Tim Seifert to Leave SJPT

Long-Time Leader of San Juan Preservation Trust to Step Down
Search for Successor is Underway

The San Juan Preservation Trust today announced that Tim Seifert, who has served as the organization’s Executive Director for 15 years, has informed the Preservation Trust’s board of trustees that it is time to identify his successor. Accordingly, the board has launched a nationwide search for a Senior Director of Operations who could eventually replace Seifert.

To ensure a smooth transition, Seifert will remain with the Preservation Trust to help his successor meet the organization’s supporters and learn about its work—a period expected to last a year or more.

Steve Jung, President of the San Juan Preservation Trust’s Board of Trustees, emphasized that Seifert will not depart until his successor is ready to step into the position. “We are grateful that Tim has agreed to work with the board to help recruit and orient his successor through a smooth transition to what I’m confident will be a bright future.”

“Over the past 15 years,” Jung added, “Tim Seifert has brought the San Juan Preservation Trust to national prominence among conservation land trusts. Since Seifert joined the organization in 2002, it has added more than 130 properties, 28 miles of shoreline, and some 9,000 acres to the islands’ conservation network, more than doubling the amount of land that had been protected before his arrival.”

“This includes such iconic gems as Mosquito Pass Preserve and the adjacent Henry Isthmus Preserve, Turtleback Mountain and Turtleneck Preserves, Watmough Bight Preserve, Vendovi Island and Mount Grant Preserves. Tim’s leadership over the past 15 years has been nothing short of transformational in the preservation of natural landscapes and working farms and forests in these islands.”

In 2006, Tim and an initially reluctant board elected to join in partnership with the San Juan County Land Bank and the Trust for Public Land to purchase Turtleback Mountain, a daunting undertaking with a six-month deadline to raise $18 million. With this widely-celebrated regional success and one of the most significant land conservation victories in the San Juan Islands, the Preservation Trust has since tackled dozens of other permanent protections under Tim’s guidance.

“It remains the honor of my life to work for the people who support the Preservation Trust,” said Seifert. “We owe it to everyone who has believed in us to identify an individual who shares our passion for protecting these islands that we all love so deeply.”

The board of the San Juan Preservation Trust has engaged Jack Groban, Managing Partner of Jack Groban & Associates, to conduct the search for a Senior Director of Operations. More information about the position is available at sjpt.org/employment.

About the San Juan Preservation Trust
Founded in 1979, the San Juan Preservation Trust is a private, nonprofit, membership-based land trust dedicated to helping people and communities conserve land in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. It was awarded national accredited status by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission in 2012.

Since its founding, the Trust has permanently protected more than 300 properties, 47 miles of shoreline and 17,600 acres on 20 islands, including land now managed as public parks, nature preserves, wildlife habitats, and working farms and forests.

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