HNP Announces Executive Director Brandon Hough!
We couldn't be happier to announce the appointment of Brandon Hough as HNP's first executive director. When we launched HNP in 2021, we knew we had to succeed rapidly, and we are well on our way! We are a viable grassroots movement thanks to your support and enthusiasm, your getting on the MAP, and your motivating others to do the same.
Now it's time to take HNP to its next phase, ramping up awareness and engagement with the urgency and energy necessary to restore habitat and regenerate biodiversity - one person at a time.
We are thrilled to introduce you to Brandon, who will take the lead in realizing our mission.
Doug and Michelle
Co-founders
Press Release
Homegrown National Park (HNP) is delighted to announce the appointment of Brandon Hough, an experienced nonprofit leader, and ardent conservationist, as its first Executive Director. HNP co-founder Michelle Alfandari said, “HNP’s board of directors is thrilled to welcome Brandon to the most ambitious effort ever to regenerate biodiversity. With habitat loss accelerating, insect and bird populations declining, and ecosystem services threatened, our work is more important than ever. Brandon’s appointment allows HNP to transition from a volunteer-led organization to one with dedicated staff that will enable us to address the biodiversity crisis with the necessary urgency.”
HNP’s co-founder Doug Tallamy, the TA Baker Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware’s Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, said: “HNP is an urgent call for people everywhere to fight biodiversity loss by favoring the native landscape plants that run ecosystems and removing the ones that don’t. It is urgent because humans depend entirely on natural systems, and the organisms that make those systems work are disappearing. It is a call to action because the very people who have the power, the ability, and the opportunity to save biodiversity - that is, individual homeowners, property owners, land managers, farmers, and anyone with some soil to plant in - don’t know that. We at HNP hope to spread this vital message as fast and far as possible. And Brandon is the perfect person to do that.”
Brandon said, “I could not be more excited to join the team at HNP. They have established a viable and easily accessible science-based grassroots movement to help solve the biodiversity crisis. I believe my non-profit experience, entrepreneurial spirit, and passion for the mission will help HNP grow exponentially.”
Before joining Homegrown National Park, Brandon was a major gifts officer at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, served as a contracting officer in the U.S. Air Force, and directed the U.S. Air Force Marathon. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a Master of Education in Sports Administration from Xavier University, and a Master of Public Affairs in Nonprofit Management from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Brandon resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with his wife, Ashley Hough, Ph.D., and their son.
Brandon was not always a nature and native plant lover. In fact, in the early months of dating Ashley, he declined an offer to join her on a camping trip so that he could stay home and play video games. However, with time and perseverance, Ashley got him off the couch and out into nature. Brandon said, “Eventually, nature became a love affair and led me to an MPA program at the top environmental policy & nonprofit management school in the U.S. Through this program, my desire to learn more about nature took on a life of its own. Then, I checked out a copy of Professor Tallamy’s book, Nature’s Best Hope, and I became a complete convert. I removed all the invasive plants from our two-acre property (and our neighbor’s property), planted a half-acre native prairie, and added over 100 native shrubs and trees, enough to hit the goal I set on HNP’s interactive MAP back in 2021. So, you can imagine my elation at the announcement of HNP’s search for an ED, given it is at the crossroads of a career’s worth of skills and my deepest held passions.”
Brandon added: “I refuse to envision a world in which my son cannot see, know, and love the creatures I have had the privilege to see. To rob him and all those who will come after us of those opportunities is to do a grave injustice to future generations. As the saying goes, we did not inherit the planet from our ancestors; we have borrowed it from our children. Now is the time to empower every individual to take the necessary steps to start a new HABITAT® where they live, work, learn, play, and pray. Ensuring that we and future generations support food webs, have cleaner air, cleaner water, and capture more carbon – nature’s services we all need to survive.”
