Following the recent departure of the Brandywine Conservancy‘s director, Ellen Ferretti, Associate Directors Stephanie Armpriester and Grant DeCosta were promoted to Acting Co-Directors of the organization based in Delaware County.

Stephanie has over 13 years’ experience in the non-profit, private and public sectors in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. She specializes in agricultural and conservation easement preparation, historic preservation, and land use planning. In her role at the Conservancy, she works with landowners to preserve their land in perpetuity. Stephanie also provides technical assistance to municipalities and other stakeholders to connect conservation to water quality improvement and assists them in creating innovative solutions to meet local and regional water quality goals. She holds a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation Planning from Cornell University.

Grant has over 16 years’ experience in conservation and environmental policy work in the non-profit, private, and public sectors. Mr. DeCosta specializes in land use planning, conservation, and implementation of land restoration projects for water quality improvement. In his role at the Conservancy, Grant works with landowners, municipalities, regulators and policy makers to provide a holistic approach to natural resource conservation and protection. He holds a B.S. in Forestry and Wildlife Science from Virginia Tech.

In addition to their dual leadership role overseeing the Conservancy’s operations, Stephanie leads the Brandywine’s work in easement stewardship and land conservation, while Grant supervises work in municipal assistance and land restoration with a focus on climate resiliency.