[Re]Introducing Dave Erickson: CHC's new Full-time Executive Director
CHC turned over a new leaf at the beginning of 2025 by onboarding its first ever full-time executive director, Dave Erickson. This was a relatively easy transition for Dave as he was already serving as CHC’s Conservation Director since 2023. When asked about his new role, Dave said, “I am beyond thrilled and honored to help guide the next chapter of CHC in collaboration with our incredible staff, board, many partners and community of supporters. CHC has achieved so much from its humble grassroot beginnings in 2008, and we look forward to building upon that success and accelerating the impact of our work in this ecologically significant corner of the northern forest.”
Dave grew up near the southern edge of the Adirondack Mountains of New York where he developed an early curiosity and love for the natural world. This passion led him to a bachelor’s degree in environmental biology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado and later a master’s degree in wildlife science from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Along the way, he has worked as a field biologist on many projects including Giant Kangaroo Rats and Kit Fox in California, waterbirds in Idaho, Pine Martens in the Adirondacks and ungulates in Tanzania. These experiences honed a key sense of wanting to understand the needs of wildlife and the importance of restoring and protecting their habitats. This was coupled with nearly 10 years on staff at two western land trusts, where Dave gained a deep appreciation for working landscapes, the stewards of these open spaces and their commitment to perpetual conservation. He was excited to bring this passion and knowledge to his home region when he and his wife and two young boys relocated from the Rockies to settle in the Greens in 2022.
Since joining CHC in 2023, Dave’s primary focus has been assisting a network of landowners who want to conserve their forest and add to the tapestry of protected land in northern Vermont, by facilitating projects between them and a variety of partner groups that hold conservation easements (voluntary legal agreements that limit certain types of land uses like development to protect conservation values like wildlife habitat while allowing for compatible uses such as sustainable timber harvesting and sugaring). This work involves project coordination, writing grants and deploying CHC’s conservation fund -- a fund established to help offset the high and often prohibitive cost of completing easements – to achieve CHC’s goal of an additional 23,000 acres of priority forestland permanently protected by 2030. This goal is rooted in the present urgency of maintaining and enhancing the integrity of our natural systems, including their resilience to climate change, by ensuring there is a critical mass of interconnected forest blocks and associated habitats that will remain forever protected and sustainably managed. CHC has already helped take a 36% bite out of this goal with another 31% currently underway.
CHC’s approach of building trust and strategically protecting land fits within broader goals driven by best available science (see Vermont Conservation Design), and this has not gone unnoticed. In the fall of 2024, CHC was awarded a two-year grant by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to increase staff capacity. This was a huge investment by one of the leading groups working to conserve Vermont’s working and natural landscape. This investment opened the door for CHC to hire its first ever executive director and seamlessly transition Dave into that role.
Two months in, Dave is still focused on working with landowners and partners to achieve CHC’s land protection goal while diving headfirst into new responsibilities that include supporting other CHC programs (woodlots and community science/empowerment), nurturing existing relationships and fostering new ones, day-to-day administrative tasks, and working with the board to chart the future of CHC and ensure financial stability for the organization.
Over the course of this year, Dave is leading a process to update CHC’s strategic plan -- a framework to achieve CHC’s vision and mission -- for the next five years (2026-2030). This effort is occurring in conjunction with a process to create a plan outlining implementable steps and strategies to ensure CHC has the financial means to fulfill its strategic goals. This will highlight the importance of bolstering CHC’s Conservation Fund to support land protection efforts while building the stability to sustain and grow staff capacity over the coming years.
There is much work to be done, but Dave and CHC are ready, willing and able to put in the energy required to stay on course while remaining adaptive and nimble so this special corner of the northern forest can be revered and responsibly stewarded for many generations to come.
Please feel free to reach out directly to Dave to learn more (dave@coldhollowtocanada.org).
