Meet the Board

A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Richard grew up in the then desert open spaces on the slopes of Camelback Mountain. There were lizards to chase, snakes to play with and snakes to avoid, coyotes, javelinas, and the last mountain lions on Camelback Mountain. It was these early experiences that set Richard on a path to work as a conservation biologist dedicated to enhancing and protecting wildlife and wildlife habitat. In particular, from 1993 to 2002, Richard raised funds and helped to manage many wildlife habitat restoration and conservation projects while working for Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage. During the mid-1990’s he substantially initiated the Maryland Department of Environment’s Water Quality Linked-Deposit Loan Program through a demonstration project funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He was also appointed by the Governor to the Maryland Wetlands Restoration Steering Committee; the committee was charged with guiding the State’s efforts to restore 60,000 acres of wetlands. In 2002 and 2003, he was a Project Manager for the Trust for Public Land. Since 2004 he has been the full time President of the Biophilia Foundation.

Richard earned a PhD from Prescott College, a M.S. degree in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in Engineering Science from Vanderbilt University. In addition to the Biophilia Foundation he was the Managing Partner of Borderland Restoration L3C, responsible for monetizing enhanced ecosystem services provided through watershed restoration activities.

Richard has served on the board of directors of Wildlands Network and Defenders of Wildlife. He has been the past Treasurer of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network Board; served on the Board of the University of Maryland’s Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology; a former Board member of the Ploughshares Fund, and a past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Shipboard Education, which operates the Semester at Sea program in academic partnership with the University of Virginia.

When not on Biophilia Foundation project work, he can be found in Boulder, Colorado, and has been known to wander the slot canyons of Southern Utah.

Greg is a conservation lawyer and advocate with over twenty years of advocacy and organizational leadership experience and over thirty years experience as an environmental lawyer.  Greg led the Western Environmental Law Center for over a decade, during which time he was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. After seven years as Executive Director at Wildlands Network, Greg recently transitioned to become Wildlands Network’s first Conservation Director with responsibility for overseeing it’s conservation programs across North America.  He also lends his expertise as an environmental attorney to the Connectivity Policy Coalition, initiated by Wildlands Network in 2008.

Greg grew up exploring the woods of Pennsylvania. He studied biology at the University of Virginia, where he was first introduced to the biogeographical concepts that form the bedrock of Wildlands Network’s scientific approach. After college, he headed west to attend law school at the University of Colorado. Greg went on to pursue a 16-year career in environmental law before transitioning to the conservation advocacy community.

Greg and his wife split time between the green landscape and blue waters surrounding Bainbridge Island, outside of Seattle, and the high desert and volcanic mountain peaks of Bend, Oregon. He enjoys cycling, scuba diving, sea kayaking, and partaking in the Pacific Northwest’s gastronomic delights.

The ecology of plants has been Dennis Whigham’s primary interest and his research has resulted in journeys through forests, fields and wetlands around the world. Explorations have led to studies of woodland herbs – including orchids, vines, wetland species, invasive species and studies of forests in the tropics, temperate and boreal zones. In recent years, studies of interactions between orchids and fungi have resulted in new and exciting directions. Whigham’s current research projects focus on the role of wetlands associated with juvenile salmon habitat in Alaska headwater streams; the rarest terrestrial orchid in eastern North America; and an invasive wetland species that is rapidly expanding across the country.

His current passion is to establish the North American Orchid Conservation Center (NAOCC), an initiative of the Smithsonian and the United States Botanic Garden.  NAOCC’s mission is to secure the genetic diversity of native orchids for future generations.  The NAOCC model for orchid conservation is based on public-private collaborations and there are currently more than fifty collaborating organization distributed across the continent from Florida to Alaska.

Whigham obtained an undergraduate degree from Wabash College and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.  He joined the Smithsonian in 1977.  Whigham and his collaborators have published more than 250 articles in journals and he has co-edited 10 books.

Meet the Staff