Birmingham Rotaract

Please join us for our June 16th luncheon with BRIAN RUSHING

The luncheon will begin promptly at noon at The Harbert Center. 

Brian will speak to the club about the Jefferson Coiunty Greenways Program.

Brian Rushing is the Director of Conservation Programs at the Freshwater Land Trust (FWLT) in Birmingham, Alabama. With an educational background in forestry, geology, environmental planning and management, business, and real estate, Brian tailored his academic studies 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.

As Director of Conservation Programs, Brian oversees FWLT’s land acquisition operations as well as stewardship of over 5,700 acres of fee-owned and conservation easement lands.  Since coming to the FWLT in March 2003, Brian helped to complete the organization’s implementation of the Jefferson County Greenways Program, a ten-year, $30,000,000 project designed to protect streamside forested buffers in the Birmingham Area.  Under that program as well as others, he has negotiated the acquisition of over 3,000 acres of conservation land and has secured over $6,500,000 in donations and discount sales of property.  Under Brian’s leadership, the FWLT has also implemented ecological restoration projects on three of its preserves, the largest of which is a 40-acre stream restoration and privet eradication project along Shades Creek near Bessemer, Alabama.

In addition to on-the-ground land protection and stewardship activities, Brian has also worked closely with FWLT’s Board of Directors to develop a comprehensive set of policies and procedures that guide the land acquisition and stewardship work of the organization 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.