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association. Amy has been a board director of the Utah Community Forest Council, Jordan River Commission, and Wasatch Community Gardens. She lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Matthew Costello, RESTORE’s Research Manager, has worked on conservation issues since the late 1980s when he was on the staff of The Wilderness Society’s Northeast Regional Office. He has also worked as a nonprofit executive director, a lobbyist on healthcare issues, and a corporate environmental consultant. He lives in Weston, Massachusetts and travels to Acadia National Park at least six times a year.
Board of Directors
George Wuerthner (Chair) has explored, photographed, and written about national parks and wilderness across the United States for more than three decades. He has visited more than half of America’s 679 wilderness areas and almost a third of our national parks. He is the author of more than 30 books and numerous articles about wildlands, and co-editor of Protecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation. George is the former ecological programs director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology and a former board member of The Wildlands Network. He lives in Bend, Oregon.
Robert Guethlen (Treasurer) has been a partner in urban real-estate development and antique building restoration firms, and the owner of a cabinetmaking shop. He has served on the board of the Allagash Alliance Group, the steering committee of the Moosehead Region Futures Committee, and on the advisory committee for the Maine Bureau of Parks & Lands Seboomook and Big Spencer units. For years, he lived within the proposed Maine Woods National Park. His home is now in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts.
Michael Kellett (Clerk), co-founder and executive director of RESTORE, has been a wilderness and national parks activist for more than 35 years. From 1986 through 1992, he worked as the northeast director and Michigan representative of The Wilderness Society. He has visited more than 250 National Park System units in 45 states and U.S. territories. Michael has served on the board of American Lands Alliance, Thoreau Country Conservation Alliance, Thoreau Farm Trust, and Walden Forever Wild, as well as on the advisory board of the Walden Woods Project and Save Our Heritage. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Kathleen Anderson has been the executive director of the Walden Woods Project since 1990, working to preserve and educate the public about places important in the life of Henry David Thoreau. Her work has included coordinating the acquisition of key tracts to protect Walden Woods from the construction of an office complex and condominium development. Kathi previously served for more than a decade as a staffer in the United States Senate. She lives in Pepperell, Massachusetts.
John Davis is executive director of The Rewilding Institute and editor of Rewilding Earth. He previously served as director of conservation for the Adirondack Council, as land steward for the Eddy Foundation, and as biodiversity and wilderness program officer for the Foundation for Deep Ecology. From 1991-97, he was editor of Wild Earth magazine. His 2012 book, Big, Wild, and Connected, described TrekEast, his 7600-mile muscle-powered exploration of wild parts of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. In 2013, John trekked from Mexico to British Columbia to promote habitat connections in a Western Wildway. He serves on the boards of the Eddy Foundation, Champlain Area Trails, Cougar Rewilding Foundation, and Algonquin to Adirondack Conservation Collaborative.
Brock Evans is retired now, but served until recently as president of the Endangered Species Coalition and of the Greater Hells Canyon Council, a group he founded during the struggle, from 1967-75, to protect the vast scenic wilderness of Hells Canyon. From 1967 to 1996, he served on the senior staff of Sierra Club and National Audubon Society, testifying more than 100 times before U.S. congressional committees. In the 1990s, he served as Visiting Professor, teaching environmental politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and also at Israel’s Arava Institute of Environmental Studies. In 1992, he was a founding board member of RESTORE: The North Woods. His 2020 autobiography, Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied, describes his work during half a century to protect parks, wilderness, and wildlife. Brock has received numerous awards, including the Sierra Club’s highest honor, the John Muir Award, as well as distinguished service awards from the League of Conservation Voters, National Audubon Society, and Idaho Conservation League. His home is in La Grande, Oregon, not far from Hells Canyon.
Elisabeth Kay was a senior manager for Patagonia, Inc. for 14 years, helping to support the work of dozens of conservation organizations. She was a founding board member of North Woods Wilderness Trust and the Maine Woods National Park Coalition. She lives in Yarmouth, Maine.
John Mathieu is the former manager of the Patagonia Outlet in Freeport, Maine, and was director of retail growth at Emery-Waterhouse. John is currently a registered Maine Guide for sea kayaking and recreation. He has served as a volunteer at Conservacion Patagonia in South America and has lobbied the Congress on behalf of the Alaska Coalition. He resides in Bath, Maine.
Jamie Sayen has worked for decades as a voice for North Woods wilderness and wildlife as the publisher of the Northern Forest Forum, founder of Northern Appalachian Restoration Project, and a founding board member of The Wildlands Network. He is the author of several books, including Einstein in America, You Had a Job for Life: Story of a Company Town, and Children of the Northern Forest. Jamie’s home is in North Stratford, New Hampshire.