NWALT Welcomes Lauren Embree and Ammen Jordan to Our Team!

The land trust staff is growing! We’re excited to welcome two new staff members to our team:

Lauren Embree serves as our Communications and Membership Manager, bringing more than a decade of nonprofit experience to the position. Lauren grew up on the shores of Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, fostering her love for the outdoors at an early age. Upon graduating from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs, she moved to Fayetteville in 2003 to pursue a B.A. in Communication from the University of Arkansas. She has spent the last decade serving the nonprofit community in various roles, most recently as Executive Director of NWA Creative Arts Network. Lauren is very active in our creative community, having founded many endeavors including Lauren Embree Jewelry, the performing arts festival Last Night Fayetteville, the Creative Exchange Conference, and the performance venue Stage Eighteen located in downtown Fayetteville. She enjoys traveling with her husband David and daughter Lillian, and is most at home near the water, whether the lake, river or ocean.

Ammen Jordan serves as the Campaign Manager for the NWA Land Trust with leadership over several key initiatives including the plan to protect 5,000 acres in three years. Ammen was born and raised in Fayetteville, sharpened his teeth kayaking the headwaters of Ozarks, and graduated from the University of Arkansas with Bachelor of Science in Earth Science. After college,  Ammen traveled extensively as a teacher and coach for junior olympic kayak athletes. Ammen’s lifelong connection to the outdoors developed into a successful marketing consultancy for a number of brands, and resulted in a film project that won five national awards in 2005. Subsequently, Ammen turned his sights on the business world, looking for ways to promote the concept of, and boost businesses with, triple bottom line principles: profit, people, and planet. He spent a decade on this track before returning to NWA to raise his family.  Along the way he served as an investment manager, founded impact investing groups, managed investment funds, and advised institutional foundations and international non-governmental organizations. Most recently Ammen served as the Director of Development for the City of Ruston, Louisiana with leadership over several key quality of life initiatives including city-wide active transportation infrastructure, historic building preservation, urban farming, and recycling. Ammen moved back to Fayetteville to raise his family in 2017 and lives in his childhood home near Wilson Park.

For more information about NWALT staff, visit our Staff Page.