Greetings Folks! My name is Dave Saville, I’m a Research Associate working at Wheeling Jesuit University in the Biology Department where I’m helping out Dr. Ben Stout with the 3RQ water quality monitoring program. I am also the Red Spruce Ecosystem Restoration Program Coordinator for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.
I grew up on a farm not too far from Buffalo, NY, and came to Morgantown to attend WVU where I earned two degrees. A BS degree in Resource Economics was followed by a MS degree from the Division of Forestry in 1994. While in grad school, I organized the first Appalachian Rivers and Watershed Symposium, held at the WVU Mountainlair in June 1994. This event included a 3 day program with over 100 presenters and was attended by over 300 resource professionals and researchers. During my recent 4-year tenure as Outreach Coordinator at the West Virginia Water Research Institute, I organized numerous conferences and events, including the annual West Virginia Water Conferences.
As a conservationist, I spent nearly a decade as the Administrator of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, one of the state’s largest and oldest conservation organizations. I also led the successful decade-long effort to protect nearly 40,000 acres of the Monongahela National Forest as Wilderness under the federal Wild Monongahela Act passed by congress and signed into law in 2009 by President Barak Obama. This landmark piece of bipartisan legislation was cosponsored and supported by West Virginia’s entire Congressional delegation. I am currently active with the Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (CASRI) which is a partnership of diverse interests with a common goal of restoring historic red spruce-northern hardwood ecosystems across the high elevation landscapes of Central Appalachia. I’m a life-long horticulturist and an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hiking, botanizing, skiing, and whitewater paddling. Montani Semper Liberi!