Board of Directors
Our Mission
To promote educational, recreational and interpretive opportunities about forest and water resources, natural history, and the Cradle of Forestry in America.
Eric Caldwell
Chair
On the Board since 2017, Eric has a long career adopting watershed management policies and best practices and technologies for land stewardship. He currently holds a position as Watershed Project Manager for Jennings Environmental, PLLC.
Chad Leatherwood
Vice Chair
Chad is the Environmental Manager for Raw Materials at Weyerhaeuser, providing coordination word procurement teams, corporate certification programs, and environmental compliance teams. He’s been on the Board since 2017 and loves the outdoors, cooking and playing music.
Wendell (WC) Godfrey
Finance CHair
WC is an engineer/teacher who has a passion for education and the outdoors. He loves playing pickleball or hiking around western NC and surrounding forests. When approached about a Board position, WC was excited about FIND’s mission and the actions of the organization and teamwork of the staff.
Russell (Rusty) L. Garrison
Governance Chair
“Rusty” comes to FIND with 33 years’ experience in the environmental education and natural resource fields, many of those years with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. An avid outdoorsman, Rusty is excited about having a voice that resonates with FIND’s mission of education on our public lands.
Larry O. Ascher, Ed.D
Larry became aware of the Cradle of Forestry Interpretive Association in American (CFAIA), now FIND Outdoors, during the summer in 1984 while camping at Davidson River. That began a relationship with the US Forest Service, Pisgah National Forest and the Cradle of Forestry Historic site. Larry and his spouse, Hope were educators in Florida and able to spend the summers volunteering both for FIND and USFS as campground hosts, interpreters and other roles. After retiring from full-time employment as a mental health counselor in 2008, Larry has been able to spend more time supporting historic place-based education at the Cradle of Forestry and supporting FIND’s mission.
Harry R. (Tad) Fogel
With a voice for broadcasting in radio and television, Tad spent most of his talents managing stations in the Carolinas. Tad is an avid cyclist enjoys long distance bike tours. He and his wife spend as much time as possible in their RV with a goal to visit all FIND sites.
Amy Kinsella
Amy is passionate about connecting people to nature and the outdoors. She is most moved by the meaningful work accomplished by the FIND Outdoors family. She lives in southwest Idaho and enjoys gardening in the company of 13 chickens and her Newfoundland.
Jocelyn Wilson
Jocelyn joins the family from the Weyerhaeuser’s Giving Fund, where she learned more about how local and regional nonprofits were using their resources to give back to local communities. She spends any available time with her family exploring the Croatan National Forest, across from her home in the eastern coastal plan town of Newport, NC.
Dakota Wagner
Dakota is the Southeast Program Manager with the Forest Stewards Guild and has a passion for science communication and botany. She is excited to share her love of the outdoors and forest stewardship through the mission of FIND. She has been blessed to live in Western North Carolina since 2015 and enjoys mountain biking, botanizing, and firefly season.
Ashley Hoffman
Ashley Hoffman is the Executive Director of the Kentucky Association for Environmental Education and the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance. Her background is in wildlife ecology, environmental education and nonprofit management. In her free time, she enjoys traveling to new places and enjoying time in the outdoors with her husband and their four children.
