About.
Rick Van de Poll, PhD
Dr. Rick Van de Poll provides quality inventories, assessments, and knowledge of our natural resources to promote biodiversity conservation in New England for the public and private sector. In 1988 he founded Ecosystem Management Consultants of New England, LLC and since then has inventoried over 350,000 acres. Dr. Van de Poll sets the standard with his innovative contributions to the environmental field and was the first to develop a PhD program in Natural Resource Inventory. Rick is highly influential with State and Federal agencies and his unparalleled expertise is sought after throughout New England and New York. He has appeared on TV, radio and as a keynote speaker on various ecological topics.
Who I Am.
More About Dr. Rick.
Dr. Rick Van de Poll is the principal of Ecosystem Management Consultants (EMC) of Sandwich, New Hampshire. Beginning in the mid-1980’s, his company was one of the first to perform natural resource inventories for the public and private sector of New England. With an emphasis on biodiversity conservation, EMC has conducted land assessments and completed management plans for local and state land trusts, state and federal agencies, municipalities, and private individuals. Dr. Van de Poll has completed field-based biological inventories on over 350,000 acres of land, including the Castle-in-the-Clouds Preserve in Moultonborough, the Hersey Mountain Preserve in Sanbornton and New Hampton, the Peirce Reservation in Stoddard, and the Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge in Errol. He has completed natural resource inventories in 78 municipalities in NH, 12 municipalities in VT, 12 municipalities in ME, 8 municipalities in MA, and 3 municipalities in NY.
During his natural resource inventory work, he has recorded over 1600 mushrooms in New Hampshire, including a number of undescribed species. After studying with Dr. Harry Thiers at San Francisco State University for 2 years, he taught Mycology at Antioch New England from 1985 to 2001, and then Mycology as an adjunct faculty at Plymouth State University from 2003 – 2007. As a mycology instructor, Rick has presented dozens of walks and workshops throughout New England for the past 30 years. In 1988, he co-founded the Monadnock Mushroom Club in the southwest part of the state, and in 2001 he founded the local Sandwich Area Mushroom (SAM) Club in the Lakes Region of NH.
In the field of land use development, Dr. Van de Poll has worked primarily in the field of wetland science. He is a state-certified wetland scientist and served on the NH Joint Board of Natural Scientists for two terms (10 years), including one term as Chairman. He is a founding member of the NH Association of Wetland Scientists (now the NH Association of Natural Resource Scientists), and served as Vice-President, Education & Research Committee Chair, and Wildlife Discipline Chair. He has worked on dozens of subdivision projects since 1990, and has provided mitigation and restoration plans for residential and commercial development, including five building projects for Wal-Mart.
Dr. Van de Poll has assisted a large number of municipalities with development projects from both the conservation side and the development side, and strives to seek a balance of appropriate “smart growth” types of development alongside suitable conservation initiatives. He has written zoning ordinances and master plan chapters for six municipalities on the subject of wetlands and water resources. Recently he co-authored the revised ‘Method for the Inventory and Evaluation of Freshwater Wetlands in New Hampshire’ (UNHCE & NHDES 2011). He is the past Chair the Conservation Commissions of Sandwich, NH and Sullivan, NH. He also served two terms on the Board of the NH Association of Conservation Commissions.