Roger Milliken, Jr., Chairman of the Board

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Roger Milliken, Jr.

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Roger Milliken, Jr. © Roger Milliken, Jr.

Roger Milliken, Jr.

Chairman of the Board

Brief Biography

Roger Milliken, Jr. was named chairman of The Nature Conservancy's board of directors in October 2008. Milliken has served on the Conservancy’s board of directors since 2000 and as the chair of its conservation committee from 2005-2008.

Milliken is also a trustee for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, a position he also held from 1996-2005. As a trustee for Maine, he co-chaired the successful For Maine Forever Campaign, which featured the protection of 185,000 acres along the St. John River. He also co-chaired the Katahdin Forest Campaign, which protected 295,000 acres.

Grounded in Forests

Milliken is president of the Baskahegan Company, which owns and manages 100,000 acres of forestland in eastern Maine. Baskahegan is a recognized leader in Maine’s forest products industry, known for its commitment to managing for timber while respecting the dynamics of natural systems. Baskahegan’s forest has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council since 2004.

Milliken also chairs the advisory board of the Manomet Forest Conservation Program and is an advisor to the Open Space Institute’s Northern Forest Protection Fund, a $12-million fund dedicated to conservation in the northern forests of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. From 1995 to 2004, he served on the board of the Land for Maine’s Future program for nine years, where he chaired the program's appraisal review committee.

From 1994 to 1999, Milliken co-founded and later chaired the Maine Forest Biodiversity Project, a 100+ person collaborative with representatives from the forest industry, academic community, environmental activists, sportsmen, conservationists and small landowners. The MFBP built understanding and commitment among these stakeholders to protect Maine’s natural communities. The participants later supported successful legislation to establish 100,000 acres of ecological reserve on state lands.

From 1986 to 1996, Milliken was the director of the Maine Forest Products Council (MFPC), which represents all facets of Maine’s forest industry-loggers, landowners, sawmills and paper mills. He chaired the MFPC from 1993-1995, where he built understanding between Maine’s forest products and environmental communities. His leadership resulted in the bipartisan passage of Maine’s Landmark Forest Practices Act.

Personal Information

Milliken is a 1975 graduate of Harvard University, where he received a B.A. cum laude in English. He also did graduate work in Sanskrit and Buddhist studies at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

Since 1992, Milliken has participated in and led wilderness rites of passage in the high desert of eastern California. He is author of “Forest for the Trees,” a privately published history of the Baskahegan watershed from pre-settlement times through 1982. He is currently writing a book about his lifelong exploration of right relationship with land.

He serves as a director of Milliken Enterprises, Inc. and Merimil Holdings LLC.

Milliken is married to Margot Wallach Milliken and is the father of two children, Max and Tara.