MEET OUR BOARD MEMBERS
Sharing the Land is guided by a dedicated team of conservationists, landowners, hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, and industry leaders who believe that conservation is strongest when people come together in service of the land. Our Board of Directors and leadership team bring a wide range of experiences and perspectives, but share a common commitment to stewardship, community, and creating meaningful connections.
If our mission resonates with you and you'd like to help expand opportunities for conservation, stewardship, and access, we invite you to support our work.
Doug Duren
Founder of Sharing the Land
Doug Duren is a hunter, farmer, land manager, and conservationist who is deeply inspired by Aldo Leopold and his Land Ethic. As the owner of Lone Oak Interests, LLC, Doug provides land management consulting services across Wisconsin and the Midwestern Driftless Area. He also manages the historic Duren Family Farm near Cazenovia, Wisconsin, a 120-year-old family property where he has been working and hunting for more than 45 years. He summarizes his conservation ethos with his guiding motto, “It’s Not Ours, It’s Just Our Turn,” reflecting his commitment to land stewardship for future generations. He has collaborated with numerous public and private conservation organizations on impactful projects and has been featured in various regional and national publications and on a wide array of conservation podcasts and programs. Doug founded Sharing the Land to connect property owners with access seekers in ways beneficial to both parties and the environment. He believes connections – between people and the land, and between people and other people – are at the heart of meaningful conservation. “I like hunting by myself,” Doug says. “I enjoy time in the woods by myself. But it’s a fuller experience when I get to share it with other people.” “The whole shared experience thing is so important to me,” he added. “I get so much out of it.” Doug has spent years sharing his own land. And through all that act he has seen firsthand how much everyone can benefit from “a coalition of conservation cooperators.” The idea that became the Sharing the Land initiative started when Doug was on a bike ride along Wisconsin’s Military Ridge Trail, which happens to course through the heart of the former Riley Game Cooperative, a work-for-access hunting collaboration founded by Aldo Leopold in 1931. Doug and his friends stopped at a local tavern and saw a modest kiosk highlighting Leopold’s connection to the area. It included a description of the cooperative. “I was dumbstruck,” he says. “I thought I knew everything about Leopold. I just thought it was such a cool idea.” Years passed, but Doug never forgot about the concept of trading habitat work for land access. Many landowners want to improve their property but don’t have the labor required to do it. Many outdoor enthusiasts lack places to hunt, fish, or forage. If they could just team up, both problems would be solved, and the entire ecosystem would benefit from it. So Doug asked himself and his conservation allies: “Is this an idea whose time has come again?” He spoke to his rural neighbors, to successful corporations whose customers love the outdoors, to hunters, biologists, and everyone in between. He talked to farmers who needed help and urban residents who wanted a way to access nature. They all agreed it was time to Share the Land in a new and innovative way. “Grassroots is how anything important happens, really,” he reflected. Doug loves music (he’s performed with Trampled by Turtles), history (he has a degree in it), and a good story (he tells them all the time). In addition to Aldo Leopold, he finds constant inspiration in his father, Vincent, who passed away in 2016 but whose own Land Ethic is still palpable in the woods and prairies that surround the family farm that serves as the hub for Sharing the Land. “When I was young, I didn’t ever really hear the term ‘conservation,’” Doug says. “It wasn’t something people just talked about’ it was something they did every day.” “There is so much beauty in conservation,” he adds. “There is science, but there’s also art.”
Lyndsey Braun
Co-Founder Sharing the Land
Lyndsey Braun is dedicated to engaging people with nature and inspiring them to work with the land rather than off it. As co-founder and Director of Operations for Sharing the Land, she fosters a deep appreciation for the outdoors by immersing others in experiences that connect them to the natural world. Born in Alaska, Lyndsey developed a profound connection to nature early on. After her time in Alaska, she settled on Vashon Island in Washington State’s Salish Sea. She tends to a small farm there while exploring foraging, hunting, preserving food, and finding new ways to care for the land. Lyndsey also writes for Savage Arms and collaborates with various conservation organizations. Her background and love for the land drive her work, encouraging others to create meaningful connections with nature and participate actively in conservation efforts. Lyndsey says when she met Doug Duren and the two started talking about Sharing the Land, “a lightbulb went off.” “I realized this is a key part of what conservation in the United States needs to be,” she says. She realized there is “a true hunger” for land access in many parts of the nation, and because most land in the United States is privately owned, any meaningful conversation about conservation should address both public and private properties, as species flow freely between the two. Plus, Lyndsey points out, many people who want to get involved don’t own enough land to hunt or fish. “You have to think about just how important private land access is,” she says. “So many people don’t have access because they don’t own land, or they don’t own enough land, and Sharing the Land opens everything up for those folks.” She says what she has seen since Sharing the Land’s formation has been inspiring. “You get to help bring a vision to life,” she says. “And then you get to be part of it. It’s about connection. It’s a private land access initiative and it connects people to the land.”
Steven Rinella
Founder of MeatEater
Steven Rinella is an outdoorsman, author, and the founder of MeatEater. He is the host of the television show and podcast MeatEater as well as The History Channel’s Hunting History with Steven Rinella. The author of more than a dozen books, many of them New York Times bestsellers, Rinella was born in Twin Lake, Michigan, and now lives in Montana with his wife and three kids. He is one of the United States’ most prominent outdoor storytellers and a champion for conservation, land access, and wild places. He jumped at the opportunity to support the nonprofit initiative and promote its unique approach to collaboration and conservation. “Doug and I have enjoyed a very long friendship,” he said. “We’ve had literally dozens of conversations on the subjects of land ethics and access. When Doug decided to create an organization that could help develop land ethics by creating access, I knew I had to support him.” He said the initiative should create more outdoor opportunities for Americans, and better habitat for wildlife. “By design, Sharing the Land encourages hunters and anglers to see the landscape as something more than a place where they might kill some game or catch some fish,” he said. “In exchange for the privilege of hunting or fishing, participants are asked to consider how they might improve upon the areas they visit. The organization combines, in a literal way, the acts of taking and giving.”
Beth Shimanski
Vice President of Marketing
Savage Arms and Bowtech Archery Brands
Beth Shimanski is the Vice President of Marketing for Savage Arms and the Pure Archery Group. She joined Savage in 2017, and since then her hunting passion has been ignited. She is now an avid hunter and shooter and loves tackling new challenges whenever they arise. She loves continual learning and creating content to help others, like herself, who want to be more active and comfortable in this space but are not always sure where to turn for advice. Raised in Hutchinson, Minnesota, Beth grew up being very active and spending time outdoors. Hiking, camping, and fishing are passions she still enjoys today. After being a three-sport athlete in Hutchinson, she followed her passion for swimming to the University of Minnesota. She stayed near swimming by coaching for 15 years at the collegiate and high school levels. Her love of helping others become better versions of themselves and helping them achieve things they once thought impossible was further cultivated while coaching. Beth earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sports Management from the University of Minnesota, a Master’s degree in Sports Administration from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and her MBA from Augsburg College. Prior to joining Savage, she spent a decade at Polaris Industries, where she fell in love with connecting her brands to people who also love the outdoors. When she joined Savage Arms, she took that same passion and applied it to the hunting and shooting sports communities. Today, Beth spends time with her family in the woods or on the waters of South Dakota. Hiking, hunting and exploring have become a huge part of her free-time and she enjoys seeing as much of our beautiful world as she can. “As a new hunter myself when I was first introduced to Doug and the idea of Sharing the Land, the daunting task of finding a place to hunt seemed overwhelming to me,” says Shimanski. “Learning how their program worked and the benefits it offered for both the Landowners and Access Seekers was a unique offering: The idea that the land is there as a resource for all of us, and that together we can provide the support it needs to flourish while reaping the benefits from it at the same time. It seemed like a win for landowners and hunters alike.” “Land is a valuable resource that needs to be seen as such,” Shimanski continued. “Sharing the Land focuses on working to protect and nurture the land, while also taking from the land in a controlled manner. The age-old phrase, “You get out what you put in” holds true to their model. Take care of the land. Plan for change and accept it. And be willing to put in work to reap rewards. Sharing the Land speaks volumes to how we should be looking at all lands and natural resources. I believe we need to be stewards of the land in our lifetime, so that others have the same or more opportunities than we do.” “I hope this organization finds ways to grow their reach in connecting landowners and access seekers,” Shimanski continues. “I want more people out working and using the land. I hope organizations and individuals alike see this as a way to gain valuable support for the land, while hopefully sustaining and growing recreation and hunting populations. Ultimately, I want landowners to feel they have the support they need to be good stewards of their land, while helping find them the support to do the work that is needed. And in those efforts, I hope Landowners and Access Seekers are educated about the value of the co-op initiative and the value it brings to all who are involved.”
Jared Larsen
Whitetail Marketing Manager at
onX Hunts
Jared Larsen was raised in Wisconsin as part of a family steeped in hunting. “I’ve experienced more opportunities to spend time afield with people close to me than I deserve,” he says. “Working at onX my entire professional career has opened my eyes to the number one problem most hunters face: Where can I hunt? Having been asked to be on the board for Sharing the Land is a blessing and opportunity to continue to answer that question for new and old hunters alike, and I couldn’t be more honored to be a part of such a beautiful solution.” “Private land access/ownership has always been a dream of mine and something I relish in when I’ve had the opportunity to hunt other folks’ dirt,” he says. “Combine that with nearly nine years of working at onX Hunt, and access and finding a way to positively impact that landscape for the greater hunting community is at the core of not only my personal life goals, but professional experience as well. Sharing the Land has created an incredibly unique opportunity for folks on both sides of the fence, particularly in portions of the country where publicly accessible ground is relatively limited. Landowners get the help and labor needed to maintain healthy, clean and sustainable ecosystems while Access Seekers much like myself have the opportunity to pour blood, sweat, and tears into dirt they can hunt to create lifelong memories on.” “The idea of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic focusing on humans being a part of the land community rather than simply users and takers of it is clearly central to the core of Sharing the Land,” Larsen says. “The principle of ‘earning’ access through work to improve the landscape, however any individual landowners deems desirable, embodies that ethic, placing Access Seekers squarely in a position of putting in and giving back before the consumptive aspect of the hunt. I couldn’t dream up a better tradeoff for any landowner bogged down with the labor-intensive efforts caring for and improving a piece of property requires for the greater good of the floral and fauna and hunting community.” Larsen believes the impact of Sharing the Land will be vast and meaningful. “Years down the road I believe the impact of Sharing the Land holds massive upside, not only to the landscapes it helps take care of but through the individuals that choose to participate,” he says. “As it stands today, hundreds of individuals have created core memories not only from hunts they have been able to enjoy, but from the community aspect of new lifelong friends and a connection to the land they may well have never had the opportunity to feel and experience. At the end of the day, for me, any given piece of dirt can be seen as a host of opportunities. Most of my greatest memories come from hunts, it’s not just the antlers on the wall or the freezer full of meat; it’s the shared experience with people that I love and care about. Sharing the Land amplifies this opportunity in an incredibly unique fashion.”