Elected 2019. Re-elected 2021 & 2023

Day Job: Business operations at Texthouse, a Kelso-based copywriting and content marketing company.

Michael spent most of the last 25 years managing a local authority countryside visitor centre near Jedburgh, until leaving to join his partner’s business in 2019. The countryside centre also hosted the Scottish Borders Biological Records Centre and he played a key role in nurturing its development from 1996 until it became part of TWIC in 2007. The next twelve years continued the working relationship with TWIC through a series of SLAs focussed on biological recording activity in the Scottish Borders.

Michael has a science degree, a postgraduate qualification in countryside management and a more recent degree in business and enterprise. Practical conservation work parties and countryside rangering were a part of his working life until the mid-1990s when he returned to his home territory in the Borders.

He’s a committed wildlife recorder and feels privileged to meet so many wonderful and memorable individuals, both experts and enthusiasts, through excursions, meetings and training events.