Executive Director

Michael C. Collins is the Executive Director of Conserv. He has an MP in Environmental and Land Use Planning from the University of Virginia School of Architecture and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Virginia Tech. In 1986, as a young science teacher, Mike started an environmental citizen’s group, Friends of Culpeper, with Piedmont Environmental Council Attorney Art Larson, to create a watershed management ordinance to protect the water supply watershed for the County. In 1988, working with Gordonsville Presbyterian Church Pastor Robert Whitehouse, he began the Gordonsville Housing Alliance, to remodel homes in an impoverished area of Town.

Also in 1990, he was hired as the first Environmental Planner for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District in Charlottesville, and was charged with creating an environmental program for the region. By 1997, the Planning District was known throughout the U.S. as one of 12 Case Study Communities of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, culminating in the Rivanna River Basin Roundtable and State of the Basin Report, the Interfaith Roundtable on Sustainability, and the Sustainability Accords of 1998, which have led to culture-changing sustainability initiatives throughout the region. For this, he received the 1998 Environmentalist of the Year Award from the Environmental Education Center in Charlottesville.

In 1998, he and his wife Anna, opened Healthy Home, LLC, a sustainable goods general store in Charlottesville, to provide sustainable or green construction goods. They sold the store to Norman Dill, a local natural food entrepreneur in 1999. In 2000, he began the Water Resources Planning Division for ENSAT Corporation. By 2002, working in partnership with environmental scientists and GIS technicians, and in particular Dr. Nick Evans, John Rice, Vincent Day, Mike Maloy, Vincent Dish, Andrew Carter, Mark Harper, and David Hirschman at Albemarle County, he co-authored award winning hydrogeologic and source water planning studies. Later that same year, as a response to drought conditions throughout much of the Commonwealth, and the increasing likelihood of dry holes being drilled by water well drilling companies, Mike and Nick Evans formed Virginia Groundwater, LLC, a science-based well drilling firm that continues today.

In 2004, as Co-Chairman of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan Committee, he was asked to create a Planning Department for the Town to create policies and codes to help the community cope with the 2004-2006 housing market. In four years, the Town of Orange completed its first CIP, Proffer Policy, Joint Proffer Policy, and an award winning Comprehensive Plan (Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association-2006),  received an award for Low Impact Development from the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District (Chairman’s Award, 2005), and has begun a series of initiatives that will transform the community development culture of the Town, including an overhaul of the zoning and subdivision ordinances to a partial “form-based code”, a stormwater master plan, the creation of a joint planning area with Orange County, and an historic resources assessment of neighborhoods surrounding the Downtown.

In September, Mike accepted a position with the City of Richmond Department of Community Development, where he will be managing the Comprehensive Planning and Preservation Division for the City, with a focus on urban design and possible implementation of a form-based code for the Downtown.