WHO WE ARE
Conservation is Our Mission
The Oregon Desert Land Trust works to conserve private lands in the state’s high desert region. These wild and working lands are critical to ecological, economic and community health. Preserving Oregon’s high desert is vital for fish and wildlife habitat, climate resilience, cultural preservation, rangeland health, and public access.
Our organization began in late 2017, and we’ve conserved more than 20,000 acres of wild and working desert land. In any given year, we may conserve several hundred—or several thousand—acres of high desert, depending upon the opportunities and partnerships that arise.
Who We Work With
Our partnerships are varied because the cause unites us.
The Oregon Desert Land Trust works with private landowners, local Tribal members, land managers and other entities to conserve wild and working lands in Oregon’s high desert. We honor our partners’ vision for their lands, guide the acquisition process, and ensure these cherished wild and working lands are protected in perpetuity.
Donate land to the Land Trust.
Our Team
Our staff and board of directors bring a wealth of experience and reflect the diverse voices of our region. Learn more about our team’s connection to the high desert and the expertise they lend to our vision.
Brent Fenty
Executive Director
Brent has lived and worked in Oregon’s high desert for most of his life. Before founding the Land Trust, Brent worked for nearly two decades in the region on conservation and restoration efforts to create several conservation areas and the 800-mile long Oregon Desert Trail. His other experiences include hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, serving as a research assistant at the United Nations, volunteering for the Peace Corps in West Africa, and working as an environmental scientist in Alaska. Brent spends as much time as he can exploring Oregon’s high desert with his wife, daughter, and canine co-pilot Eddy.
Brad Nye
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Brad grew up hunting and fishing in Central Oregon. He studied American Indian Law and Environmental Law at the University of Washington and began his career with a large regional law firm in Portland. After five years of law practice, Brad moved back to Bend and worked for five years protecting the off-reservation treaty rights of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Brad then moved to the Deschutes Land Trust, serving almost 20 years as DLT’s Conservation Director. In 2021, Brad joined ODLT to further his passion for landscape-scale conservation.
Jill Mahler
Finance & Operations Manager
Jill Mahler has a background in non-profit administration, primarily in the arts. She was an office manager and then an executive director in her 13 years at KPOV, Central Oregon's local community radio station. Jill is excited to be involved in conservation work, and helping to conserve Oregon's beautiful high desert. She's lived and raised her family in Central Oregon for 20+ years. As an avid hiker, cyclist, and cross country skier, Jill looks forward to introducing her grandchildren to the joy of the outdoors.
Kharli Rose
Outreach Coordinator
Kharli spent a decade in local news and began birding in the middle of it. This interest shifted her focus to fuse environmental stewardship with community engagement. She has since assisted county conservation programs, a national estuary program, and environmental nonprofits on east and west coasts, and enjoys bringing all ages together for community science projects. A move from Washington in 2021 revealed the rich stories of the high desert's unique flora and fauna, and everything in between. The Wyss Fellows Program made this position possible and Kharli is eager to share the interconnected narratives and rewards of conserving the high desert together.
Brandon J. Palmer
Regional Stewardship Lead
Brandon spent his formative years in Michigan, where his education in wildlife management began. After studying quail in Texas, eastern Oregon became his home in 2020. He was recently the wildlife biologist, then wildlife program manager, for the Burns Paiute Tribe, managing wildlife and its habitat for the benefit of the landscape and the Tribal community. Through work and recreation, Brandon developed a deep appreciation for the sagebrush steppe and its many inhabitants, and was especially drawn in by the people and collaboratives that tackle the large-scale challenges it faces. He also feels blessed to be part of a family that lives off the land and has a strong appreciation for the landscape. Brandon plans to promote meaningful, sound management and stewardship of wild and working lands to strengthen their ecological, economic and cultural values.
Andy Gray
Trout Creek Ranch Manager
Andy’s family has been in Central Oregon for more than 100 years, ranching, farming and hunting. He grew up working in the mill and farming before attending college to become an automotive diesel mechanic. Andy then returned home to raise a family in Post, where he and his wife, Brooke, managed a preserve for ten years for The Nature Conservancy. Andy has a passion for the landscape and wildlife of eastern Oregon and strives to help people and nature find balance.
Brooke Gray
Trout Creek Ranch Restoration Manager
Brooke grew up in a small community north of Springfield, Oregon. She attained a degree in rangeland ecology from Oregon State University and went on to work with invasive species. Most recently, Brooke worked for 12 years with The Nature Conservancy and spent a decade managing Juniper Hills Preserve in Post, Oregon. She is excited to live and work on Trout Creek Ranch and enjoys supporting her new community in creative ways. Her favorite parts of the desert are the secrets it only reveals to those who look.
Zak Morgan
Trout Creek Ranch Assistant
Zak grew up in the Fields Basin and knows the area inside and out. He’s been a cowboy, cowboss and livestock manager throughout the west, managing cattle, crews and partnerships. A prior position involved working in the Trout Creek and Pueblo Mountains and at Trout Creek Ranch Headquarters, making him happy to stay involved with the community. He feels this is a cool country with really good people and is excited to participate in conservation efforts on working lands.
Bruce Taylor
Board President
Bruce has worked to conserve habitat for birds and biodiversity across Oregon for almost 30 years His work with Pacific Birds, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Intermountain West Joint Venture focused on conservation policy, planning, politics, and partnerships. He has been involved in a variety of collaborative groups involving landowners, conservation interests, and government agencies in eastern Oregon and served on the board of the High Desert Partnership for 11 years. He is a long-standing supporter of Oregon's land trusts and jumped at the chance to help with the Oregon Desert Land Trust.
Helen Harbin
Board Secretary/Treasurer
Helen has been active in Oregon desert conservation since 2002. An amateur naturalist, she has hiked and camped extensively in the backcountry, documenting conditions for wildlife habitat with camera and GPS as well as introducing others to the subtleties of the sagebrush. With management experience in manufacturing and marketing of cutting edge products at HP, she has been a leader in organization building and an advocate for innovative partnerships. A Central Oregonian for 30 years, she also spends some time XC skiing and landscaping with native plants
David Dreher
Board Member
David is a senior manager at the National Wildlife Federation and president of Foresight, LLC. He has more than two decades of professional natural resources and environment experience in Washington, D.C. David has advised an eclectic mix of clients, including local and national environmental groups, wood products companies, and state government. A native of Central Oregon, David knows the high desert well. Some of his early experiences were hunting mule deer in the Owyhee canyonlands and pronghorn in the Trout Creek Mountains. David started in D.C. as a staffer to Rep. Peter DeFazio, a long-time senior member of the Natural Resources committee. After Capitol Hill, he spent 10 years with the Pew Charitable Trusts lobbying on behalf of dozens of wilderness campaigns, including Oregon’s Badlands and Spring Basin, and helped found the Oregon Desert Land Trust.
Tim Green
Board Member
Tim is a retired educator with 30 years of experience as both a teacher and educational leader. While history, social sciences and geography were his go-to subject areas, experiential education was his foremost passion. His priority was always putting people in situations, outside the formal classroom, where they could naturally bridge the academic with the real world. An avid outdoorsman, Tim appreciates many different regions of the Intermountain West, but not more than the high desert country of southeast Oregon, where he can often be found chasing down his chukar dog.
Autumn Muir
Board Member
Autumn is a dedicated wildlife biologist in Lakeview, Oregon who works as an independent contractor for several natural resources nonprofits. Her main position is with the Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council as their Project Manager-Uplands Coordinator. She brings 20+ years of experience as a wildlife biologist, with much of that time spent on projects throughout southeast Oregon. Autumn hopes to incorporate her understanding of the social, economic, cultural and natural resource challenges in this geography to produce a more meaningful impact on natural resources issues in Oregon landscapes.
Sarah Kelly
Board Member
Sarah is a native Oregonian and grew up on a wheat farm near the Dalles. Sarah has enjoyed hiking, cycling, and skiing in Central Oregon for more than 20 years. She is the controller for Ruffwear and appreciates working for a company that practices sustainability and encourages exploration of the outdoors.
Angela Sitz
Board Member
A wildlife biologist, Angela Sitz has lived and worked in the high desert of southeast Oregon for much of her life. Before leaving in 2020 to help manage her family's business in Sisters, she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly 20 years, including a decade working on sage grouse conservation with private landowners and public land managers. She considers the sagebrush steppe “one of the most under-appreciated ecosystems in the world,” and believes collaboration, education and outreach are key to building support for its conservation.
John Sterling
Board Member
John served for 17 years as Executive Director of The Conservation Alliance, a group of outdoor industry companies that works together to fund and partner with organizations working to protect North America's wild places. He left that position in 2019. Prior to his tenure at The Conservation Alliance, John was Director of Environmental Programs at Patagonia, Inc. until 2002. John is currently the President of the Oregon Desert Land Trust board of directors and is an avid runner, cyclist, ski mountaineer, climber, backpacker, and an aspiring musician.
Wilson Wewa
Board Member
A representative of the Northern Paiute Tribe, Wilson has extensive cultural knowledge of Central and southeast Oregon. Wilson is passionate about protecting the land for all people to enjoy, recognizing that doing so requires a careful balance of policies and legislation. He is a ready champion for a good cause and has participated in sacred site protection forums and Oregon water forums. Wilson diligently follows issues that affect our land and water, and stays in contact with state legislators, tribal leaders, senators and lobbyists.