Tom Kerr
Chair of the Board
Land and Facilities Committee Chair
Kempton, PA
Elected officer 2021.
Tom is the former president and CEO of Wildlands Conservancy, a regional land trust in eastern Pennsylvania, and served in 2010 as interim president of Hawk Mountain. He also worked at Hawk Mountain in the 1980s, first in sanctuary management, then later in business management. His work in land and water conservation with Wildlands included involvement in the founding the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association (now WeConservePA) and leading efforts to raise substantial funds for land conservation in Lehigh and Northampton counties.
During his 20-year tenure at Wildlands, more than 45,000 acres of land were protected working in cooperation with state, county, municipal, and private entities. Now retired, he is active mostly in the local community around Hawk Mountain. A recently completed project was to form a not-for-profit entity to convert a former public elementary-school building in Kempton into a 12-apartment facility for senior members of the Kempton New Church. In his involvement with the Leaser Lake Heritage Foundation and the Kempton Lions Club, he worked on the funding and development of an accessible kayak “launcher,” a floating dock that allows one to move safely from a wheelchair into a kayak.
He is currently chair of the Albany Township Environmental Advisory Council and secretary of the Kempton Community Center’s board of directors. Tom enjoys biking, canoeing, woodworking, motorboat racing, and spending time with his wife Carla and their family of five children and seven grandchildren.