Staff and Trustees

Audrey grew up in Alaska, a beginning that fostered a great appreciation for wild places. She moved to the East Coast and attended New England College, receiving a BA in Business Administration, and has lived in Alexandria since 2015. Audrey is dedicated to the well-being of the Newfound community and the protection of it’s unique resources. Along with her husband David and their son Sterling, Audrey enjoys kayaking, biking, skiing, and attending the many vibrant local events.

Paul originally hails from Pennsylvania but knew he would call New Hampshire home after attending the University of New Hampshire and earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Environmental Science and Natural Resources. Paul and his wife spent five years in Wyoming, where he taught courses in environmental problem solving and collaborative decision-making at the University of Wyoming, before moving to Bridgewater in 2018. Paul is happiest in the outdoors and is committed to protecting the environment through inclusive processes and education. You can find him in the mountains climbing and backpacking, cycling the area’s byways, or out on the water sailing and kayaking.

Mirka is a native of New Hampshire and began her career as a high school social studies teacher in New Hampshire and Vermont with a Master of Education from Harvard.  She returned to school to focus on conservation and ecology, earning a Master of Science in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England and a PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  She returned home after five years in Louisiana, where she missed the weather and mountains of New Hampshire every day. She believes that personal experience with science and research is crucial for both helping people access science and supporting conservation. Depending on the season, Mirka is following animal tracks, adding to her bird list, and visiting agricultural fairs, usually with her husband and two children in tow.

Heidi Jeffrey first came to know and appreciate the Newfound Watershed more than 25 years ago through summer visits with her extended family. After 17 years with Fidelity Investments, Heidi brings her professional experience and enthusiasm working with people to a new position that will get her outside and connecting with the Newfound community. She enjoys time on the lake (of course!) with her husband Gregg, spending time with her adult children Brendon and Mason, and taking walks with their yellow lab Gunner.

Isabella grew up in New Hampshire, where her love for nature and wildlife began at an early age. Raised on a small hobby farm, she spent most of her time outside exploring the world around her. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, Isabella moved to Bristol where she quickly fell in love with the area’s natural beauty and close-knit community. She has dedicated her career to educating others about the natural world and is excited to bring her knowledge and passion for conservation to NLRA. Her love for nature goes beyond her work: As an avid traveler, Isabella enjoys exploring new places and meeting new people. When she’s not traveling, you can find her paddleboarding, hiking, snowboarding, or swimming in the lakes and mountains of New Hampshire.

Gregg Jeffrey is a third generation Wulamat Camper who has been enjoying the clean and clear waters of Newfound Lake since he was a child. As a semi-retired land surveyor, Gregg is excited to share his appreciation for the land within the watershed, and the direct connection the land has to the health of the lake. He enjoys spending time on the water with his wife Heidi, traveling to California to visit their adult sons Brendon and Mason, and taking hikes across New Hampshire with their yellow lab Gunner.

Ed Viola is a recently retired designer and design manager who is excited to share his knowledge—and continue learning—in his new role as an EcoTour Guide at Newfound Lake. He and his wife Jeanette live in Nashua and have been visiting the lake for the past 18 years with their two children and five grandchildren. As President of a lakeside homeowners association, Ed is collaborating with the Newfound Lake Region Association (NLRA) to install stormwater management practices that will help protect the lake’s water quality for generations to come. In his spare time, Ed enjoys playing hockey, skiing, waterskiing, and spending time with his family.

Julianne Hazen has been a New Hampshire native and lifelong resident having grown up in the small town of Mont Vernon. She is an avid lover of the Lakes Region, working the past five summers on and around the lakes. Julianne recently received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Wildlife and Conservation Biology from the University of New Hampshire and is eager to put her degree to work. As a Conservation Assistant, she is ready to share her love for the environment through stormwater projects, education outreach programs, and water quality work. In the future, she plans to continue working in conservation around the lakes and hopes to one day work at New Hampshire Fish and Game. When not doing conservation work, you can find Julianne enjoying her hobbies of photography, skiing, thrifting, playing her instruments, and crafting playlists on Spotify.

Sarah has called New Hampshire home her whole life and has spent countless hours exploring the forests, lakes, and shorelines that make New Hampshire so special. With a lifelong love for wildlife and the outdoors, it was only natural for her to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science and Policy, which she recently completed at Plymouth State University. Working as a Conservation Assistant with NLRA, Sarah is excited to dive into hands-on conservation work and share her passion for the natural world with others. She hopes this role will help her achieve a long and rewarding career in environmental education and stewardship. When she’s not out in the field, you can find Sarah hiking a new trail, planning her next trip, playing guitar, kayaking on the lake, or spending time with animals.

Ed is an active conservationist from Groton, Massachusetts with strong connections to the Newfound Lake area. He serves or has served on the Groton Conservation Trust, the Nashua River Watershed Association, the Massachusetts Audubon Society Council, and The Trustees of Reservations. He is active in municipal affairs (Groton Finance Committee Chair, expansion of historic Groton Public Library). His children attend or have attended Camps Onaway and Pasquaney, and his wife Kate is an Onaway alum and former Trustee. Ed and Kate spend their time in Hebron in their low-impact summer getaway on Pike Hill Road, in the town’s first yurt.

Jim Fitts was born on Newfound Lake and spent the next 50 years summering at his parents’ 1940s-era camp. In 2000 he modernized the camp and made it his year-round home. Jim remembers Newfound so clear the bottom was visible in more than 30 feet of water, and has watched the slow (and recently more rapid) transformation of the water, shoreline, hill sides, and boat traffic with growing concern.

A conservationist at heart, Jim’s energies have been expended mostly in Kenya over the last decade, but as a lifelong resident of the area, and Trustee of Mayhew and the NLRA, stewarding the Newfound watershed is now a priority. His son and grandchildren still think of Newfound Lake as home, and there can be no greater legacy than passing on what one fondly remembers to the next generations.

Jim has a forty-plus-year career in financial services, spanning commercial lending and credit, administration, private banking, investments, and family office management.  A 14-year veteran of the US Coast Guard, Jim served as an executive officer at various posts.  Jim lives in Bridgewater with his Labrador Jack and Morgan horse Zeus.

Val’s family started spending vacations on Newfound Lake before she was born, and in 1958, her parents purchased the property in Hebron that she still owns with her two brothers. Growing up in Framingham, Massachusetts, the Lake and mountains were always home to Val’s heart.
After attending the University of New Hampshire and graduating from Wellesley College in 1975, Val worked as a trust and estate administrator for several years before deciding to enter the U.S. Navy and completing the Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Her first duty station was in San Diego, California, where she was convinced that the U.S. Marine Corps would be a better fit for her. Accepted for transfer in 1982, she graduated from the Marine Officer Basic School and went on to serve at commands in Twentynine Palms, California; Okinawa, Japan; Pohang, Korea; and Washington, DC, with a primary specialty in manpower policy and management. Val met her husband, Jack, in the Marine Corps, and they married in 1989.
Following Val’s final tour, in which she was responsible for Marine Corps Reserve recruiting throughout the Northeastern United States, she retired as a lieutenant colonel. She and Jack decided to make their retirement home close to the Lake, and they moved to Plymouth in 2003.
Val was elected to the Plymouth Select Board in 2009, and served as its Chair from 2010 to 2015. She is active in the Plymouth Area Democrats, serving on their board of directors from 2011 to 2017. She has also volunteered as a stream water monitor with the NLRA, as a ski patroller at Tenney Mountain, and as a member of the committee for the annual Keep the Heat On fuel assistance fundraiser.

Parker grew up on Long Island in New York and first came to Newfound Lake when he was 12 years old to go to Camp Pasquaney. He subsequently spent four more summers there as a camper and 3 later on after college as a counselor. Parker attended Vassar College where he got a BA in Russian and Indiana University where he earned an MA in Slavic Languages and Literature. Many years later, in 2004, after a long banking career overseas and wanting to establish a US base, Parker and his wife Camille bought the Novack property at 158 George Road, Hebron to which they retired to live full time in April, 2012. Parker currently chairs the NLRA’s Land and Watershed Committee.

Greg owns West Shore Marine and is a native of Bristol. He is instrumental in keeping our pontoon boat in top shape, and was a major contributor to the purchase of the “Madelaine” in 2011. On his occasional days off he tends to his family, runs mountains to stay fit, and mixes dirt biking and snowmobiling in season.

Bob was raised in Manchester, Connecticut. After graduating from Catholic University in Washington DC, he began a thirty-year career in the Air Force/Air Force Reserve as a pilot, a job that took him all over the world. After stepping down from active duty in 1977, he and his wife Susan settled in Western Massachusetts, where they raised their two sons and Bob spent a twenty-year career as a safety program manager with the Federal Aviation Administration. In 1999, Bob and Sue discovered Newfound Lake and immediately made it their weekend getaway spot until retirement in 2006 when it became their permanent home. In all their expansive travels, Bob and Sue have found there is just no place like Newfound! Their kids and grandkids feel the same way. Bob also serves as a member of the Newfound Audubon Committee.

Bill has been coming to Newfound Lake since 1996. He is passionate about climate change and conservation. He spends his days investing, managing, and growing renewable energy and climate technology companies. His current companies are focused on hydrogen energy and reducing the pollution of nitrogen fertilizer.  Bill, his wife Nancy, their 4 children, one grandson, and golden retriever can be found on Newfound Lake in the summer and on Ragged Mountain in the winter.

Newfound Lake has been a central part of Dr. Robert L. Pinsonneault’s family for four generations and counting. Since the early 1960s, his family has come to this lake to recreate on, around, and in the lake’s clear waters. Rob’s emotional attachment to Newfound has always fueled a desire to explore and protect this place, but it was not until a fortuitous collaboration with Plymouth State University did his scientific interest in these waters gain purpose and momentum. Rob now leverages his expertise in molecular ecology to explore the natural history of the lake, and to develop new ways of understand Newfound that will have broad applications, particularly with respect to how New England is responding to changes in our climate.

Martha Twombly has been coming to Newfound Lake with her family since she was born, to her grandfather’s log cabin built in 1927 on the Lake, named “Owls Head.” She spent every summer at the lake and in the White Mountains, and winters skiing at Tenney Mountain. She began her career in archaeology (BA Anthropology Univ. of Colorado/Johnson State College) working for the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Moving back to Vermont in 1972 she raised two daughters, both avid Newfound lovers and conservationists. The family lived in the same town as renowned wood-stove manufacturer, Vermont Castings, and Martha switched her focus to promoting sustainability and marketing hearth products, through technical writing, advertising and catalog publishing. While earning her MS in Environmental Communications and Science at Antioch Univ. NE, Martha began working with Chelsea Green Publishing, a back-to-the-land environmental and alternative energy advocacy publisher. Martha then worked as an environmental planner for the Cape Cod Commission on Cape Cod and finally returned to Hebron, NH with her husband in 2005. Martha is avid about the Newfound watershed and wildlife, and worked as Program Manager with the Newfound Lake Region Association from 2006 – 2009. She has been actively involved in land conservation initiatives, recently retiring from the Society for the Protection of NH Forests. Martha is a founding member of the Newfound Land Conservation Partnership, has served as Chair of the Hebron Conservation Commission since 2006, serves on the Newfound Audubon Committee, and serves on the board of the Lakes Region Conservation Trust. Martha is an avid gardener, kayaker, walker, bicyclist, wildlife tracker, and skier, and hates to be indoors when the sun is shining.

Ken grew up in Massachusetts, and summered with his family on a small island off mid-coast Maine. In 1961 he met his late wife Susan and was introduced to “the lake” and her family’s cottage on Whittemore Point. Ken, who retired in 2004 after 40 years in the banking business, was involved in community activities in Massachusetts, including the Presidencies of the Andover Little League and the Lawrence based Merrimack Valley YMCA. Ken currently serves as a permanent member of the Bridgewater Planning Board. Ken and Susan moved from their family home in Andover, MA to Bridgewater in 2004. Ken enjoys cross country “skate skiing” in the winter months, and in the warmer months, road biking, boating, and kayaking.

Carole Tremonti is a healthcare executive in the space of technology innovation. She is a nurse by training and has worked in academic medicine the majority of her career. She began her journey at the Mayo Clinic, conducted research at the National Institutes of Health, transitioned to running a research team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, then was drawn to focus her efforts in Oncology and spent the last 13 years at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she led product and business development, designing and building commercial software products that provide decision support to oncologists to determine the singular best cancer treatment for an individual patient. Recently, Carole left academic medicine to join the executive team of a healthcare startup focused solely on rendering actionable insights for cancer patients, and their clinical teams. After spending her academic tenure focusing on supporting the healthcare team, Carole’s passion and focus has narrowed to establish shared decision making and to connect the communication between clinicians and their patients.

Carole has been a lake girl her whole life. She spent every summer of her childhood running around barefoot with friends, swimming, sailing, and enjoying the peace and nature at her family lakehouse in upstate New York. In her adult life, Carole had always dreamed of having a place of her own. After being introduced to Newfound Lake by a close friend, Carole purchased her own property in 2014. She quickly fell in love with the beauty and pristine quality of the water, and was drawn to protect it. Carole has relished all of the wonderful activities the Lakes Region has to offer, and has named Newfound Lake her “happy place”.

Jennifer Berry spent more than 30 years as an educator at New Hampton School, an independent boarding school located in central New Hampshire. Most recently, she served as the Director of College Counseling at Western Reserve Academy, located in Hudson, OH. Now, in her semi-retirement, Jennifer is the founder of J.S. Berry Consulting, where she helps shepherd private clients through the intricacies of the college process. She is a 1983 graduate of New Hampton School and completed her BA at Colby College in 1987.

Jen was raised in the Newfound area where she attended Newfound schools through eighth grade and was a camper for three summers at Camp Onaway in Hebron. She lives in New Hampton with her husband, Tom. Jen’s twin brother, Jeff, owns Shackett’s Store on the western shore of Newfound Lake. Her younger brother, Jon, is the founder and lead brewer at Shackett’s Brewing Company, located in Bristol Square. Jen loves the lake and wants to work to protect and preserve it.

Karen was born in NH but grew up in Melrose, MA. She spent summers at Newfound Lake from early childhood through working as a young adult at The Hillside Inn. In 1987 her family purchased a vacation home in Camelot Acres in Bristol, and she now resides here full-time. Karen graduated from Melrose High School, received an undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Masters degree from Plymouth State. In 2011 she retired after a long career as a New Hampshire educator, serving as a classroom teacher in Hooksett and a Literary Specialist in Bow and the Newfound Area School District. Karen has been a volunteer with NLRA for 8 years, primarily as our Membership Coordinator, and a trustee since 2013. She is a director of Voices Against Violence, a non-profit agency that works to help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and in 2013 was elected president of Voices. Karen also volunteers with the Friends of the Minot Sleeper Library and enjoys travel, gardening and spending time on and around the lake in any season.