The Virginia Piedmont is a breathtaking, historic landscape full of exceptional natural resources, productive farms and forests, and nearly a half-million conserved acres that support its ecosystems, local food supply and wildlife. The beauty of the Piedmont endures thanks to the intentional planning and careful work of many dedicated people and organizations. Here, we highlight three individuals protecting the region in a variety of ways.
Barry Buschow
Volunteer
By Ellie Young, Plantings for the Piedmont Assistant
Volunteers play a vital role not only in The Piedmont Environmental Council’s work, but in our local communities and lands as well. Whether planting trees, harvesting crops at our Community Farm, or monitoring kestrel boxes, PEC volunteers make the outcomes of our many programs possible. Barry Buschow, a seasoned member of the PEC tree planting volunteer program, is one of these dedicated individuals. Through his passion for conservation, learning, and community involvement, Barry demonstrates how one person’s impact can inspire others and create lasting effects.
As someone who enjoys volunteering and spending time outdoors, Barry began volunteering with PEC’s Plantings for the Piedmont program after moving to Boston, Virginia in Culpeper County from the city of Falls Church in 2016. Already a Master Naturalist, he said it was a “natural progression to come to an organization like PEC that does so much for the environment.” After planting scores of trees as a volunteer, in 2023 Barry worked with PEC to install a riparian buffer on his own property to promote healthy habitats and streams.
One thing that he values most about volunteering with PEC is the opportunity to meet new people and experience the beauty of Virginia’s landscape. “I’ve met a lot of great people volunteering with PEC… and you get to visit these astonishing places and see how beautiful Virginia is,” he said. The Virginia Piedmont is filled with unique lands, history and viewsheds, and volunteering is a gratifying way to experience them. Recently, Barry brought a couple of naturalist friends to a tree planting at Chancellor’s Rock Farm in Flint Hill, helping expand PEC’s network of volunteers. He also attended a tree planting in Hume this spring. His long-term goal is to plant more than 1,000 trees in his lifetime, and he’s close to achieving it!
Volunteers like Barry are essential to the outcomes of the work we do at PEC. Barry and other volunteers like him remind us that one person’s dedication can make a lasting impact. Volunteering opportunities at PEC are available in many different program areas, including the Virginia Grassland Bird Initiative, the Plantings for the Piedmont program, PEC’s Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows, tabling opportunities at local events, and many more!
Greg Pirio
Community Partner
By Emily Johnson, Land Use Field Representative – Loudoun County
Greg Pirio has lived in his Loudoun County home for 14 years. He’s also traveled the world as a respected communications strategist and journalist, appearing on international programs and publishing extensively on conflict issues. “I’ve always been involved my whole life in issues of social justice,” Greg told us. His commitment started early, growing up next to a California steel mill where children couldn’t always play outside and people died of asthma from the air pollution.
Then, just over a year ago, a gas-turbine power plant unexpectedly opened at a data center 150 yards from his Loudoun home. The power plant’s constant whine gives him headaches and drives away birds, while neighbors worry about the health effects from the plant’s exhaust. Greg quickly realized his community needed an advocate. “This is what I’ve been doing internationally, and now it’s right in my front yard.”
Greg estimates he has now given at least 25 interviews for media outlets like Smithsonian Magazine and BBC, as well as for other people on the frontlines of polluting data centers. “A lot of other communities and countries want to learn from the negative experience that we’re having here in Loudoun,” he says. Greg has also been a central community organizing force, hosting meetings at his home, starting a community group chat, and encouraging neighbors who are new to public speaking.
This is “kind of like a revitalization of democracy. Here people are speaking up, they’re learning how to find their voice and convey it to elected officials,” said Greg, adding that he’s met wonderful people through his organizing. It “is an incredible source of joy for me. We never talk partisan politics. We’re all concerned about community, about the environment, about our health.”
“Community is what we have,” Greg says. “We have to transform our anger into action, and that’s what people are doing.” Now called the Sterling Community Action group, Greg and his neighbors are speaking with officials, installing their own noise monitoring system, and continuing to garner media attention as the first Virginia community beside a gas-powered data center. He credits The Piedmont Environmental Council for getting the group started with initial community meetings and a recent air quality study, which “helped to galvanize a bunch of us,” he says. “And it keeps growing,” especially through social media, Greg reports.
Greg knows from both his professional experience and his advocacy here that “the human story of this is the most important part.”
“It’s not abstract,” he says. New power demands have real-life impacts for him and his neighbors. “This planning has to make sense for communities and the environment.”
George Grayson
PEC Legacy Donor & Board Member
By Liese Dart Hodges, Senior Strategy & Advancement Officer
Long before George Grayson’s first gift to The Piedmont Environmental Council in 1992, his path was shaped by a profound family legacy of conservation and community engagement. His parents, William Grayson and Janet Grayson Whitehouse, were both “very environmentally focused” and dedicated themselves to preserving open space, trails, parks and habitat across Virginia and the Washington, D.C. area.
“My father was an avid birder, heading the Audubon Naturalist Society for many years, and loved everything that was wild and natural,” George recalls. His mother was “very much a full partner in these efforts,” and after George’s father passed away in 1980, went on to lead a number of conservation organizations herself.
Growing up on his family’s farm in Fauquier County, George developed his own lifelong passion for the land while riding and jumping ponies across the open fields. “You just saw so much amazing countryside …there’s no better way to see it than from the back of a horse.” Remembering a childhood warning from an older friend — to enjoy the open land now because it would all be gone in 20 to 25 years — George said, “I honestly think she would have been right if not for PEC. People don’t realize that this conserved landscape is a result of engaged citizens, fighting over decades for the conservation and preservation of open space that benefits us all.”
Inspired by his parents’ example and determined to protect the landscape of his youth, George swiftly became an active steward of the environment in his adult years. He has dedicated himself to restoring grassland bird habitat on his farm alongside his partner Maria Tousimis with their advisor and friend, Fritz Reuter.
George has remained enamored with the stunning topography of Virginia and is passionate about seeing it protected. He joined the PEC Board of Directors in 2015, with a hope that people will recognize that the Piedmont we enjoy today didn’t happen by accident. “There’s a banner I see at some events… it says ‘Enjoy the view. It’s not a coincidence. Thank the stewards of the land.’ I like that message.”
As an investment advisor, George wants to see PEC remain a force in the region well into the future, long after he is gone. That desire has inspired him to become part of PEC’s Bill Backer Legacy Society. Named for the avid conservationist and former PEC president, this is a group of donors who have made the important decision to remember PEC in their estate planning. Legacy giving often provides a means for someone to make a donation that isn’t possible during one’s lifetime.
When asked how PEC shines, George notes PEC’s success in support of land conservation and its leadership in Richmond on state policy issues. But he also says “we need everybody,” and emphasizes how important it is that PEC maintains strong partnerships. “Collectively, we’ve now preserved over 440,000 acres as the result of a lot of work by many different organizations working together. To see the green on the map growing with easements, and to ensure we can defend the easements. That’s the core of why we are here.”
This article appeared in the 2026 summer edition of The Piedmont Environmental Council’s member newsletter, The Piedmont View. If you’d like to become a PEC member or renew your membership, please visit pecva.org/join.
