Bob Anderberg of Open Space Institute, Seth McKee, Executive Director of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust and land programs, and Karl Beard on challenges and opportunities in open space preservation. All are top land preservation officers in the field.
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Bob Anderberg is Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Open Space Institute, and chief architect of much of the organization’s conservation successes in the Hudson Valley and Shawangunks. His unfailing passion for protecting this remarkable region is matched only by his skill, ingenuity, and patience as he knit together an astonishing portfolio of conservation achievements over the past 40 years which will be celebrated long into the future. An avid hiker and biker, Anderberg is committed to creating and expanding greenway trails that connect prized parks and other protected land. His extraordinary vision and accomplishments in this area have laid the groundwork for the creation of increasingly popular long-distance trail networks that are quickly becoming important elements in efforts to promote local tourism and economic development. Anderberg serves as Chair of the D&H Canal Historical Society Advisory Board. He played a key role in securing critical state funding to restore the DePuy Tavern in High Falls.
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Seth leads Scenic Hudson’s efforts to conserve land, create new parks and preserves, and help the Hudson Valley’s cities protect and enhance their land assets, local history and culture in an inclusive and equitable way. He joined Scenic Hudson in 1991 as Land Projects manager, became director of Land Conservation in 2007, and has been serving as Executive Director of The Scenic Hudson Land Trust and Land Programs since 2021.
Seth earned his B.A. from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and has a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked for The Nature Conservancy’s North Carolina chapter and the U.S Peace Corps before joining Scenic Hudson. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Marshall Islands.
A member and former chair of the Advisory Board of the Land Trust Alliance’s New York program, Seth also previously served on the board of directors of The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and as co-chairman of the Town of New Paltz Open Space Protection Commission. He holds a third degree black belt in Okinawan karate, and enjoys hiking, cycling and kayaking.
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A native of New Paltz, Karl is retired from the National Park Service, where he served as the New York Projects Director for the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, the community assistance arm of NPS. For over 30 years, he has worked with dozens of communities, nonprofit groups and public agencies to help create new parks and preserves, rail trails and hiking trails, greenways and water trails. These have ranged from transforming a rubble-strewn lot into a riverside park at a South Bronx elementary school, to helping develop hundreds of miles of trails that now form the backbone of protected lands along the Hudson River, the Shawangunks, Taconics, Genesee Valley and Long Island Pine Barrens. He also helped launch the statewide Erie Canalway Trail system, as well as sections of trail along the D&H Canal and O&W railroad corridors. Karl has also worked as a climbing ranger and naturalist at Mohonk Preserve, a private conservation planning consultant, and as an adjunct professor at Bard College.