Jay Westervelt

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Jay Westervelt (b.1962, freq. spelled Westerveld and Westerveldt, see references) is a Suburban NY educational environmentalist known for his research and preservation of habitat generally associated with endangered species, specifically the Bog turtle and the Northern Cricket Frog. Westervelt is noted for successful preservation efforts in suburban Orange County, New York, the State's fastest-developing county.

Westervelt began environmental advocacy in the 1970s, having discovered several previously unrecorded populations of endangered biota. Seeing uncontrolled real estate development as the primary vector for biotic extirpation in the New York metropolitan region, Westervelt began decades of field studies, surveying potential metropolitan populations of endangered species, in order to preserve critical habitat. A prolific lecturer, Westervelt is generally credited with coining several contemporary environmental neologisms.

Westervelt is noted for founding the New York State Education Department-incorporated Sugar Loaf Historical Society ^[1], ^[2], ^[3] as a vehicle by which to enact both cultural and natural history preservation and education. In 2007, he helped to found the not-for-profit Glenmere Conservation Coalition, ^[4] an educational organization developed by several local, state and national organizations to preserve the Glenmere Reservoir ^[5], which hosts NY's largest and virtually-last population of the endangered Northern Cricket Frog.

An avid snowboard educational professional, Westervelt (Westerveld) founded and directed North America's largest snowboard school^[6] in the mid 1980s. Winter seasons were spent pursuing his professional snowboard career in both North America and Europe. Westervelt competed in alpine snowboard disciplines, with mixed results. His strongest results were in the Super-G and Downhill events, with much of his competition occurring on European circuits. Westervelt also trained with the World-Cup Cross-M snowboard team. After retiring from alpine racing, Westervelt returned to snow sports education.