As Director of Communications and Marketing, Matt leads Vital Ground’s print and digital outreach with an emphasis on engaging, science-based storytelling that champions conservation. He holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College in Minnesota and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. As a Wyss Conservation Scholar, Matt interned for Vital Ground during grad school before becoming a full-time member of the communications team.
Matt grew up in the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts, exploring the woods and waters of New England and Upstate New York by foot and canoe. He has spent much of his adulthood in the West, including many seasons in his twenties as a backcountry ranger and outdoor educator at Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico, where he taught countless teenagers how to hang bear bags and developed a particular love and respect for all things ursine. Matt’s writing has appeared most recently in High Country News, Whitefish Review and The Artist’s Field Guide to Yellowstone and he edited the environmental literary magazine Camas while in grad school at UM. He lives in Missoula, where he explores the surrounding wildlands in all seasons, plays ultimate frisbee and cheers on the Boston Red Sox from afar.