Discussing the Future of the Trail
Membership Meeting 2025
The ATC’s annual membership meeting was held virtually on August 27, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
Our Membership Meeting is an opportunity for us to come together as a community to discuss the future of the ATC and recommit to educating and empowering current and future caretakers of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.).
The meeting included brief presentations from ATC leadership. During the meeting, we also announced the results of the 2025 Board of Directors election.
The meeting recording is also available on our YouTube page.
New Members of the ATC Board of Directors
Edward R. Guyot
Mr. Guyot is a principal of the public accounting firm of John G. Burk and Associates, a twenty-member firm located in Keene, NH. He received his undergraduate degree in accounting, with high honors, from Stonehill College and his graduate degree in business, with honors, from Suffolk University.
As a CPA, Mr. Guyot is a member of the American Institute of Public Accountants, the New Hampshire Society of Certified Public Accountants as well as the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants. Ed has over 40 years of experience in strategic planning, business valuation, business acquisitions, business sale and divestiture activities, bank negotiations, conflict resolution, auditing and accounting, accounting system development and controls, information systems for financial applications and taxation.
Prior to joining John G. Burk & Associates in 1992 Mr. Guyot held a variety of senior financial management positions in the private sector, primarily in high technology, distribution, and manufacturing industries. Mr. Guyot also founded and operated a consulting practice tailored to meet the needs of small business. An avid bicyclist, runner, triathlete, hiker and naturalist, Ed resides in Keene, NH.
Ed’s association with the A.T. began as one of the founders of the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust. Through this effort he was nominated to the ATC Board of Directors in 2013. His tenure on the ATC board continued until 2021, during which time he served as chair of the Governance Committee, Audit Committee and was also Board Secretary from 2018 to 2021.
Naman Parekh
Naman has over 30 years of professional experience at PwC helping clients transform their risk management functions and manage change through process and technology. He has extensive global experience having worked on projects in North and South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
He is a wildlife enthusiast, an adventure seeker, a runner, and an Ironman. Naman is excited about joining the Board of Directors as the ATC’s visions and values align closely with his own personal values and passion for the outdoors and preserving our environment for generations to come.
Naman was born in India and moved to the US in 1990. He has an MBA from Case Western Reserve University and an undergraduate degree in accounting from Gujarat University, India.
David C. Rose
David C. Rose is a landscape designer with over 20 years of experience focused on landscape connectivity and activating public outdoor spaces for civic engagement. He holds a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Buffalo, with training in architectural history, urban policy, and environmental design. David began his career in Buffalo, developing programs that link universities, historic faith communities, municipal agencies, and ecological systems to enhance access to shared public landscapes.
His work explores local landscape history while engaging residents through public space activation. His passion for landscape was shaped by early experiences in Brooklyn’s parks and family train trips to North Carolina’s Sauratown Mountains, inspiring his belief in the power of place to connect memory, community, and nature.
Growing up across the street from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, David spent a great deal of time at the campus library learning about renown landscape architects and architectural critics.
In his readings he found out about the ATC and the organization’s intention to connect the mountains to cities. His journey to the Trail took shape early on with guidance from old maps and even older manuscripts. This is what his family foundation now supports: access to public lands through access first to maps and manuscripts.
David currently serves on the Board of the Historic Gloria Dei Preservation Corporation in Philadelphia and as Board Chair of the Sally Blagg Family Foundation, advocating for historic faith communities and sites of memory on public lands.
Current Members for Re-election
Yong Lee
Yong Lee’s decades-long career in management has spanned both non-profit and for-profit sectors. She served as the chief of staff to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the world’s largest museum and research complex. She has previously served as the chief of staff to the President of Morehouse College, a historically black college for men in Atlanta, Georgia. Yong is currently the director of a family office for a prominent Washington, D.C., family.
Yong has hiked portions of the A.T. in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine. She aspires to attempt the Four State Challenge — hiking the A.T. from Virginia through West Virginia and Maryland to the Pennsylvania line in a single day — and to one day thru-hike the entire Trail. She is an avid backpacker, mountaineer, and rock climber and has traveled through North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. She is deeply committed to land conservation, resource conservation, and the protection of public lands. Yong holds a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago.
Katherine Ross
Katherine Ross is the retired President of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Health Care Systems. She has more than 35 years of operating experience and has led supply chains (and lived) in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Her most recent role was leading J&J’s global logistics and customer service operations, managing a $2 billion spend across 70 countries.
Katherine received a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and a master’s degree from Harvard Business School. She currently serves as a Director or Advisor on multiple boards, focusing on operations and technology.
Katherine’s hobbies include hiking, pickleball, golf, and grandchildren. She completed a flip flop thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, summiting Katahdin in the rain-drenched summer of 2023 and is a member of the Blue Mountain Eagle and AMC-Delaware Valley hiking clubs.
Trish Shannon
Patricia D. Shannon of Vienna, VA is currently the Chief Financial and Operational Officer for AARP Foundation, based in Washington, DC. She enjoys exploring the great outdoors and has most recently been hiking the trails of the Shenandoah National Park and Southwest Virginia.
Her many years working in international development took her to over 40 different countries throughout the developing world. Trish has trekked half of the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal and was able to explore many unique places during her travels.
She began her career with the public accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) in New York, NY and Sydney, Australia. Trish received her MBA from Georgia State University and received a BS in Accounting and Economics from St. John’s University. She is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA). Trish is a 2015 Malcolm Baldrige Fellow and in 2017 she received a graduate certificate in Public Health from The George Washington University.
Durrell Smith
Durrell Smith is an Atlanta native, visual artist, conservationist, Ambassador for Beretta USA, Orvis Endorsed Wingshooting Guide, bird dog handler/trainer, and podcast host. While creating compelling abstract assemblage or commissioned india ink and watercolor illustrations based on his field experiences and hunting dogs, he also runs a podcast called The Sporting Life Notebook, along with his nonprofit, the Minority Outdoor Alliance, co-founded with his wife Ashley. Durrell is also the recipient of the 2021 Orvis Breaking Barriers Award, which honors individuals or organizations going above and beyond to bring new communities into fly fishing or wingshooting.
As a first-generation hunter, Durrell seeks to learn with and contribute to the active outdoor community by connecting with visionaries within the visual arts and bird dog community who are willing to share stories and knowledge about the various breeds and practices, creating a bridge to welcome aspiring dog men and women to the bird dog community.