Holman moves to Conservation Fund

Longtime North Carolina environmental leader Bill Holman will leave Duke University to become state director of the Conservation Fund next month.

Holman plied the halls of the state legislature for 18 years as an environmental lobbyist and served as secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources under former Gov. Jim Hunt. He later worked as executive director of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the state's largest source of conservation grants.

In 2007, Holman joined Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, where he's director of state policy and collaborated on protecting the Falls Lake watershed, the source of Raleigh's water.

The Conservation Fund, which formed in 1985 and is headquartered in Arlington, Va., also has a distinguished resume. It has helped protect 7 million acres nationwide and more than 200,000 acres in North Carolina, including Grandfather Mountain, Chimney Rock, DuPont State Forest and other landmarks. Senior associate Dick Ludington, who was behind much of that work, will stay with the Fund.

Its Chapel Hill office is the Fund's largest outside Arlington and home to many of its national programs.