Board of Directors

Nancy Ailes ● Ray Culter  ● Guy Davis  ● Dottie Eddis  ● Becky Ganskopp

Fran Hunt  ● Brian McDonald  ● David A. Warner

Advisory Board

High View WV

Nancy Ailes

Route 1 Box 328

High View, WV 26808

Telephone: 304-856-1010 (home and work)

email: Nancy Ailes

Nancy’s family has resided in Hampshire County for  eight generations. She received a B.S. in biology from Bridgewater College in VA and pursued graduate work in ecology at the University of Virginia.  Nancy spent 15 years as an equine anesthetist both at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and at the Virginia/Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. Returning from PA to live full time in Hampshire county in 1982, Nancy realized that the county was changing dramatically and was compelled to help those who wanted to protect their land from development. She became the Executive Director of the Cacapon and Lost Rivers Land Trust in 2000.

Ray Culter

Falls Church, VA

E-Mail: Ray Culter

Ray Culter holds a B.S.C.P. from the University of Cincinnati and a business degree from Xavier University. He is Vice President of The Nature Conservancy based in Arlington, VA. Ray is Director of Business Operations, Administration, Trade Land Dispositions, Corporate Purchasing, and Trade Lands, and has held other positions at TNC over his 32 years there. Culter also has experience as the Regional Planner in the Cincinnati area and was instrumental in conservation work in the Little Miami River basin in Ohio. He served the past 9 years on the board of The Potomac Conservancy and served on the board of several other organizations including the Center for Watershed Protection. He and his wife Paulette built a home on their Hampshire County property, which is protected from further development with a conservation easement and he joined our Board in 2007.

Yellow Spring, WV

Guy Davis

Yellow Spring, WV

E-Mail: Guy Davis

Guy Davis is a Hampshire County native and the fifth Davis generation to have lived and worked the Davis Farm along the Cacapon River near Yellow Spring, West Virginia. Guy joined the Board of the land trust in 1999, helping form a new ‘second generation’ of board members and bringing tremendous local insight to the process. Guy works for the WV Dept. of Agriculture and still maintains a small working cow/calf operation with other family members at the farm.

Augusta WV

Dottie Eddis

Augusta, WV

E-mail: Dottie Eddis

Dottie Eddis spent her first 18 years in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, before moving to West Virginia for school and career.  She received her B.S. in Wildlife Resources in 1979 from West Virginia University and worked for 15 months with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources before joining her husband in a rural veterinary practice located on his small family farm in Augusta, West Virginia.  Dottie has served on the boards of both the local humane society and youth soccer league and has volunteered in the West Virginia Master Gardeners program.  She enjoys playing music with her children, gardening, cooking, and experiencing the great outdoors through biking, hiking, swimming, and snorkeling.

Becky Ganskopp

Capon Lake, WV

Alexandria, VA

E-mail: Becky Ganskopp

Becky Ganskopp grew up on a family farm at Capon Lake, WV and is the sixth generation of the Rudolph family to have lived in Hampshire County.  She graduated from West Virginia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a major in accounting.  She is a CPA with over 20 years of accounting experience and is currently self-employed. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband, Michael, and children, Ashley and Matthew.  They make frequent weekend trips “home” to West Virginia to spend time on the family farm.

Lost River WV

Fran Hunt

Lost River WV

E-Mail: Fran Hunt

Fran Hunt is the Director of Eastern National Forest Protection at The Wilderness Society, where she has worked since February of 1995.  She has a Masters Degree from the Duke University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.S. in Biology from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.  Prior to joining TWS, she worked 6.5 years for the National Wildlife Federation handling national forest and related issues.  She also worked for a while on Capitol Hill, as a staff person for then Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont.  If you add it all up, she has spent most of the last 22 years as a forest and public land advocate in Washington, DC.  Fran is a native of Roanoke, Virginia, the daughter of a school teacher and a Methodist minister.  Fran is also a member of the Board of Directors of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and owns property near Lost City, WV.

Brian McDonald

Elkins WV

E-Mail: Brian McDonald

Brian McDonald retired from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and joined the board in April 2007. McDonald earned his BS in Biology from the University of Maryland and did two years of graduate study in Plant Ecology at WVU. During his 28 years with the DNR he worked on the Natural Heritage Program, gathering information about rare species of plants and animals and their distribution throughout West Virginia. He spent two years describing wetlands around the state and was editor of a WVU symposium on “Wetlands of the Unglaciated Appalachian Region.” Brian came from the Washington DC area but has lived in West Virginia since 1977. He enjoys nature study, construction and carpentry, biking and fishing. “The waters of the Cacapon Valley are critical to the health of a much larger ecosystem that includes the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean” Brian stated. He lives in Elkins with his wife Mary Ann and also serves on the board of the Randolph County Humane Society.

Dave Warner, President

Shanks WV

David A. Warner

HC 78 Box 52

Shanks, West Virginia, 26761

304 496-8733 (496-TREE)

E-Mail: David Warner

David Warner left his Southern Illinois farm community for West Virginia’s mountains in 1978. Before moving to Hampshire County he obtained a BS and MS in Forest Ecology from Southern Illinois University and worked in forestry and conservation before becoming the Hampshire County Service Forester. In 1989 he started TimberLand Consulting (TLC) to do consulting forestry. He is a licensed forester in West Virginia and Maryland, served on the WV Board of Registration for Foresters, is the Vice-Chair of the WV Chapter of the Association of Consulting Foresters and is serving his fourth term as President of the Cacapon and Lost River Land Trust. He writes an article on forestry for the Hampshire Review, enjoys paddling and camping along the Cacapon, and as a private pilot enjoys soaring over it as well. His wife Ann teaches at Hampshire High School, they have two children in college, and live within the watershed in Hampshire County.

Advisory Board

Lehew WV

Dan Nees, wife Emily, and Lia

Silver Spring MD

Dan Nees, Director, Environmental Finance Center, has been with the Environmental Finance Center over five years, and assumed the role of Director in January 2005.  Over the past several years he has worked with communities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed in their efforts to implement and finance environmental and sustainable development initiatives.  His work has focused on developing and building coalitions of diverse interests groups and directing them towards common financing and implementation goals.  Additional experience includes serving as Project Manager of Corporate Programs at The Nature Conservancy and Manager of Alternative Marketing at U.S. News and World Report.  Mr. Nees holds a B.A. in Economics, a Master of Environmental Policy, and a Master of Business Administration, all from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Capon Bridge WV 

Wardensville WV

Yellow Spring WV

Washington DC

Jane and Willard Wirtz came to the Cacapon valley in 1968 and bought the old Davis Place on the Cacapon River, just north of Yellow Spring, protecting it with a conservation easement. A founding board member of The Trust, Wirtz is a retired law school teacher, lawyer, and government servant. He practiced law with Adlai Stevenson II in the firm of Stevenson, Rifkind and Wirtz in Chicago, and was Secretary of Labor in the Cabinets of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1995, he wrote Capon Valley Sampler about this lovely valley.