About Us

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.

Mindy Emerson

Mindy Emerson (Trustee) was a long-time graphic designer for the Bucks County Herald, and has volunteered those skills to Conservancy publications on several occasions.  Mindy also supports the Conservancy by helping to coordinate monthly appeal mailings, has been an active participant on our Events Committee, and even got involved in the 2025 re-accreditation process. Mindy lives on River Road with her husband, Dave, who himself has served on the township’s Open Space committee and is now a volunteer monitor of properties on which TC is the easement holder. 

Robin Lochner

Robin Lochner (Trustee) and his wife, Penny, have lived in Tinicum Township for more than 25 years, where they restored a 210-year-old stone farmhouse. Robin serves on the Conservancy’s Finance and Stewardship Committees and is also active on the Township’s Parks & Recreation and History Committees.  Professionally, Robin spent 21 years at Verizon Wireless in Strategic Planning, Investor Relations, and Corporate Development. Earlier in his career, he was an equity and high-yield debt analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York, covering the wireless telecommunications sector. In 1999, he was named the #1 Wireless Services Analyst on The Wall Street Journal’s All-Star Analyst Team and recognized as a “Home Run Hitter” for the performance of his investment recommendations.  Robin holds both a BBA and an MBA from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Dennis Lonergan

Dennis Lonergan (Trustee) has been a political, policy and nonprofit writer and creative for more than 30 years, working in Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee, election campaigns and leading non-profits through Eidolon Communications, the 12-person agency founded with his husband and partner, John Graves. The firm was based in New York City until COVID-19, which led Dennis and John to move full-time to their house on Municipal Road in Erwinna. (They learned during their closing that a strip of their property was given as an easement to Tinicum Conservancy, which was an unexpected but welcome surprise!) The move has only deepened their love and appreciation for Tinicum, Bucks County and the Delaware Valley as an ideal place to live, work and contribute to a very rare quality of life. He was born in Baltimore, grew up in the Boston suburbs, attended Syracuse University and began his professional life in Washington, DC before relocating to New York. He loves hiking, music, theater, reading, writing, film, cooking, baking, traveling, politics, dogs and making his very own cold-brew ice coffee.

Mark Manchester

Mark Manchester (Trustee) has been a contributing member of the Tinicum Conservancy since 2001, as a multi-tenure Board member and long-time committee participant, 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 entertaining. Mark, Polly and their children, Miles and Jocelyn, make their home on part of the former Four Brooks Summer Camp.

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.

Debra Wolf Goldstein

Debra Wolf Goldstein (Trustee) is a land conservation attorney and director of the nonprofit One Little Earth, which connects children to nature. Debra is thrilled that her first children’s book, A Family for Zoya: The True Story of an Endangered Cub, was recently published by Platypus Media (2025). Debra founded the Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival; served as executive director of Delaware Canal 21; and was regional advisor for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). 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’s written numerous scholarly and popular publications on environmental topics and 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.

Hollie Graze

Hollie Graze (Secretary) has a degree in fine arts and a master’s in occupational therapy. She worked in the NYC Dept of Education for 20 years where she coached children with special needs. Currently, she is a preschool teacher at a nature school where she and the children learn and explore outside regardless of weather. Hollie moved to Erwinna, PA in 2022, where she has been able to fulfill her life-long dream of having her own piece of land to nurture in support of native wildlife. While this dream partially came to fruition at her condo (where she served as Secretary on the association board), she knew her labors there would not last past her departure. Nevertheless, she took the neglected slope which suffered annual pesticide and herbicide treatments in some areas and was overrun with nonnative plants in others, and over the years turned it into a thriving (and certified) backyard habitat where she enjoyed observing wildlife in the native plantings. In Erwinna, she has converted a portion of the lawn into a meadow, added native trees, shrubs, and numerous perennials and continues to remove non-native species. Hollie has taken advantage of learning opportunities offered by Rutgers Environmental Stewards program, New Jersey Native Plant Society (NJNPS), and Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve just to name a few. When not tending her yard, Hollie enjoys walking, birding, reading and making mosaics.

Eric Anderson
Executive Director

While not quite born in a cave, Eric’s childhood experiences living on the grounds of a nature center in northwest Pennsylvania where his father worked made his lifelong commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability almost inevitable. He brings to the executive directorship of Tinicum Conservancy manifold applicable experiences and skill developed through eight years of transformational independent school leadership, along with a love of science and teaching that was cultivated during eight years of teaching science as process of discovery and innovation, and five years of scientific research. Outside his professional pursuits, Eric has served as a board member for organizations advancing ecological habitat restoration, urban agriculture, open space preservation, and sustainability in schools, and also volunteered time in service to immigrant communities, housing for neglected rural communities, and educational opportunities for underserved urban communities. An enthusiastic community-builder and insatiable learner, Eric connects and collaborates wherever he goes, and here in Tinicum is striving both to uphold and advance the conservancy’s incredibly successful and widely reputed legacy of land protection, and to synthesize diverse approaches to conservation in support of a healthy, resilient, and sustaining community.  If you’re interested in exploring collaborative possibilities in any of these realms, or have ideas or suggestions, please reach out! eanderson@tinicumconservancy.org

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