Kelly Omand: Bringing conservation home

AMC Outdoors, May 2004

By Katharine Wroth

A few years ago, Kelly Omand wore out four pairs of hiking boots in 13 months. An Appalachian Trail thru-hiker? Not quite. The New Hampshire Chapter member’s foot feat took place at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where she volunteered on an invasive-species monitoring program after college. Her daily hikes ranged from beaches to cloud-tree forests to the slopes of Mauna Loa, she says, noting that in some places treading on lava felt like walking on broken glass.

Now back in her home state of New Hampshire, Omand continues to find outlets for her lifelong interest in the outdoors. A hiker, kayaker, and snowshoer who grew up in Strafford and joined AMC in high school, she became more involved with the club after returning from Hawaii in 1999. “I volunteered, got to know the chapter, and made new friends, and I got a lot out of it,” she says. In fact, Omand, 30, credits her membership with motivating her to take the next step in her outdoor education: This fall, she will pursue a master’s degree in conservation biology at Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, N.H.

Currently working her family’s machine shop, Omand hopes her degree will lead to a position at a conservation-oriented nonprofit. Meanwhile, she stays active with the AMC, co-chairing the chapter’s Young Members committee with Eric Savage. “What we really want to do is get more young people involved in AMC, learning skills, volunteering, and having fun,” she says. She has organized members to attend hearings on the White Mountain National Forest plan and wants to sign up willing hands for trailwork and AMC’s Visibility Volunteer program, which monitors air quality. “We’re hoping people get drawn into volunteering and stay with AMC for a while,” she says. “There are a lot of conservation issues here that need to be addressed.”

This spring, Omand is taking the chapter’s leadership training program; with those skills, she intends to lead reflective hikes to help people connect with the outdoors. A continent away from tropical terrain, she’s well on her way to wearing out her next pair of boots.

— Katharine Wroth is co-editor of AMC Outdoors.