Board of Directors
Henry L. (Hal) Kitchin, Jr.
Hal is a partner with McGuireWoods, LLP, specializing in business, commercial and real estate litigation and regulatory matters. He is active in bar and community affairs, and has previously served as chair of the boards of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, the Cape Fear Future Foundation, the Greater Wilmington Chamber Foundation and the University of North Carolina – Wilmington. Hal has represented the Coastal Land Trust in a litigation matter on a pro bono basis.
Merrie Jo Alcoke
Merrie Jo is a native and resident of New Bern, NC. She recently served as the Director of the Governor’s Eastern Office. Prior to that time, Merrie Jo was in private practice as an attorney with Ward and Smith, P. A. where she specialized in environmental matters, with a focus on coastal regulatory litigation, state and federal water quality permitting and enforcement, and land use planning. Merrie Jo spent most of her legal career in the NC Attorney General’s Office where she served as a senior coastal attorney for the N. C. Division of Coastal Management. She has also worked as a certified mediator in N. C. Civil Superior Court. Merrie Jo is active in her community and is a past Coastal Land Trust Board member.
Bob Emory
Bob retired in 2017 from his forty-five year career as a forester with Weyerhaeuser Company. He spent the last seventeen years of his career as Weyerhaeuser’s Southern Timberlands Environmental Affairs Manager. Bob has been appointed to, and is currently serving as a member of, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission. He previously served as a member, appointed by the Governor of North Carolina, of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission, from 1994 to 2014, including seven years as Chairman. He has also served as Chairman of the North Carolina Forestry Advisory Council and is leading the capital campaign to replace the organ and renew the Nave at Christ Church in New Bern. Bob served prior terms on the Board of Directors for the Coastal Land Trust, and served on the Coastal Land Trust’s “Your Land” capital campaign steering committee.
Nick Parker
Nick has been with Live Oak Bank, a niche bank based in Wilmington specializing in small business, for eight years. Nick currently serves as a Vice President on the RV Park and Campsite Lending Team. He received his undergraduate degree from UNC Wilmington in Finance and Marketing and received his MBA from UNC Chapel Hill. Nick currently chairs the Finance Committee and sits on the DEI Committee at the Coastal Land Trust. Nick is married to his wife Kendall, and they have a Golden Retriever named Teak.
Laurie McComas King
Laurie is Vice President of MCO Transport, Inc., a company headquartered in Wilmington with terminals in Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk that specializes in warehousing and transportation services. Laurie’s responsibilities include managing the company’s human resources and personnel, with an emphasis on safety, controlled growth, adaptability, long-term relationships, and environmental stewardship and sustainability. Laurie is a past president of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s Board of Directors, and has served as a key volunteer leader with the Coastal Land Trust’s most popular outreach event, the Flytrap Frolic for several years.
Bernest Hewitt
Bernest is a lifelong resident of Brunswick County, where he has devoted many important and productive hours to helping with North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s Reaves Chapel restoration project in Navassa. He is a past President of Brunswick County Branch 5452 of the NAACP, was Board Chairman of Southeastern Community Services, and is a member and ordained Deacon of Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church. Bernest is married to Glenda Hewett and is the proud father of two and grandfather of two.
Yoshi Newman, Ph. D.
Yoshi is a Certified Nature and Forest (NFT) Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides. NFT is a practice that originated in Japan known as shinrin-yoku, which translates into forest bathing or taking in the atmosphere of the forest. A growing body of research indicates numerous health benefits associated with NFT. She has conducted walks with female veterans at Pamlico Rose Institute of Sustainable Communities in Washington, NC and works with Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network to serve with a team of amazing people around the world focused on exploring the relationship between nature and emotions. Yoshi has volunteered to assist with numerous Coastal Land Trust events prior to joining the Board of Directors.
Chad Pearson, CFP
Chad leads the Decision Point Wealth Management group in providing wealth management and succession strategies for small business owners and their families. He began his finance career with Merrill Lynch in NYC in 1992, after attending UNC-Chapel Hill’s Business School and the University of Manchester, UK. Chad has been a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) since 2004, and became a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) in 2018. Chad currently serves on the board of First Tee. He is a past board member of the Landfall Foundation Board and the NHRMC Foundation Board. He has served on the Coastal Land Trust’s Finance Committee for eight years.
Stan Riggs
Dr. Stanley R. Riggs has been on faculty in the Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University for 54 years; he served as distinguished Professor of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences and as an East Carolina University Distinguished Research Professor (2000 to 2021). In 2022 Stan was the recipient of the Governor’s “North Carolina Award in Science” for significant contributions to the “Land of the Longleaf Pine”. In 2021 he was awarded the 2021 Francis Shepard Medal for “Excellence in Marine Geology” in honor of the “founder of American Marine Geology” by the international Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM). Dr. Riggs received his B.S. degree from Beloit College (1960), M.A. degree from Dartmouth College (1962), and Ph.D. from the University of Montana (1967). Stan has received numerous awards and recognitions including the Oliver Max Gardner Award for the University of North Carolina system faculty member who “made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race” (1983), and co-designed and co-directed a USGS-funded, multi-institutional, cooperative study on the origin and evolutionary history of the complex, world-class North Carolina coastal-marine system. He served on the NC Governor’s Committee on Marine Natural Resources (1970s), NC Mining Commission-Environmental Position (1979-1989), NC Coastal Management Commission’s Science Panel (1997-2016), and the NC Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change (2005-2011). From 2012-present, he established and directed North Carolina’s Land of Water (NC LOW), a nonprofit organization focused on implementing coastal-marine science in the public domain. Stan has spread the word on coastal dynamics and climate change through myriad book publications, hundreds of public lectures, workshops, reports, and television documentaries.
Ann Simpson
Ann grew up in rural Eastern NC and now lives in Chapel Hill where she works with moss+ross, a strategic consulting firm focused on nonprofits in the Triangle region. Ann has served in communications and fundraising positions with environmental organizations such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy and as executive director of North Carolina Catch, a nonprofit organization that supports local seafood promotion initiatives. She has also contributed original photography to four UNC Press book collaborations with her husband, Bland, most recently North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky (Fall, 2021). She is a past president of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust Board of Directors and the NC Sea Grant Advisory Board. Ann is excited to return to the Coastal Land Trust Board and continue to pursue her lifelong passion for protecting the natural landscape of coastal Carolina.
Mary Tillery
Mary is the Regional Manager for NC State Industry Expansion Solutions (IES) serving Central North Carolina. Prior to joining IES, Mary worked for Cape Fear Community College in customized training, partnering with NC Works and other economic development organizations to assess the needs of manufacturers and deliver on-site services and training. Following her lifelong passion for the North Carolina coast, she is pleased to join the Coastal Land Trust Board of Directors.
Robert Wells
Robert is Executive Vice President/Senior Risk Advisor for Towne Insurance Agency company. Robert has been very active in the Outer Banks community, has been on numerous insurance advisory boards, and has served as President and Chairman of Outer Banks Tennis Association, Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, The Nature Conservancy’s Nags Head Wood Preserve, Dare County Youth Center, Inc., North Banks Rotary Club, Outer Banks Community Foundation and Dare County Parks & Recreation Advisory Board. He graduated from Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College).
Lorrie Basnight
Lorrie grew up in Chapel Hill, but has spent summer days her whole life on the Pamlico River near Washington. Her family’s love of boating and the natural world, combined with many years as a camp counselor and scout, shaped her passion to preserve the coastal environment for future generations. Between 2011 and 2020 Lorrie was on the board of Sound Rivers, Inc., a nonprofit organization that guards the health of the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico river basins. For three of those years she served as board president. Since 1995, Lorrie has been a pediatrician on the faculty at the Brody School of Medicine and currently serves as the Executive Director of Eastern Area Health Education Center, working to assure a strong healthcare workforce for rural and underserved areas. Lorrie has boated and camped all over eastern NC and enjoys birding, looking for wildlife, and basking in the richness of coastal black waters and swamps.
Ken Hines
Ken has a forestry degree from NCSU and served as a Service Forester with the NC Forest Service in Rocky Mount. Ken then earned his MBA in Finance from UNC-CH and became a corporate banker. From 1990-2008, Ken was able to combine his forestry and finance backgrounds as the head of the forest products and timberland finance unit at John Hancock in Boston. He then led the Bond and Corporate Finance Group and was the first president of Hancock’s Renewable Energy Group. After retiring in 2013, Ken and his wife Cathy relocated to Wilmington. They are members at CCL and WUMC. Ken has done some consulting and has taught natural resource economics at NC State and Duke Universities. Ken currently serves as the Vice President of the Harrelson Center. Ken has served the Coastal Land Trust on the Strategic Planning and Land Protection Committees.
Hannah Holt
Hannah is strongly committed to the mission of land preservation and stewardship. She recently retired from Holt C-Stores, her family business of 33 years. She served as Director of Operations and as Secretary/Treasurer for the company’s three operating entities managing financial statements, future development, mergers and acquisitions and stockholder relations. She has served on a numerous local boards including the Coastal Land Trust Board with one stint as President. Hannah founded and is the driving force behind the Holt C-Store Golf Tournament which has raised over $1 million since 2013 benefitting both the N.C. Coastal Land Trust and UNCW. Hannah’s long association with UNCW includes serving two terms on the UNCW Foundation Board and, in 2012, the establishment of the Holt Oil Fellowship in Public Administration dedicated to the memory of her late father, Charles B.C. Holt. Hannah has also served on the Airlie Gardens Foundation Board and she and her wife, Stephanie, were major donors for the Butterfly House at Airlie. Hannah earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Relations from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1987.
Pam Watkins
A native of Asheboro, North Carolina, Pam has called Wilmington home for over 45 years. An educator with a degree from Guilford College, she taught for Randolph and New Hanover County Schools and sometimes served as a librarian. She married Bruce Watkins and started a family, and together they opened Bruce Watkins Supply, established 518 N. Second Street, LLC, and P & P Holdings, LLC. She and Bruce were both active in many organizations, including the Cape Fear River Watch and the Community Boys and Girls Club of Wilmington. Pam has always been a great lover of the outdoors, and has enjoyed many trips with her family kayaking, hiking, biking and camping all over the country. After the passing of Bruce, she hopes in some small way to help continue his amazing legacy in preserving North Carolina’s natural areas. She currently enjoys going on various adventures with her two young grandchildren and traveling.
Brian Rubino
Brian is a principal of Quible & Associates, P.C., where he leads the coastal environmental division. His favorite work involves habitat enhancement and restoration along NC coastlines. Brian received a BS and MS in geology from East Carolina University in 1997 and 2001 and is a Professional Geologist in NC (#1933). He resides in Kitty Hawk, Dare County with his wife and his two children. Brian has served on the Coastal Land Trust’s Land Protection Committee since 2017 and has previously served on a local bank advisory board. In 2023, he received a Pelican award from the NC Coastal Federation for living shoreline design, permitting and implementation. Brian is excited to be a Board Member for the Trust!