About Us

Jeff Keller

Jeff Keller (Trustee) and his wife Lorraine have lived in Tinicum for the past 20 years.  Jeff works as a restoration ecologist and also serves as environmental consultant to several New Jersey municipalities.  He enjoys teaching and has guest lectured at Penn State, Temple and Thomas Jefferson University, and co-taught a one-week summer course in field natural history at Cornell for almost 30 years.  He also recently published a book on habitat analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and has an upcoming book chapter on landscape ecology and wildlife management.

 Jeff will be serving on the Board of Trustees for his 5th three-year term and also serves on the TC Stewardship Committee.

Wendy Ullman

Wendy Ullman (Trustee) taught for 30 years at Bucks County Community College before her election to the State General Assembly as the region’s State Representative from 2018-2020. She grew up spending lots of time at her family cabin in the Adirondacks in the summer, and she thinks her fond memories of those times have a lot to do with why she feels so at home here.

She looks forward to serving the community again through her work as a Conservancy trustee and spending her free time outdoors searching for chanterelles and exploring the woods near her new home.

Mark Manchester

Mark Manchester (Trustee) has been a contributing member of the Tinicum Conservancy since 2001 and has had a wide-ranging background in business. Early in his career he ran the news distribution department of a British advertising agency in Tokyo, then returned home to start several gourmet coffee businesses including a mobile espresso bar. For the past twenty years, Mark has been helping organizations in the public and private sector be more productive through technology training and solutions development. Having lived in the West, Northwest and overseas, Mark settled in Tinicum in 2000 with his wife Polly where they enjoy biking, kayaking, backpacking, cooking and enterta ining. Mark, Polly and their children, Miles and Jocelyn, make their home on part of the former Four Brooks Summer Camp.

Peggy Enoch

Peggy Enoch (Trustee) has lived in Tinicum since 1979. Peggy graduated from Chestnut Hill College and earned a Masters in Education from Lehigh University. She spent 30 years teaching at various levels, in both private and public schools. She and her husband, Tex, are happy to spend time with their three adult children and their spouses, and their four grandsons. She has volunteered for a number of church and community groups and especially looks forward to the resumption of singing with the Palisades Community Chorus.

Debra Wolf Goldstein

Debra Wolf Goldstein (Trustee) is founder of Conservation Matters, LLC, a law firm focusing on land conservation and policy.  She also is co-founder and executive director of the Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival (www.philaenvirofilmfest.org), which “brings the planet to Philadelphia through the power of environmental film.” Previously she served as executive director of Delaware Canal 21; as general counsel to the Heritage and Tinicum Conservancy; and as regional advisor for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Bureau of Recreation and Conservation. Prior to that, she was an attorney with the law firm of Wolf Block in their litigation, real estate, and environmental departments.  Debra chaired the Land Use Committee of the Philadelphia Park & Recreation Commission and served for over a decade as vice president of the Fairmount Park Commission. She has written numerous scholarly and popular publications on land conservation and has taught workshops on recreational liability, conservation easements, appraisals, and conflicts of interest.  She holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and graduated with a B.A. from Brown University. Debra and her husband, Jay, greatly enjoy spending time at their weekend home along the Delaware River near Smithtown Creek

John Clement

John Clement (Trustee) moved to Tinicum in 1999 and spent the next seven years renovating the historic Uhlerstown Schoolhouse, which had fallen into disrepair. He is the author of the Dixie Hemingway Mysteries, published by Macmillan St. Martin’s press, and was a founding member of Novel Stages, a professional non-profit theater company in New York and Philadelphia, where he worked variously as a producer, director, writer, graphic designer and actor in thirty productions from 1989 to 1996. He has worked with the Tinicum Conservancy for more than a decade, most notably as designer of the website and manager of the Conservancy’s various social media platforms. He also serves as Secretary of the Tinicum Township Planning Commission and is a licensed realtor in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In his spare time he loves all things gardening, music, art and animals, and is the lucky steward of a preserved property near Tinicum Creek.

John Mark Courtney

John Mark Courtney (Trustee) is an avid native plantsman, professional grower, gardener and lover of all things wild. He is the founder and owner of Kind Earth Growers LLC. After completing his B.S. in Environmental Design from Delaware Valley University in 1998, John Mark pursued his passion for growing native plants and environmental stewardship first at Bowmans Hill Wildflower Preserve and then at Aquascapes Unlimited Inc., where he was the head grower and operations manager for 20 years. After moving to Nockamixon Township in 2007, John Mark joined and eventually chaired the Nockamixon Open Space Committee and was directly involved in the preservation of many key properties in the township. He was also a participating artist in the annual Artists of the Gallows Run, where proceeds were raised for land preservation in the Gallows Run watershed. John Mark’s free time is spent with his wife Erin, and their Australian Cattle Dog Jackson, home in 3 acres of mature oak, hickory, maple forest in the Beaver Creek watershed where they are actively rewilding and stewarding the native landscape for maximum ecological benefit.

Jim Engel
Executive Director

Jim has more than 20 years of land trust experience with both small and large land conservancies, including the Tinicum Conservancy, Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, Nature Conservancy, New Jersey Chapter, and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. He has extensive knowledge of all aspects of land trusts including fundraising, policy, communications, land protection and stewardship. But it is his work with people—landowners, volunteers and supporters—that inspires him most. He is entering his 13th year as executive director of the Tinicum Conservancy. Jim was part of the organization’s successful professional accreditation in 2009 and its recertification in 2015 and 2020. He has led the effort to protect an additional 2,000 acres in the region and has raised more than $4 million to further land protection, stewardship and legal defense. Jim loves exploring the Delaware River Valley via kayak, foot, bicycle, or snowshoe. He lives in New Jersey with his three children and one cat on top of a mountain with a stream and plenty of wildlife.

JEngel@tinicumconservancy.org

Scott Berman — Resource Protection Assistant

Maria Fell
Office Manager

Maria holds a BSc. in business from Delaware Valley College. Following more than 20 years in the computer industry, her love of nature and the outdoors led to a change of career. As administrative director and a teacher-naturalist with Bucks County Audubon Society she gained experience in the conservation and non-profit worlds that she brings to her position at the Tinicum Conservancy. Maria joined the Conservancy staff in 2011 and has lived in Tinicum since 1998. She enjoys exploring National Parks as well as backpacking, hiking, and kayaking closer to home.

MFell@tinicumconservancy.org

Kelly Germann
Resource Protection Manager

Kelly Germann is a Quakertown native and brings 16 years of non-profit land and water conservation experience to her work at Tinicum Conservancy. She holds a degree in conservation biology and has worked for Berks County Conservancy, Heritage Conservancy, Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy, Bedminster Regional Land Conservancy and multiple townships as a resource protection specialist. She joined Tinicum Conservancy in 2009 as a part-time staff member. In 2014 she fulfilled a life-long dream to hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. When not working or backpacking, Kelly can be found in her garden or contra-dancing with her partner, Jon, and their girls, Sosie and Karis.

KGermann@tinicumconservancy.org