2025 Board of Directors

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Deb has been a resident along the middle section of NW Branch for 22 years. She has spent many hours along NW Branch hiking, biking, picking up trash and sometimes removing invasive vines. She was an Anacostia Riverkeeper water quality monitor for the past two years testing water in local streams, including NW Branch, and also serves as a salt watch monitor. She is a retired nonprofit executive and former attorney for Legal Services in Montgomery County. During law school, she certified in environmental law. She joined the Board in 2023.

Melissa lives in the lower Northwest Branch and is grateful to be near such a beautiful, peaceful place. She has enjoyed running and biking along the NWB, its tributaries and the Anacostia since moving to the area in 2015. Melissa aims to increase community involvement in protecting and restoring the watershed and has led and participated in cleanups, in addition to collecting litter on a regular basis, and advocating for surrounding parks and trails. She joined the Board in 2022.

 Nora moved to the north-eastern part of the NWB in 2021. She got involved with NNWB because of the tremendous impact of stormwater erosion, trash, and non-native invasives on the tributaries in her neighborhood. She has a varied background that includes science, education, and entrepreneurship. She is continuing to learn about composting, native plants, and water quality. Nora hopes to empower neighbors to improve our waterway from their own backyards. She joined the Board in 2022.

 Rebecca has lived in Woodmoor since 2014, choosing the neighborhood because of its proximity to the dynamic natural beauty of the NW Branch. She, her husband, their two nature-loving boys and dog walk almost daily on the  trails, appreciating the belted kingfishers, spicebushes, sycamores, and moss-covered boulders immensely. Rebecca is a Maryland Master Naturalist and is leading the effort to create the Springsong Museum at  Burnt Mills.

 Valerie moved to Gaithersburg in 2019, and has spent the past several years exploring parks in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. She has volunteered with Anacostia Riverkeeper since 2023, helping with park cleanups and water quality monitoring. She has also participated in invasive weed removal workdays and is interested in learning more about how to improve the watershed. She currently works as a marketing editor for a financial services company.  She joined the Board in 2025.

Ben has enjoyed biking, hiking, spotting wildlife and coordinating cleanups along the Northwest Branch since moving to the area in 2013. When he's not in the woods or near the water, he works as an IT Business Analyst for a small grant management software company. He hopes to help  grow environmental stewardship in the lower NWB, especially in and around Hyattsville. He loves how the beautiful river and its adjoining trails and parks bring people from all walks of life together to enjoy the outdoors.

Greg lives in Hyattsville near the lower Northwest Branch. He has worked on a range of environmental issues since the mid-1980s, mostly at the local and state levels, in grassroots research, education, organizing and advocacy, and mostly in Maryland and the DC region but also in North Carolina. He’d like to help strengthen NNWB's ’ base in Prince George’s County, build relationships with other nonprofits and local and state decision makers, and  engage people in the critical work of building social, economic and environmental resilience to climate change and other stressors. He joined the Board in March 2025.

I am very interested in water issues in our watersheds and  believe I will be able to make a positive impact. Professionally, I work as a Water Resources Engineer and therefore am familiar with many of  the issues afflicting our local waterbodies as well as stormwater runoff. Furthermore, I live in the NorthWest Branch watershed and enjoy the many trails of stream regularly and would love to be an advocate for their improvement and sustainability. I joined the Board in 2025.

Scott has lived in two places along the upper Northwest Branch (Forest Knolls 2001–2006, Stonegate 2016–present), but is originally from  Wisconsin. He is the map editor for National Geographic. He enjoys doing trash cleanups, and literally stumbled upon the abandoned farm in  the woods behind his Stonegate house—leading to cleaning out the old farm dump, and becoming aware of the severe invasive plant problem. He is aiming to clear 300 acres of the NWB Recreational Park of massive  invasive vines, and to make a positive impact on the natural world. He joined the Board in 2024.

  Larry has lived in the Middle Section of the Northwest Branch watershed since 1984. A retired economist, he has been NNWB Treasurer since 2009. Since April 2009 his volunteer work and hobby have been as a county Weed Warrior, cutting nonnative invasive vines mostly along the NWB between Randolph Road and New Hampshire Avenue. Qualified as a supervisor, he occasionally leads volunteer groups in cutting invasives in the watershed.  The by-laws allow for a non-board member treasurer, and Larry has ably filled this role.

Ed is a Professional Engineer. After 34 years of federal service, Ed retired from USDA where he had significantly reduced environmental impacts and operations and maintenance costs by implementing sustainable practices at the USDA Headquarters Complex. He has extensive experience in sustainable construction and Operations and Maintenance building practices, including energy management, indoor air quality, biobased  products, environmentally beneficial landscaping, and waste minimization & recycling. Ed is a member of Friends of Sligo Creek and a founding member of Neighbors of the Northwest Branch.

 Glenn moved into the Northwest Branch watershed, Upper Section, in 2000 and has been an NNWB member since 2005. He served on the NNWB Board for about 10 years. In 2010, he initiated a water quality monitoring team that samples water in the NW Branch quarterly near the trail crossing at Kemp Mill Rd. using Nature Forwards invertebrate monitoring program criteria. In 2018 he set up our website and has contributed many pictures of plant life along the NWB as well as monitoring the stream for macroinvertebrates.