Craig Anderson

Craig Anderson (he/him/his) joined LandPaths in 1997 as it was forming to manage a new state park addition at the headwaters of Santa Rosa Creek. As Executive Director, he leads nature preserve acquisitions, assists with ‘new routes’ connecting LandPaths’ preserves by trail through its TrekSonoma initiative, and serves as a liaison with other nonprofit and public agency heads.  

The son of a landscape architect and an art history tutor, Craig supported his college study through summer painting and carpentry jobs in Southern California, and rafting and mountaineering schools across the western states. He holds an M.S. in Range Ecology from UC Berkeley, a Life Science teaching credential from UC Santa Barbara, and a B.S. from Principia College. 

Craig was profoundly influenced by nature as a child and found solace in the fire roads crossing the Santa Monica Mountains and, starting in his teens, California’s Coast Range and Sierra Nevada. He is a student of both music and life sciences, co-leading science-focused semester programs in New Zealand, the Caribbean, and in the Colorado Rockies. 

Following shoestring-budget surfing and “mountaineering lite”  travels in Asia and Central and South America, Craig worked for Nature Bridge in Yosemite, The Nature Conservancy, University of California Berkeley, and the Ojai Valley and Thacher Schools. In 2014, Craig was honored as Bay Nature Magazine’s Local Hero for Conservation. 

He has worked at “re-wilding” himself as an aspiring front-yard farmer, kayak fisherman, musician, hunter and father.  Craig believes he must “pay his rent to nature” as he follows in the footsteps of north coast ancestors dating to the 1860s.