Meet the new director of the Sycamore Land Trust: Alex Sienkiewicz

By Carol Kugler, The Herald-Times

 

This article was published in The Herald-Times on Jan. 28, 2026.

In 2025, Bloomington-based Sycamore Land Trust sought a new executive director after John Lawrence stepped down. Lawrence was the land trust’s second leader, following after Christian Freitag, the nonprofit’s first executive director.

Late in 2025, Sycamore Land Trust announced it had chosen a new executive director, Alex Sienkiewicz. He is now head of the land trust, founded in 1990 that serves 26 counties in southern Indiana.

Sienkiewicz answered questions from The Herald-Times as he begins his new role.

Question: Where did you last work and what did you do? Please share previous positions.

Alex Sienkiewicz recently worked at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains of the Chihuahuan Desert before becoming the executive director of Sycamore Land Trust based in Bloomington.

Answer: In my last position, I served as the chief of resource stewardship and science at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a 50,000-acre UNESCO World Heritage site in southern New Mexico. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is in the Guadalupe Mountains of the Chihuahuan Desert. At Carlsbad I led an awesome team of scientists, natural resource specialists, and museum and curatorial professionals in stewarding the park’s natural and cultural resources. Prior to that, I spent 18 years with the U.S. Forest Service where I began as a Presidential Management Fellow in Washington, D.C., after graduate school at the University of Montana Law and Forestry Schools. After a year in D.C. headquarters, I followed my heart to field positions, where I served as a district ranger in California, Vermont and Montana. These were the types of places where my wife, Holly, and I sought to raise our three kids — running wild rivers, ski touring in the wilderness, and chasing trout and elk and mule deer. My last Forest Service post (2011-2024) was based in Livingston, Montana, north of Yellowstone National Park, where I managed the Yellowstone Ranger District of the Custer Gallatin National Forest. A vast, sprawling, wild, and magnificent landscape of a million acres, it was a complex, difficult, and rewarding job. The core of the district is the beloved Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and the homeland of the Crow people.

I particularly enjoyed working with private landowners, congressional staffers, tribes, partners, communities, and citizens to conserve sensitive lands and waters within and around the national forest. Some of my favorite work entailed working with diverse public-private partnerships to protect and restore riparian habitat on rivers like the Battenkill in Vermont or the Shields River in Montana.

During a Forest Service post early in my career in Northern California, I worked on the Six Rivers National Forest deep in the Klamath Mountains in the heart of famous watersheds like the Eel, Trinity, Klamath, Smith, Cal-Salmon and Mad rivers. These are watersheds where salmon and steelhead are born to steep mountain streams and make their way to the oceans where they spend their adult lives, returning years later to the mountains of their birth where they spawn, die, and feed the forest ecosystems from which they arose. The life cycle of anadromous fish will never cease to amaze me.

Q: What special skills or knowledge do you have that you think might help in your new post?

A: I don’t know if my skills are special in any way, but I care deeply about people and I care deeply about the land on which we live. And when I say “land,” I mean the land, water, wildlife and as E.O. Wilson or Aldo Leopold or Rachel Carson might have said, the diversity of life in all its forms.

In my education and career I have sought out diverse people, perspectives, influences, and ecosystems from which I can learn. I am a lifelong learner, and the more education I have pursued, the more I realize how much I didn’t know. I try to look at the many problems of humans and our relationships to nature humbly and in a way that acknowledges the importance and complexity of those relationships with the land.

My principal mentor and friend in graduate school was a big influence on me in my approach to land and life. His name was Jack Ward Thomas, a prominent biologist, U.S. Forest Service chief, professor, thinker and writer. I worked closely with Jack as I completed a law degree and PhD in forestry. I was very fortunate to have connected with such a thoughtful and intelligent mentor so early in life. (I miss him a lot.) He was the first person in my career, and perhaps the only one thus far, to help me see all that I had to contribute and to actually help me get to positions where I could be of service in a meaningful way. In reflecting on my relationship with Jack, the notion that we accomplish nothing on our own, and all owe our achievements, at least in part, to others, stands out. As I now occupy Professor Lynton K. Caldwell’s office at his former home (that now houses Sycamore Land Trust), I feel a connection to him, even though he has passed. I feel as though Professor Caldwell would have been a wonderful mentor. I plan to study his writings and work in coming years. I have always admired Professor Caldwell’s brainchild, the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and have long admired a culture of government integrity and transparency. Part and parcel to this public service ethos in the conservation arena are NEPA’s basic principles of analysis and disclosure of the environmental impacts of government work … on the environment and on America’s public lands and resources. I heartily agree with the man who sat in the same office I now inhabit, that Americans deserve formal involvement and a voice in what taxpayer-funded projects do to the land, water, wildlife, air, and human economies on which all Americans depend. Implicit in NEPA too is our ethical obligation to future generations.

As my dad always said, “leave the campsite cleaner than you found it.” I feel an ethical obligation to our kids and their kids and their kids to conserve a significant portion of our planet for their survival, use, and enjoyment. To do otherwise is a deeply troubling prospect. The natural landscape and the wild country and the quiet spaces shaped our common American character and ultimately shaped us as humans.

There are thousands of selfless and quiet service-minded Americans who work every day to save some of that wild nature for the future. For our kids. This is what drives us in our vocations and avocations to a large extent. These are the people who work at land trusts and conservation and wildlife NGOs. And of course these are also the types of honorable and fastidious public servants that work for local, state, and federal land and resource agencies.

Q: Had you heard of Sycamore Land Trust or been to any of its properties before you started your new position? If so, what was your impression?

A: I have worked in close partnership with local and national land trusts for decades in my role as a federal public lands line officer (accountable official) and leader. I had some awareness of Sycamore Land Trust over the years as I subscribe to all kinds of conservation listservs, job boards, and periodicals, such as the wonderful Land Trust Alliance — a national voice and leader in the land trust movement.

I like to say that there are many flavors of conservation (my parents took me to Baskin Robbins 21 flavors as a kid, if I behaved!) These “flavors of conservation” include our beloved federal parks, forests, wildlife preserves and Bureau of Land Management lands, state parks, forests and preserves, city and local parks and forests and, of course, the land trust preserves and natural areas … among others. Just as the concept of diversity is a core principle of a healthy ecosystem and a healthy stock portfolio, so too are diverse flavors of conservation land healthy for ecosystems, human communities, economies and society writ large. Part of the draw of Sycamore was the opportunity to try out a “new flavor” of conservation.

In the summer of 2025, the Sycamore board of directors invited me to Bloomington as a finalist for the executive director vacancy. On that trip Sycamore’s wonderful staff and board introduced me to the Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve complex, the Amy Weingartner Branigin Peninsula Preserve, the Carl Ziegler Wetlands, and several other Sycamore properties. At Sycamore’s preserves, I immediately felt a sense of nostalgia for the mixed hardwoods and wetlands of the Midwest and East (I grew up in the Mid-Atlantic region and spent a lot of time on our ancestral homestead in Tyler County, West Virginia — up the Ohio River from Indiana). Wetlands are close to my heart, and I think under-appreciated. I would seek them out as a kid, and sit and observe the wildlife. Reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals … wetlands are gathering places. (One of my favorite books is E.B. White’s “Trumpet of the Swan” — I recommend it for kids and adults alike if you are drawn to wetlands.)

Q: What current projects do you want to continue?

A: I look forward to continuing Sycamore’s important work to safeguard biodiversity and care for the landscapes entrusted to us. Current projects I’m excited to help advance include opening our new Carl Ziegler Wetlands and Education Center in Monroe County, moving forward on key land protection opportunities in our priority regions like the Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area, raising the remaining funds needed to advance our Martin Dune Forest conservation project, completing streambank restoration at Powell Preserve and reopening the preserve to the public with an expanded hiking trail, and strengthening long-term stewardship of our more than 150 protected properties across southern Indiana. I’m eager to help Sycamore’s hardworking team carry these meaningful conservation projects forward.

Q: What new projects or goals do you have for the land trust?

A: While I am generally a relaxed guy, I confess to a sense of urgency as I age in wanting to conserve the last best places for future generations and to protect the biodiversity and the diverse assemblage of critters that remain, not just in the grand landscapes, but in the quietly critical landscapes such as those here in the Midwest. Our Midwestern landscapes are under-appreciated ecologically, and I would like to bring attention to their value and the relative scarcity of conserved lands in Indiana.

One of my early influences was the landscape ecologist, forester, professor and writer Dr. Jerry F. Franklin, whose classes I took as a master’s student at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Franklin taught me a lot. Principal among this knowledge was the ability to see conservation at different spatial and temporal scales. After that education, it became natural for me to see the value of conservation at the micro, intermediate, and macro scales — to put it generally, to see the forest for the trees. I never looked out an airplane window the same way after taking Jerry’s landscape ecology class. I think that we Americans and humans generally need to conserve our ecosystems both at local scales, but also at landscape scales, even transnationally.

I had lunch recently with Dr. Christian Freitag, Sycamore’s first executive director, where we traded ideas about landscape-scale conservation, and we found a lot of common ground around the idea that Indiana and the Midwest (and indeed the U.S. as a whole) could benefit greatly from a landscape-scale chain of conserved lands that stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico (Great Lakes to the Gulf!) that would facilitate critical migration corridors for aquatic and terrestrial species alike and protect our diminishing biodiversity. A similar movement is afoot in the Rockies— the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative. I plan to emphasize landscape-scale conservation and ecologically-connected landscapes here in Indiana, like Sycamore’s growing 2,400-acre Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area. Obviously this can only be done in partnership with diverse stakeholders, communities, government entities, and players … but it’s a vision that could enrich the lives of today’s Hoosiers, while also doing the same for generations to come.

I bring a sense of optimistic urgency, but also pragmatism, to my work. I have ambitious goals for the Sycamore family at large, which includes staff, board, members, donors, preserve stakeholders, and all of us Hoosiers. I hope to significantly increase the pace and scale of conserved lands in Indiana and to contribute to landscape-scale networks of ecologically important preserves. The Sycamore family will need a lot of collaboration and support from the communities of Indiana to move this vision forward.

Q: Do you have a special interest in one or two aspects of running a land trust?

A: I enjoy leadership in all its complexity, challenge and mystery. Ultimately, when my life is over, it is relationships with others, how I have treated people and places, and who I’ve helped that will have the most meaning. I bring this philosophy to all of my leadership roles. Not being young anymore, I seek to be a mentor to those coming up in conservation and to pay it forward, as Jack Ward Thomas did for me decades ago. For all people I believe … family, friends, community and landscape are the heart of a life well lived.

Part and parcel to work relationships are those that come with being part of the southern Indiana and greater Indiana communities. I am excited to build goodwill for the Sycamore family across the state and to serve both private citizens and public communities alike. I hope my ambition for conservation and community rubs off on those with whom I work and play. (I’m eager to get canoeing and angling on Indiana’s rivers and lakes.)

Q: It seems you’ve spent a lot of time out west. Why did you accept a position in the Midwest?

A: People seem curious about this, as I am asked this question with every new friend and colleague I meet here in Indiana. That’s great. I guess the mixed hardwoods are in my heart. The quiet beauty of the hills and hollows and their vast biodiversity are no less beautiful to me than the snow-capped peaks of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness or the last ancient groves of redwoods in California. Along a similar vein, I was asked about moving to the harsh extremes of the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico. For me, there is beauty everywhere in the wild nature that has evolved on particular landscapes for millennia. We all share these diverse landscapes as humans and it’s a big part of what makes us human I think. Indiana is no different.

Of late, I have felt a strong sense of loss as some Midwestern and Eastern species that were abundant in my youth are in decline. I desperately want my grandkids and their grandkids to know the beauty of a wood thrush song, a box turtle, a brook trout, a hellbender, a whip-poor-will, an Indiana bat … and so forth. As Wallace Stegner said, “something will have gone out of us as a people” if we let these last wild places and the species to which they are home disappear.

My love for the land is well captured by the legendary poet-philosopher-cowboy Randy Travis who might as well be singing about southern Indiana in his song “Deeper than the Holler: “My love is deeper than the holler, stronger than the river, higher than the pine trees growing tall upon the hill… my love is purer than the snowflakes that fall in late December, and longer than the song of a whip-poor-will…”

Q: Please share anything else you want, about yourself, family or goals and aspirations.

A: My wife of many years Holly works as the school nurse, and in her spare time, the matron of the local community-funded volunteer ice rink in Livingston, Montana. We raised our three children in our home in Paradise Valley near the Yellowstone River, all of whom are in school on the East Coast (in Maine, North Carolina, and New Hampshire).

I am an avid outdoorsman and have a borderline unhealthy passion for canoes and trout streams and quiet places.