The Chesapeake Bay Trust, one of the region’s largest environmental grantmakers and a longtime funder of watershed and conservation projects across Southern Maryland, announced this week that President Dr. Jana Davis will retire after more than two decades leading the organization, handing the role to longtime Bay Trust executive Kacey Wetzel.
Davis’s retirement takes effect Sept. 18, according to the July 30 announcement from the Annapolis-based nonprofit. Under her leadership, the Bay Trust’s annual grantmaking grew from $2.4 million in 2005 to $39.8 million last year, pushing the organization past $250 million in total grant awards since its founding. Bay Trust-funded projects have collectively planted more than 9.6 million trees and native plants, removed over 14.4 million pounds of litter, including plastics, and engaged more than 3.4 million students, teachers and volunteers across the Chesapeake Bay, Coastal Bays and Youghiogheny River watersheds.
“The Chesapeake Bay Trust understands that meaningful environmental change happens when people are empowered to lead and sustain projects they dream up for their own communities,” Davis said in a statement. “It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve alongside such an extraordinary staff, Board, partners, and grantees to support our local communities and protect our shared natural resources.”
Davis, a marine scientist by training who specialized in shoreline habitat ecology, oversaw the redesign of Maryland’s “Protect the Chesapeake & Coastal Bays” license plate, which helps fund the Trust’s grant programs, and the opening of the organization’s net-zero green headquarters in Annapolis. She will remain involved with the organization in a part-time capacity as senior science policy advisor, contributing science synthesis work to the Bay Trust’s Pooled Monitoring Restoration Research Initiative. Alexander Núñez, chair of the Bay Trust’s Board of Trustees, credited Davis with building the organization “into one of the nation’s leading environmental grantmaking organizations.”
Wetzel, who has spent 18 years at the Bay Trust and most recently served as vice president of outreach and education programs, will succeed Davis as president. Núñez said the board selected Wetzel based on her “forward-thinking approach, proven leadership, consistently high level of performance, and unwavering commitment to our mission.” Wetzel has built a national reputation in community-based social marketing and helped develop the Bay Trust’s Capacity Building Initiative with Chesapeake Bay Funders Network partners, along with the Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps Program. She is a member of the Leadership Maryland Class of 2025 and was named one of the Daily Record’s 100 Leading Women in 2017.
“Having served this organization since 2007, I am honored to step into the role of President and lead us into our next chapter,” Wetzel said in the announcement. “I take the helm with immense gratitude, a deep sense of responsibility, and an energized commitment to advancing socio-environmental strategy as we carry out our mission of empowering people to restore nature.”
The leadership transition comes as the Bay Trust continues to play a significant role in funding conservation work across Southern Maryland. The organization has partnered directly with Charles County since 2015 through its Outreach and Restoration Grant Program, funding stormwater management, stream and wetland restoration, and public education projects, and separately administers a Charles County Tree Planting program offering up to $20,000 per project for reforestation efforts. The Bay Trust also administers the statewide Keep Maryland Beautiful grant program on behalf of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, which this year funded cleanup, tree-planting and land-trust capacity projects in Calvert and Charles counties, including support for the American Chestnut Land Trust’s forest and wetland preservation work. Local watershed groups such as the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association have also drawn on Bay Trust funding for water-quality monitoring and habitat restoration efforts in St. Mary’s County.
The Bay Trust funds roughly 400 community organizations, schools, homeowners’ associations, faith-based groups and other nonprofits each year through grants and technical assistance for environmental education, community outreach and local watershed restoration. The organization draws its funding from license plate sales, a checkoff on Maryland’s state income tax form, donations from hunters, fishers and boaters through the state’s online licensing system, individual and corporate gifts, and partnerships with private foundations and government agencies at the federal, state and local level. The Bay Trust has maintained Charity Navigator’s highest rating for more than two decades, with the organization saying an average of 90 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to programs.
