The Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute announces Karen Terwilliger, Founder and Principal of Terwilliger Consulting Inc., as the recipient of the 2016 Gerald P. McCarthy Award for Leadership in Environmental Conflict Resolution. The VNRLI presents the McCarthy Award annually to an individual who demonstrates leadership in preserving and protecting the Commonwealth's environment through collaboration.
Karen is well-known for her collaborative approach to environmental and wildlife management and conservation, and for her outstanding work in those fields. As a wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, she directed the state’s non-game and endangered wildlife program, which became a national model for integration of species-specific management programs and system-wide approaches to wildlife conservation. In her role with TCI she has led a 14-state effort to develop regional priorities that synthesize the individual State Wildlife Action Plans in the Northeast Region (including Virginia), and facilitated stakeholder engagement for multiple National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks in developing their Natural Resource Management plans. Each of these projects, among her many others, has involved extensive work with a wide range of stakeholders, coordination of the work of multiple partners and action teams, and facilitating meetings at all levels that address issues that are sometimes difficult and divisive.