Ed Hood is the first paid Executive Director of Opacum Land Trust, beginning in 2014 after 21 years of service at Old Sturbridge Village where he was Vice President. Ed trained as an historical archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he focused on historic land use and landscapes, including a study connecting land use by the English settlers of the Connecticut River Valley to changing land use patterns in England during the 17th Century.
He worked for the Green Mountain National Forest documenting historic sites and abandoned farms deep within the regrown forest. At Old Sturbridge Village he researched land use, historical archaeology, architecture, the Sturbridge Graphite Mine, and local Native American life in the 18th and 19th centuries.
His work as an archaeologist has provided him with close experience of how human activity has shaped, and continues to shape, the New England landscape. He is a resident of Hardwick, Massachusetts, and has a close familiarity of the history of central Massachusetts and a passion for the character of our region.