Board of Directors

Jeff MacKinney, Chair

Retired Consultant
Burke County

Jeff is a retired airline executive and senior advisor. He most recently served as a partner and senior advisor with Seabury Consulting, an aviation consultancy now part of Accenture. Prior to Seabury, Jeff served as president and member of the board of World Air Holdings, the parent company of two international charter airlines, where he was responsible for global operations, marketing and planning. Other assignments during his nearly 40-year career included serving as chief commercial officer of AirTran Airways and various leadership positions with American Airlines. Jeff holds a B.S. in Industrial Management from Purdue University and a M.B.A. from the University of Dallas. He and his wife reside on Lake James in Burke County where he enjoys golf, hiking and spending time with family.

Meg Nealon, Vice Chair

Landscape Architect/Land Use Planner
Catawba County

Meg is a community planner and landscape architect, and the founder of Nealon Planning, PLLC. For over 25 years, she has assisted clients with comprehensive land use planning projects, corridor studies, small area plans, open space and public realm master plans, and community design standards. She was previously employed by a nationally-recognized land planning and urban design firm based in Charlotte. She has served as a member of the N.C. Board of Landscape Architects (former Chair), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission, City of Charlotte Historic District Commission, the City of Hickory Appearance Commission, and the Deidra Lackey Memorial Park Conservancy Board. Meg graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture in 1991 and from UNC Chapel Hill with a Master of City and Regional Planning in 1998. Raised in South Florida, she has been a resident of North Carolina for almost 30 years and resides in Hickory with her husband, Brad Lail, and three stepdaughters.

Sallie Craig, Treasurer

Retired CPA
Cleveland County

Sallie Craig is a retired CPA who currently lives in Shelby, NC. She enjoyed a career of more than thirty years as founder and co-owner of Craig, Barry and Poston, P.A. Being a Girl Scout for many years, Sallie had a love and appreciation for the great outdoors instilled in her from a young age. These days, hiking is one of her favorite activities. She has two children, one granddaughter and is expecting the arrival of a grandson in May 2023.

Jim Goldsmith, Secretary

Attorney
McDowell County

Jim is an attorney from McDowell County and first came on the board of Foothills in 1997, the same year the South Mountain Coalition, Inc. changed its name to Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina. Jim’s outdoor interests include hiking and the identification of plants, fungi, mosses, liverworts, lichens, grasses and sedges.

Jen Billstrom

CPA, Systems Analyst, Controller
McDowell County

Jennifer Caldwell-Billstrom is an experienced finance professional and project manager, who currently serves as a Systems Manager at Kitsbow. She brings a wealth of volunteer and public service experience to Foothills Conservancy. In 2022, she served as the Co-Chair of the Better with Bonds Buncombe Votes Yes campaign which successfully advocated for $30 million to be used for land conservation, greenways, and trails. Currently she serves on the Buncombe County Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, the board of the Black Mountain Greenways & Trails Committee, and as the Treasurer of the Friends of the Fonta Flora State Trail. In her free time, Jennifer enjoys hiking and mountain biking across the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounding foothills of Western NC.

Nell Perry Bovender

Retired Nonprofit Director
Rutherford County

Nell Perry Bovender is the retired executive director of Rutherford Housing Partnership, a local nonprofit providing urgently needed repairs for low-income Rutherford County homeowners. Aligned with that organization is a group she manages, the Women Roofers, who have worked to improve housing primarily in the county but also around the Southeast for the last 20 years. A native of Eastern North Carolina, she moved west to marry a farmer who tends family land that has been farmed since King George III gave out land grants in 1769. Most of the acreage of that farm is now in a conservation easement maintained by Foothills Conservancy. They share this legacy with two children and two grandchildren.

Jim Sain

Retired NC Courts Administrator
McDowell County

Jim has lived in Western North Carolina since 1976. Recently, he and his wife Pam celebrated their forty-fifth wedding anniversary. When not walking in the woods with his dog Wagner, he enjoys reading obscure books and creating sawdust in his workshop. Having retired from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts in 2009 as an administrator with the Guardian ad Litem Program, he began in earnest the completion of an eight-year section hike of the entire Appalachian Trail. Long distance hiking gave him time to reflect on how quickly undeveloped land is being lost in this country and encouraged his interest in land conservation.

Alisha Stamey

Park Director for Alexander County
Alexander County

Alisha is a native of Alexander County and resides there now. She is the Park Director for Alexander County and has been employed there for twelve years. Prior to that, she worked for Catawba County Parks for several years. Alisha has a B.A. in Conservation of Natural Resources. She also was a previous licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator for NC where she took in orphaned wild animals, rehabilitated them and released them back into the wild. She and her husband are land owners in several different counties in NC and enjoy traveling, hiking, kayaking, camping, fishing, hunting, along with maintaining a small hobby farm. She also enjoys birding, botany, gardening and canning. Alisha is interested in conserving natural resources along with farmland preservation.

Jerry Stensland

Project Manager
Rutherford County

Jerry Stensland is an experienced park management professional, passionate outdoor enthusiast and advocate. In 2003, he co-founded the Rutherford Outdoor Coalition, a non-profit organization founded to promote and expand outdoor recreation in Rutherford County, and currently serves as Board President. Additionally, Jerry also serves on the Rutherford Community Health Council, the Chimney Rock State Park Advisory Committee, the Rutherford County Trails Collaborative, and the Conserving Carolina Southeast Advisory Council. He works as a project manager at Foothills Regional Commission working mostly on bike-ped and parks & recreation projects. This is his second time returning to the board of Foothills Conservancy.

Martha Whitfield

Retired Journalist
Burke County

Martha Whitfield, MA, previously worked as a journalist (Time-Life Books and The Charlotte Observer) and in private practice as an art therapist and studio artist. A former chair of Foothills Conservancy, Martha brings extensive board and organizational development experience, specializing in connecting people from diverse backgrounds. She served as co-chair of Charlotte NC’s Community Charter School, the board of Catawba Riverkeeper Association, as well as in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools. A North Carolina native, Martha loves nothing more than hiking in and protecting the beautiful foothills and mountains of her home state.