- SLT Staff L-R: Becca Washburn, Assistant Director; Heather Furman, Executive Director; and Erin Bruhns, Office Manager. Photo by Erin Bruhns.
Heather M. Furman, Executive Director
- Heather Furman on "Recollections of Pacifica" 5.9, in Acadia National Park. Photo by Henry Barber.
Heather Furman has served SLT's Executive Director since August, 2003
Heather received her MS in Natural Resource Planning from the University of Vermont in 2001 and holds a BA in Anthropology from the Ohio State University. Prior to coming to SLT, Heather worked as a planner for both the Vermont Agency of Transportation and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. She moved to Vermont in 1998 to lead a park service crew for the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps (VYCC). She has lived in the Vermont towns of Maidstone, Groton, Middlesex, Stowe, Essex, Burlington and Jericho.
From 1995—1997 Heather served as a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Nepal with a focus on community-based conservation and agriculture projects. Following her Peace Corps experience, she went on to live in Kathmandu working for the World Wide Fund for Nature (World Wildlife Fund ) developing community reforestation projects in the Sagarmatha Valley (Mt. Everest region).
Heather has served on the Board of Directors of the Access Fund a non-profit climbing advocacy organization located in Boulder, Colorado. She is also a founding member of the Climbing Resource Access Group of Vermont (CRAG-VT), currently serving on its Advisory Board.
Since 2009 Heather has been the co-Chair of the Mobbs Farm Committee, a Selectboard appointed committee in Jericho, Vermont, that oversees the management of the 240-acre Mobbs Farm recreation property. While she has made repeated attempts to learn to play the mandolin, she now spends her free time trail running, gardening, and renovating her home in Jericho, where she lives with her husband Dave, their beloved dog Angus and four extra ordinary cats.
Rebecca Washburn, Assistant Director
- Becca on her honeymoon hiking the Cathedral Trail on Mt Katahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine. Photo by Dave Washburn.
In 1999, Rebecca traded the rocky coast of Maine for Vermont's Green Mountains when she moved to northern Vermont to work as a ski patroller on Mt. Mansfield. It was there that she met her husband and affirmed her love of Vermont's landscape.
Rebecca received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Bard College in 1999. Now living in Waterbury with her husband and black lab Marabou where she is a member of the Waterbury Planning Commission, she can be found gardening, knitting or reading when she isn't wandering in the woods looking for wildflowers.
Since 2005, Rebecca has served on the Board of Directors and is currently chair of the Association of Vermont Conservation Commissions (AVCC), a non-profit organization whose mission it is to build the effectiveness of conservation commissions and community groups working to sustain their natural and cultural resources.
Before coming to Stowe Land Trust, Rebecca was Stewardship Coordinator for the Green Mountain Club and worked in the Lands Division of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation.
Erin Bruhns, Office Manager
- Erin Bruhns at the Hunger Mountain trail in Waterbury. Photo by Matt Bruhns.
Erin has worked for Stowe Land Trust since October 2007.
Originally from Massachusetts, Erin fell in love with Vermont at a young age, spending summers in Panton, VT on the shores of Lake Champlain. She continued her affair with Vermont when she was accepted to the University of Vermont as an undergraduate in 2001. After four years Erin received her BA in Geography from UVM, and promptly embarked on the first of two separate three month cross-country road trips to explore the United States. Upon her return, she secured a temporary position with the Agency of Transportation in the GIS and mapping unit, where she received hands on GIS training. Prior to working for the state, Erin held positions at Healthy Living Natural Foods Market and the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op and farmed for a summer at Lewis Creek Farm in Starksboro, Vermont. Erin has worked on farms since she was fourteen and loves the feeling of dirt under her fingernails.
When not at SLT Erin can be found mountain biking, hiking the local peaks, enjoying the sunsets or working on her new home in Waterbury Center, where she lives with her husband Matt.
