ALLISON DEFOOR

PRESIDENT & CEO, NORTH FLORIDA LAND TRUST, JACKSONVILLE

Over the past 25 years, North Florida Land Trust has protected 40,000 acres, conserving it for future generations, including uses for traditional agriculture and open space. In the face of rapid development, “we are exploding our efforts,” says DeFoor, who served as Everglades Czar to Jeb Bush and co-chaired Amendment 1, the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative approved by voters in 2014. He was named interim CEO of NFLT in 2022 and became permanent CEO in 2023. Since he took the helm of the organization, it has doubled in size — it now has a staff of 18 — and conserved more than 7,500 acres. He’s led successful efforts to secure more than $500 million in conservation funding from private, federal, state and local sources.

EDUCATION: University of South Florida (BA, MA), Stetson University (JD), South Florida Center for Theological Studies (D.Min.)

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: Control is a dangerous delusion. Trust the Higher Power of your own finding, surrender to it and find that flow, and the results will exponentially exceed even your wildest dreams.

READING: Breathing Under Water, by Richard Rohr (and his Falling Upward in a crisis and The Naked Now for advanced work)

MOTIVATIONAL MANTRA: Now or never!

IF I WERE GOVERNOR
“First, I would fix Florida’s deplorably broken prison system, which keeps us neither physically nor financially safe. Next, I would accelerate the pace of land conservation in partnership with private landowners in the face of our rapid growth.”