Our Friend And Colleague

The Conservation Fund deeply mourns the loss of our friend and colleague Luke Lynch, our Wyoming State Director, on May 17, 2015.  Luke was skiing in the back country outside of Jackson Hole when an avalanche overwhelmed Luke and his companions. Two of the skiers survived; a third skier, Stephen Adamson, was critically injured and sadly, passed away on May 19. 

"Luke was a superstar; with his family, in his community, and with The Conservation Fund.  This is an unimaginable tragedy, almost beyond comprehension," said Larry Selzer, president of The Conservation Fund.  "Everyone in the Fund family extends their sorrow and sympathy to Luke's wife Kathy, their three sons and his family."

The Fund's Chairman, Mike Leonard said, " He had a true passion for the outdoors and for protecting the land. He had energy and dedication and a willingness to work hard , and an irrepressible twinkle in his eye."

Here is a link to a brief posting from the Jackson Hole News and Guide. 

If you would like to share your thoughts, please do so on our post honoring Luke.

Luke opened the Wyoming Office of The Conservation Fund in 2006, focusing his efforts on conservation easement and private land acquisition in cooperation with a host of non-profit, state, and federal partners.  He worked to conserve over 150,000 acres of land across Wyoming.  

Luke served on the Advisory Board of Friends of Pathways; was Senior Advisor at the Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment & Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming; served on the Advisory Council, Wyoming State Forestry; and was a past founding director of the Green River Valley Land Trust. 

Luke previously served an associate with Solitude Management, a private equity and commercial real estate firm; was managing director of the Green River Valley Land Trust; and a special projects director for the Jackson Hole Land Trust.

Luke was a graduate of Colorado College, as well as a graduate of the 2005 class of Leadership Wyoming.  He was a 2012 recipient of the Public Lands Stewardship Award from the Public Lands Foundation (PLF).  PLF presented Luke with a Landscape Stewardship Certificate of Appreciation and a Citation.  At the ceremony, PLF member William Mortimer noted, “This year, we recognize Mr. Lynch and The Conservation Fund and call public attention to individual and group efforts to promote natural resource protection of the Nation’s National System of Public Land.”

In the summer of 2014, Luke was part of a coalition that acquired a critical parcel of land that had long acted as a bottleneck for the migration of mule deer—known as the Red Desert-to-Hoback migration.   The accomplishment was noted in The New York Times.

More About Luke

Face Of This Place: Greater Yellowstone Area
"Rad to Dad: Finding family balance in a mountain town," Explore Big Sky
"For Mule Deer, an Incredible 150-Mile Migration," New York Times