Dr. Brent Bailey

As Executive Director of WVLT, Dr. Brent Bailey works with the staff team to identify priorities and implement strategies that accelerate conservation momentum and impacts around the state. He answers to the WVLT Board of Directors, which oversees the organization’s direction, policies, and finances, and he allocates a portion of his time to fundraising to keep WVLT thriving.

A native of Parkersburg, Brent has devoted his career to outdoor education and conservation of natural resources. For almost two decades, he worked internationally in more than a dozen countries on projects ranging from migratory bird conservation to organizing scientific explorations of remote Latin American tropical forests, to national park development in West Africa. Moving to U.S.-based work with The Mountain Institute, he led a regional conservation, education, and community development program.

Brent studied biology and French at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, completed a Masters in Environmental Studies at Yale, and holds a Ph.D. in Forest Resources Science from WVU.

For the last 30 years, he and his wife have raised their daughters, dogs, and gardens in Morgantown, all while enjoying the diverse offerings of a university town. Dogs and gardens still occupy his spare time, as do birdwatching, bread baking, hiking, obsessive news consumption, and excessive coffee consumption.