Jay leutze biography

Jay Erskine Leutze (pronounced Lootsy) was raised in Chapel Hill, NC, and lives in the Southern Appalachian mountains on the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Trained as an attorney, he has become a leading voice for state and federal conservation funding for investment in public lands.

He is a Trustee and Acquisition Specialist for Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, one of the nation’s most established land trusts. He is the author of Stand Up that Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail (Simon & Schuster, 2012). In the tradition of A Civil Action, it’s the compelling true story of a North Carolina outdoorsman who teams up with his Appalachian “mountain people” neighbors to save a treasured landscape from being destroyed.

He is a national spokesman for the Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition and has testified before Congress on the need for increased funding for publ