Ruth Babylon

Senior Conservation Specialist

Blacksburg Office

After 15 years in the horticulture industry, Ruth’s career path changed course in 1998 when she attended the inaugural meeting of Pathways for Radford, a community group whose goals included a plan to protect Wildwood Park, a peaceful, wooded refuge in the middle of town. At that meeting the group’s president passed a VOF brochure around the room asking for someone to investigate a thing called “conservation easements.” Within a few months, Ruth was volunteering for VOF; by 2003, she was working for VOF full time. A few years later, she took the lead on the easement that now protects Wildwood Park. Before joining VOF, Ruth moonlighted for 10 years as a freelance photographer, covering Virginia Tech and Radford athletics and working for a small daily newspaper. When she isn’t dreaming up a new travel destination, she loves reading, porch-sitting, and watching movies.