The visionary behind Tompkins Conservation, Douglas R. Tompkins (1943–2015) was a wilderness advocate, mountaineer and philanthropist. He nurtured a passion for nature through a lifetime of experiences as a climber and a whitewater kayaker, with first ascents and descents on multiple continents. As the founder of The North Face and co-founder of Esprit, he became a successful entrepreneur despite not having a university degree. In 1990, he moved to Patagonia seeking to fully devote himself to what he called, ‘paying rent for his time on the planet,’ working to protect remote rainforest where he was joined by Kris McDivitt. They soon married and joined forces for conservation. Using the sum of his business earnings, Doug funded environmental activism, designing large-scale and innovative conservation projects throughout the Southern Cone.

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Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, an American conservationist, and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. For three decades, she has committed to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, and fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation. Kristine served as Patron for Protected Areas for the UN Environmental Programme from 2018-2022. The recipient of numerous honors, she was the first conservationist to be awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and has given two TED talks.

Finance Director, USA

Debbie sits on the board of directors of Tompkins Conservation and is the finance director for all of the Tompkins family office, private, and philanthropic efforts. She began her career in public accounting as a C.P.A. specializing in taxation and was the chief financial officer of Esprit de Corp (founded by Doug Tompkins) for six years.

Director of Global Communications & Key Partnerships

Carolyn joined Tompkins Conservation after working as a travel journalist based in Latin America, where she witnessed in-person the rapid degradation of wild lands and loss of biodiversity and culture in areas as remote as the Darien Gap and Patagonia. She has contributed to over 50 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, including Trekking in the Patagonian Andes, and her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies. As a Fulbright fellow, she documented the legacy of pioneer culture in Chilean Patagonia.

Director of Administration and Strategic Initiatives

Sawyer graduated magna cum laude from the University of Florida, where she studied sustainability, ecology, ecophilosophy, art, and climatology. A former field research technician at the UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station, her introduction to non-profit administration came from interning at Blue Mountain Center, a justice-focused artist and conference center in Adirondack Park.

Controller, USA

Born and raised in San Francisco, Esther is a certified public accountant with a Master’s degree in Taxation. She worked with Doug at Esprit for many years and has worked on the Tompkins Conservation team for over 20 years.

Communications Coordinator

Heather joined Tompkins Conservation following multiple photo editing roles at National Geographic. Previously, she was a photojournalist at 13NewsNow and an Instagram News Fellow at the Denver Post. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Asian American Studies.

Social Media & Visual Storytelling

Beth Wald is a documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work explores human connections with land and nature, a passion that has taken her around the globe and far off the grid. She has thirty years’ experience photographing for a wide variety of publications, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, Outside and High Country News. Starting in the early 1990’s, she has made numerous trips to photograph and film Tompkins Conservation projects in Chile and Argentina.