Land Trust Staff

The Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust, a 501©(3) non-profit orga­ni­za­tion, has seven full-time employ­ees, one part-time employee and is gov­erned by a 15-member board of directors.

Wendy Jack­son
Exec­u­tive Director

Wendy Jack­son has over 18 years of expe­ri­ence in the field of real estate with most of those years spent in con­ser­va­tion. Since join­ing the Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust in 2001, Wendy’s pas­sion for river and land con­ser­va­tion has fueled her work to estab­lish pre­serves and projects such as the Turkey Creek Nature Pre­serve, the Five Mile Creek Green­ways project, and Red Moun­tain Park. Dur­ing her tenure as Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, the Land Trust has helped to pro­tect over 10,000 acres of land in north-central Alabama. She has also helped to secure almost $17 mil­lion dol­lars in gifts of land, cash and other contributions.

Wendy has been rec­og­nized across the state for her busi­nesslike approach to con­ser­va­tion and her unique abil­ity to bring diverse part­ners together for the ben­e­fit of con­ser­va­tion. She is the 2005 recip­i­ent of the James Dock­ery Envi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Award that is pre­sented to indi­vid­u­als who have played a lead­er­ship role in pre­serv­ing the South’s envi­ron­ment. She is cel­e­brat­ing her tenth anniver­sary at the Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust this year. In 2013, Wendy was named Friend of Plan­ning by the Amer­i­can Plan­ning Asso­ci­a­tion due to her efforts to coor­di­nate the Red Rock Ridge and Val­ley Trail System.

Brian Rush­ing
Direc­tor of Land Conservation

Brian Rush­ing is the Direc­tor of Land Con­ser­va­tion and came to the Land Trust in March 2003. With an edu­ca­tional back­ground in forestry, geol­ogy, envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning and man­age­ment, busi­ness, and real estate, Brian tai­lored his aca­d­e­mic pur­suits for a career work­ing with land trusts. He is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of the South (B.S.), Louisiana State Uni­ver­sity (M.S.), and the Uni­ver­sity of Alabama (M.B.A.) and has worked in nat­ural his­tory and envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion for a num­ber of years.

Since com­ing to the Land Trust, Brian has worked to com­plete the Land Trust’s imple­men­ta­tion of the Jef­fer­son County Green­ways Pro­gram, and to date has nego­ti­ated numer­ous land acqui­si­tions. In addi­tion to on-the-ground land acqui­si­tion and stew­ard­ship activ­i­ties, Brian has also worked with the Land Trust’s Board of Direc­tors to develop a num­ber of poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that guide the land acqui­si­tion and stew­ard­ship work of the Land Trust and that keep these activ­i­ties con­sis­tent with the Land Trust Alliance’s Stan­dards and Prac­tices. In early 2009, FWLT became the first land trust in Alabama to be accred­ited by the Land Trust Alliance.

Richard Tucker
Chief Oper­at­ing Officer

Richard Tucker has more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in the land con­ser­va­tion field.  He came to the land trust from the Nature Con­ser­vancy, Alabama where he was direc­tor of oper­a­tions and pre­vi­ously was asso­ciate state direc­tor and coun­sel for the Trust for Pub­lic Land in Atlanta where he worked on the Atlanta Belt­line, a 23-mile loop of parks, green space and trails in cen­tral Atlanta.

Prior to mov­ing to Atlanta, Richard worked on a vari­ety of land con­ser­va­tion and plan­ning pro­grams for King County, Wash­ing­ton. He has a law degree from Florida State Uni­ver­sity and a master’s in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion from the Uni­ver­sity of West Florida.

“I have grown to love this region and am excited to be asso­ci­ated with an orga­ni­za­tion which has done so much to improve its qual­ity of life.”

Bry­d­ing Adams                                                                                                            Direc­tor of Philanthropy

Bry­d­ing Adams has become well known in the local phil­an­thropic com­mu­nity through three decades of non­profit lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence. She served as cura­tor of dec­o­ra­tive arts at the Birm­ing­ham Museum of Art, devel­op­ment direc­tor at the YWCA of Birm­ing­ham and exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Alabama School of Fine Arts Foun­da­tion, where she was respon­si­ble for the plan­ning and suc­cess­ful fund­ing of the Dorothy Jemi­son Day The­atre. Adams earned a master’s in history-museum stud­ies from the State Uni­ver­sity of New York.

As a Birm­ing­ham native, hiker, gar­dener and bird­watcher, Adams per­son­ally con­nects with the trust’s mis­sion to pre­serve the out­door spaces that make a dif­fer­ence in the qual­ity of life here.

“At this point in my life, I am solely con­cerned with mak­ing my con­tri­bu­tion to some­thing larger than myself that will last forever.”

Rhonda Blevins
Office Man­ager

Rhonda Blevins began work­ing as Office Man­ager for the Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust in July of 2007. Out­side of work, Rhonda stays busy with her 4 chil­dren and 5 grand­chil­dren, and she loves to enjoy the out­doors with them!

Rebekah Parker
Land Stew­ard

Rebekah is from Huntsville and had the bless­ing of grow­ing up sur­rounded by nature on Monte Sano Moun­tain. She attended Birmingham-Southern Col­lege and received a B.A. in urban envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies in 2009. After com­plet­ing her under­grad­u­ate degree, Rebekah con­tin­ued her edu­ca­tion and received a M.S. in geog­ra­phy with a con­cen­tra­tion in phys­i­cal geog­ra­phy from the Uni­ver­sity of Alabama. Rebekah brings a wealth of field and research expe­ri­ence from her time at Birmingham-Southern and Uni­ver­sity of Alabama. Rebekah enjoys spend­ing her free time relax­ing and play­ing Fris­bee with her two-year old choco­late lab, June.

Valerie Wil­son
Vil­lage Creek Water­shed Coordinator

Valerie Wil­son came on board with the Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust in August of 2009 as its first-ever Vil­lage Creek Coor­di­na­tor. She has a back­ground in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing. Since join­ing the Land Trust, Valerie has cre­ated the Cham­pi­ons for the Vil­lage Creek Green­way and launched numer­ous efforts to improve the Vil­lage Creek water­shed. Valerie is from Foley, Alabama, and she grad­u­ated from the Uni­ver­sity of Alabama with a B.A. in broad­cast jour­nal­ism. Valerie lives just five miles from the head­wa­ters of Vil­lage Creek.

Greg Robin­son
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Coordinator

Greg has applied his com­mu­ni­ca­tion back­ground to sev­eral pur­suits. He has worked as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion instruc­tor, research con­sul­tant and free­lance writer. Robin­son made his way into the pub­lic rela­tions sphere through an intern­ship at Wilbanks Agency before being hired by the Fresh­wa­ter Land Trust.  As a native Georgia-flatlander, he mar­vels at the topog­ra­phy of this region and is also fas­ci­nated by its rapid indus­trial rise; this jux­ta­po­si­tion of nature and met­ro­pol­i­tan life is some­thing he gets to explore daily at the land trust. He received an M.A. from Auburn Uni­ver­sity and a B.A. from Val­dosta State Uni­ver­sity in Communication.