In September 2024 Elizabeth (Liz) Wheeler retired from the Jefferson County Farmland Protection Board after serving as its director for 13 years and 7 months. During her service she added 33 conservation easements with 4,676 acres to the program, with another 700 acres underway. As of 2024, the Board holds 59 protected properties with 6,846 acres.

Prior to working for the Board, Liz’s career paths spanned diverse culinary ventures, cookbook production and food writing, and special event production. In Connecticut, she worked from 1992-2006 in non-profit programs in sustainable agriculture, community food security, and as the development director for the Connecticut Farmland Trust.

Her ties to Jefferson County began in 1976 when she was the first chef for the Yellow Brick Bank restaurant in Shepherdstown, where she fell in love with Shenandoah Valley’s beautiful landscape. After returning in 2006 she organized food for conferences for environmental organizations and worked on arts and cultural projects.

Elizabeth has kept a garden wherever she has lived and today grows vegetables, flowers, raspberries, and figs in her home garden and in a big plot outside of town.