Lori Olson, Executive Director

Lori Olson has served as the Executive Director of the Texas Land Trust Council since July of 2011, working to strengthen the coalition of land and water conservation organizations working across the Texas. In her work with the Council, Lori engages in state and federal advocacy, strategic outreach, and research projects that promote the many benefits of conservation. She offers counsel, training, and technical assistance, and hosts the annual Texas Land Conservation Conference.  

Lori has over two decades of experience in the field of land conservation, working with land trusts in Oregon, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas.  She is the former Executive Director of the Eno River Association, a land trust located in Durham, NC. She also served for several years as a project manager for The Trust for Public Land, focusing on Central Texas conservation projects with government agency partners including the Cities of Austin, San Marcos and San Antonio, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Travis and Hays Counties.  

A native Texan, Lori is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Biology, and a graduate of the University of Oregon with a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning, as well as a Master of Science degree in Public Affairs. She also completed her Certificate in Non-Profit Management at Duke University. She is an avid conservationist and lover of travel and the outdoors. Lori lives in the Texas Hill Country with her family.

Jim Bradbury- Chair

Jim Bradbury is an attorney with a private practice located in both Austin and Fort Worth, and focused on land, environmental, ag, and water policy issues facing Texas. Jim is a recognized authority on agricultural law as well as eminent domain. Mr. Bradbury also has significant experience in land use and the environmental aspects of hydraulic fracturing production, including surface use rights, eminent domain and pipelines. Jim has served as an advisor to the US Department of State regarding the regulation of unconventional energy production, including presentation to the governments of China, Argentina and South Africa. Mr. Bradbury is a proud adjunct Professor at Texas A&M Law School, where he teaches Ag Law, serves as a member of the Natural Resources Program, and taught a Special Projects course in Texas Eminent Domain Policy. He regularly testifies at the Texas Legislature on landowner rights and water issues as they affect Texas public policy and serves on the Board of the Texas Land Trust Council working to conserve the last best places in Texas. Mr. Bradbury received his B.S. degree from Texas A&M University and his J.D. degree from the University of Idaho.

Elisa Donovan- Chair-Elect

Elisa is the Vice President and General Counsel of the Coastal Prairie Conservancy, a land trust that protects over 33,000 acres of farms, ranches and natural areas in a nine-county region in Texas’ Mid to Upper Gulf Coast. Elisa leads strategic partnerships for regional grassland conservation and advocates for the protection of the coastal prairie, including through her role as a member of the San Jacinto River Regional Flood Planning Group during the development of Texas’ first flood plan. Elisa founded Nature’s Burial, Coastal Prairie Conservancy’s venture that established the first certified conservation burial grounds in Texas. Elisa received a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from Rice University and holds a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She practiced law for over 20 years handling business, real estate, and energy matters before redirecting her career to fulfill her longstanding passion for the protection of wildlife habitat, joining the Coastal Prairie Conservancy in 2017. Elisa enjoys cycling the backroads of Colorado County and spending time with her husband Barry and three sons on their family farm.

Clayton Ripley – Treasurer

Clayton Ripley, CPA, is an owner and CFO of TGM Wind Services/Kardie Equipment, a heavy equipment business headquartered in Austin, TX. Clayton is also the founder and managing director of the BGCP Entities, a group of companies engaged in real estate development and construction. For the past decade, Mr. Ripley has served as managing director of Town Lake Capital Management, an Austin-based registered investment advisor serving foundations, endowments and high net worth individuals. Mr. Ripley graduated from Baylor University with a degree in Accounting. He grew up in West Texas and currently resides in Austin, TX with his wife and kids, but spends much of his time at his family ranch in Llano County.

Allison Elder – Secretary

Allison Elder is the Director of Legal Services for the San Antonio River Authority (SARA). In this capacity she manages the legal needs of SARA and serves on the executive team. Her responsibilities include legal compliance in the areas of contracting, construction, environmental regulation, risk management and records retention. Her career has focused on private land conservation and historic preservation. Allison has a finance degree and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the River Authority, Allison was the Vice-President and General Counsel of the Texas Agricultural Land Trust, a statewide private land conservation organization. She has also served as a Senior Attorney at the law firm of Braun & Gresham, and as Executive Director of Green Spaces Alliance. She is the immediate past Chair of the Texas Land Trust Council and of Mission Heritage Partners, the official friends’ group for the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. She is a volunteer with the Mentor Circle Program at St Mary’s University School of Law. Allison was selected by the San Antonio Business Journal as an Outstanding Lawyer in the community in 2019. She was a member of the 2017 Leadership San Antonio Class 42. Allison and her husband Steve have been married for 32 years and have four children.

Craig Bonds

Craig is a 24-year veteran of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and currently serves as its Chief Operating Officer. Prior to July 2023, Craig served within the Inland Fisheries Division, including prior work as a fisheries biologist at various levels and locations throughout Texas, promoting to Austin as Division Director in 2015. He holds a B.S. from Texas A&M University, and a M.S. from Virginia Tech. Craig is a Certified Fisheries Professional with the American Fisheries Society (AFS). He has held numerous positions within that professional society, including President of both the Texas Chapter and Southern Division. Craig also serves as Board Chairman of the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, serves on the Texas A&M University’s Range, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management Department’s External Advisory Committee, and is the Executive Sponsor for TPWD’s R3 Plan, which is aimed at recruiting, retaining, and reactivating anglers, boaters, hunters, and target shooters in Texas. His passion for the outdoors was kindled as a youth while fishing and hunting on the family ranch in Bell County and continues those traditions on family land in Fayette and Bastrop counties.

Julia Murphy

Julia is adjunct faculty for Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.  She recently retired as the Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of San Antonio where she led climate policy and projects advancing energy efficiency, modern transportation, and natural resource protection and regeneration. Her signature projects included land conservation over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, implementing the first bike sharing system in Texas along the San Antonio River to connect the assets in the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, establishing the Hardberger Park Conservancy and coordinating preservation and adaptive reuse of the historic Herff Farm. Previously, Julia was the Executive Director of Green Spaces Alliance of South Texas, an urban land trust based in San Antonio, and she held multiple executive positions in corporate retail. In addition to the Texas Land Trust Council, Julia also serves on the advisory board of the Arboretum San Antonio .  She is a LEED Accredited Professional in Neighborhood Design and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

James Oliver

A lifelong rancher with more than 15 years of production ag lending experience, James Oliver brings a unique perspective to the TLTC Board of Directors. He got his start in production agriculture on his family’s South Texas cattle operation as a child, and he hasn’t looked back. With a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M Univerisity, James has a wealth of professional experience with the National Finance Credit Corporation, First State Bank of Uvalde, Bank One and its successor, JP Morgan Chase. He currently sits on the board of directors of Ozona National Bank, a regional community bank. James has been running a diversified commercial cattle, sheep, and goat operation on his wife’s family land in Crockett, Pecos, Val Verde, and Kinney counties for the past decade. He brings to the board his background in agriculture and finance, and his passion for helping landowners who wish to conserve and pass their land intact to the next generation.

Stephanie Prosser

Stephanie is a native Texan and has held a lifelong interest in land and nature which lead to a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Texas – San Antonio and a Master of Science in Biology from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. In 2008, she started her professional career as a Biologist with Bayou Land Conservancy in Houston, Texas. There she held a variety of titles including Conservation Director and Interim Executive Director. In 2016, Stephanie made a career switch to join her family surveying business, Medina Valley Surveys, located in Castroville, Texas, where she perpetuated her love of the outdoors with daily fieldwork. In 2020, Stephanie became a Registered Professional Land Surveyor and now specializes in Land Title Surveys for Conservation Easement properties. Since joining the family surveying business, she’s had the opportunity to work across Texas on many spectacular and challenging farms and ranches that are now permanently protected. Her heart is in the Texas countryside, and she enjoys nothing more than exploring and protecting it. In addition to joining the Texas Land Trust Council Board of Directors in 2023, she has held a position on the Green Spaces Alliance Lands Committee since 2017. In her downtime she enjoys her time outside with her husband Patrick, daughters, Lily and Mirabelle, and their many pets.

Suzanne Scott

Suzanne Scott joined the Nature Conservancy in Texas as the State Director in November 2020, after a 20-year career with the San Antonio River Authority serving as its General Manager for 13 years. In her current role, Scott establishes conservation strategy and public policy leadership to protect the state’s cherished landscapes and support ecology, economy, public health, and equity. Suzanne is a natural collaborator and is focused on promoting resilience through on the ground nature-based projects in rural and urban communities, while supporting the protection and restoration of connected and diverse habitats and ecosystems throughout Texas. A water policy expert, she has guided the development of successful programs to improve flood protection, water quality, habitat restoration, and increase public river access. In addition, Scott chaired the South-Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group and the Guadalupe and San Antonio Rivers Bay and Basin Area Stakeholder Group. She also led the first Interregional Planning Council, created by the Texas Water Development Board. Currently, she serves on the State Flood Planning Group for the San Antonio River Basin. Suzanne obtained her undergraduate degree from Texas Tech University and a Master of Science in Urban Administration from Trinity University. She lives in San Antonio with her family.

Todd Votteler

Todd is President of Collaborative Water Resolution and a partner with Four Worlds Consulting. He is Editor-in-Chief of both the Texas Water Journal and Texas+Water, and hosts the Talk+Water podcast. Votteler is a Fellow of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University and a Specialist at The University of Texas’s Austin Technology Incubator. Previously, Votteler was Executive Manager of Science, Intergovernmental Relations, and Policy at the Guadalupe–Blanco River Authority. Before that, he served as the Assistant to the Federal Court Monitor during Sierra Club v. Babbitt, and was appointed as the Federal Special Master for the Edwards Aquifer Endangered Species Act litigation, Sierra Club v. San Antonio. Todd is the founding Executive Director of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust and served as Chairman of the Guadalupe Basin Coalition. He also served as Chairman of the Texas Land Trust Council Board of Directors from 2011 to 2014. Votteler has a B.S. in Natural Resources from The University of the South, an M.S. in Natural Resources from The University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Geography from Texas State University.