Still selected as L-A-D Foundation manager

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A longtime conservation leader has been selected to head the L-A-D Foundation just as the organization’s longtime liaison to the board Greg Iffrig prepares to step down. Roger Still of Columbia will take the helm as foundation manager when Iffrig retires in late April.

The L-A-D Foundation, St. Louis, was established in 1962 by Leo A. Drey to protect outstanding natural and cultural areas. In 2004 Drey and his wife Kay donated to the foundation their 144,000-acre Pioneer Forest, the state’s largest private landholding, which spans seven counties in the southeastern Missouri Ozarks. Headquartered in Salem, this property is a working forest, demonstrating exemplary ecological stewardship and sustainable forest management using single-tree selection harvests.

Leo Drey hired Greg Iffrig in 1992 as a staff ecologist and chief of recreation and reserves. After the Dreys' gift of the forest to the foundation, he was promoted to his current role, helping the board restructure the foundation for its new responsibilities. He led L-A-D’s long-range land consolidation efforts, developed an enhanced land stewardship program for special ecological areas, and worked with many partners on new trails and other initiatives. During his final month he is working closely with his successor to assure a seamless transition.

Roger Still, a member of the foundation’s board of directors, is well-acquainted with L-A-D's mission and goals, having facilitated an extensive strategic planning process for L-A-D in 2019. In filling the newly created position of foundation manager, Still will help implement that strategic plan. He will supervise the business staff in the St. Louis office and the ecological stewardship program on all L-A-D lands, and will expand the outreach, policy, research, and communication efforts while working in tandem with Pioneer Forest Manager Jason Green.

“We are thrilled that Roger applied for the job,” said L-A-D President Susan Flader. “Greg Iffrig leaves some big shoes to fill. The new position involves some additional executive responsibilities for which Roger's vast experience and skills are a perfect fit.”

Between 1996 and 2010, Still served in executive roles as State Director of The Nature Conservancy in Missouri and subsequently with the National Audubon Society as Audubon Missouri Executive Director and in a promoted position as Vice President Mississippi River Region spanning fourteen states. In 2011, he became an independent consultant, with clients including the Missouri Department of Conservation, Boone County Nature School, National Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation, Patagonia, Bobolink Foundation, and Greenbelt Land Trust of Mid-Missouri.

An Ozark native born in Lebanon, Mo., Still earned degrees in political science and history from the University of Missouri-Columbia and completed coursework for a PhD in history and public policy at the University of Kansas. “I learned to love nature, and Ozark people, as a youth on my grandparents’ farms,” said Still. “I could not be more excited to devote this final phase of my career in service to our   L-A-D mission and what Leo set in motion so well decades ago."