Jeanie Nelson, co-founder of The Land Trust for Tennessee, is a Vanderbilt alum who has devoted herself to the cause of protecting the natural beauty of Tennessee’s landscape. Click here to read the full story:

In 1999, Nelson and then-Nashville Mayor (now Governor) Phil Bredesen co-founded The Land Trust for Tennessee. Nelson had spent years involved in what she calls the “dirty side of the environmental movement,” volunteer lobbying for legislation that would force companies to clean up spoiled areas, campaigning to fix environmental problems, and feeling as though she were constantly in pitched battle with both industries and environmentalists. During the Clinton-Gore administration, she served as general counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. By the late ’90s she’d returned home to Nashville, bone-weary and ready to tackle the lovelier and permanent side of conservation.