Bridging the Data Gap for a Resilient Seacoast.
We combine open-source “Lean Science” with rigorous federal protocols to protect New Hampshire’s tidal rivers.
Defensible Science: Our Data Quality Commitment
At HMS Stewards, we believe that for data to drive action, it must first be beyond reproach. Our water-sampling drone, the HMS ‘Ghost’, is being engineered to meet federal Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) standards.
By aligning our “Lean Science” methods with EPA-recognized protocols, we ensure that every data point—from pH levels to dissolved oxygen—is scientifically defensible. This commitment allows our partners in government and industry to integrate HMS findings into their long-term resilience and conservation planning with total confidence.
Agile Monitoring
We use high-mobility vessels like the R/V HMS Buttercup and our custom HMS ‘Ghost’ to reach headwaters that traditional monitoring ignores.
Open-Source Innovation
By utilizing open-source hardware and software, we provide high-resolution data at a fraction of the traditional cost.
Community-Led
We believe the best stewards of the water are the people who live on it. Our 2027 curriculum will empower citizen scientists to contribute to our “Ground Truth” mapping.
“HMS Stewards started with a simple observation: our local rivers are changing faster than our data can keep up with. By leveraging my background in geology and an $18,000 seed investment, I launched HMS to ensure the Seacoast has the tools it needs to protect its future.”
The Architects of Ecological Literacy
Our leadership team represents a unique intersection of scientific rigor, operational excellence, and community mobilization. We are bridging the gap between mountain headwaters and marine health through data-driven stewardship.
Kate B.
Chairman of the Board & Co-Founder
“Meaningful change in our environment requires the synergy of diverse stakeholders working toward a common, data-driven goal.”
Kate leads consortium building and institutional strategy at HMS, bringing decades of experience resolving organizational gridlock across higher education, state agencies, and enterprise supply chains.
Executive Track Record & Impact:
- Institutional Leadership: Former Director of Graduate Programs at Tufts University and Academic Affairs Lead at Miami Dade College.
- Quality Management: Contributed to the Texas Instruments team awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award—the highest U.S. presidential honor for performance excellence.
- Consortium Architecture: Built multi-million-dollar supplier consortia for Motorola and Xerox; leverages this framework to align municipalities, researchers, and landowners into a unified watershed network.
- Governance & Compliance: Oversees accreditation standards, legislative funding strategy, and regulatory accountability across all HMS initiatives.
Kate bridges competing public and private interests through verified data, transforming scientific findings into actionable municipal policy and regional resilience.
Steve H.
Charter Board Member & Director of Field Operations
“A resilient Seacoast requires a deep, generational passion for all of New Hampshire’s waters.”
Steve drives the operational and technical backbone of HMS, combining 25+ years of enterprise tech management with state cartography expertise and deep local maritime knowledge.
Executive Track Record & Impact:
- Geospatial & Systems Experience: Former Cartographer for the State of New Hampshire; 25+ years managing enterprise tech systems at Amadeus.
- Precision Sampling Strategy: Maps critical sampling points from the Lamprey River headwaters to Great Bay, targeting peak tidal rhythms and hotspots.
- Mobile Lab & Fleet Ops: Directs “Source-to-Sea” field deployments aboard the R/V HMS Buttercup, ensuring data pipelines meet state-level standards.
- Maritime Field Expertise: Decades of local coastal navigation and boating experience driving safe, efficient field operations.
Steve replaces random sampling with targeted geospatial strategy, ensuring every HMS data point delivers direct scientific and municipal value.
Rob S.
Director of Systems & Innovation
“Innovation serves its highest purpose when it strengthens the community and protects the places we call home.”
Rob leads systems architecture and hardware innovation at HMS, combining 30+ years of enterprise software engineering, cloud architecture, and community mentorship.
Technical Track Record & Impact:
- Enterprise Architecture: Global Solutions Architect at Amadeus Hospitality (C#, Azure, CI/CD); former 12-year Senior Systems Consultant architecting corporate applications at Unum.
- Marine Robotics & Hardware: Designs full-stack software and custom hardware integrations powering the telemetry for the HMS ‘Ghost’ marine drone.
- Academic & Community Foundation: Computer Science & Electrical Engineering degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI); former scout leader and avid Maine outdoorsman.
Rob bridges enterprise cloud infrastructure with custom marine hardware, ensuring HMS software and robotics deliver performant, reliable environmental data.lues.erformant, reliable environmental data.
Jerry M.
Director of Stewardship Technology
“Open-source technology ensures data belongs to the community protecting the water.”
Jerry leads digital infrastructure and open-source data transparency at HMS, leveraging 25+ years of enterprise systems administration for public-good tech.
Technical Track Record & Impact:
- Enterprise Systems: 25+ years at UNH specializing in Unix/Linux infrastructure, data resilience, and IT disaster recovery.
- Open-Source Architecture: Builds secure, public-facing data pipelines ensuring HMS telemetry remains stable and accessible.
- Public Governance: Holds an MPA, bridging complex technical architecture with municipal transparency and accessibility.
Jerry ensures HMS environmental data remains secure, transparent, and accessible to local communities for generations to come.tal data remains secure, open-source, and accessible to local communities and researchers for generations to come.
Steven G.
Director of Coastal Real Estate & Economic Stewardship
“Property values are directly tied to the health of our lakes and waterways—protecting our waters is protecting our home.”
Steven provides a market-grounded economic perspective to HMS, bringing 40+ years of real estate leadership to connect ecosystem health with waterfront property values and community resilience.
Executive Track Record & Impact:
- Real Estate Leadership: 30+ years as Owner & President of Curry Realtors; holds tri-state brokerage licensing (NH, ME, MA) with RE/MAX Shoreline across thousands of transactions.
- Economic & Market Strategy: Connects environmental protection directly to regional economic vitality, aligning landowners and real estate stakeholders with municipal conservation goals.
- Maritime & Field Knowledge: 40+ years navigating the Seacoast and Lake Winnipesaukee, bringing deep regional waterway familiarity to our “Source-to-Sea” mission.
Steven links ecological defense with long-term economic stability, ensuring coastal and lakefront property owners actively support regional watershed protection.
David Miller
Founder & Executive Director
“True stewardship isn’t just a sentiment; it’s the hard work of getting the right data into the right hands.”
David leads HMS Stewards, combining 30 years of enterprise tech architecture with a foundation in geosciences to move environmental protection from reactive paperwork to proactive, community-led defense.
Executive Track Record & Impact:
- Tech Architecture & Geoscience: Blends 30+ years in software and systems engineering with physical earth science to build high-resolution watershed data frameworks.
- Marine Robotics & Fleet Ops: Engineers the HMS ‘Ghost’ shallow-draft marine drone and commands the R/V HMS Buttercup for precision estuarine telemetry.
- Citizen Science & LMS: Architected the HMS digital academy and turnkey sampling kits, empowering residents to gather lab-grade shoreline data.
- Field Foundation & Rigor: 50-year avid boater, NAUI Divemaster, former firefighter/paramedic, and 1980 Canadian Olympic Fencing Team selection.
By equipping local communities with defensible data and turnkey tools, David is creating a permanent, first-line defense for regional waterways from mountain headwaters to the sea.
Your Watershed. Our Promise. Together in Action.
As the Board of Directors for Headwaters & Marine Stewards®, we pledge an unyielding commitment to this dual-force strategy. We ensure that every resource deployed directly fuels both sides of our mission:
- Empowering Your Voice: Equipping you with the gear and curriculum to upload verified, lab-grade data as a Certified Citizen Scientist.
- Executing Our Engineering: Deploying the HMS ‘Ghost‘ platform to log continuous 4K visual flight records and deep-column robotic telemetry where standard vessels fail.
From local shoreline observations to multi-depth robotic transects, we are moving the Seacoast from passive observation to defensive action—protecting our waters from Source to Sea.
David | Kate | Steve | Rob | Jerry | Steven
Board of Directors, Headwaters & Marine Stewards® (HMS Stewards)