Sarah
Sarah Walter

Planning & Design Manager

Penn Trails LLC

Carlisle, PA
United States

(717) 486-4455
[email protected]

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Sarah is a licensed Landscape Architect in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with prior experience in municipal planning and land conservation. Sarah provides project management services and leads project phases including master planning, GIS data acquisition, mapping, detail design, CAD, and cost estimation. Prior to joining Penn Trails, Sarah worked for over 6 years as a Senior Planner for Centre County, Pennsylvania, simultaneously administering the County Agricultural Land Preservation Program and serving as Executive Director for the Centre County Farmland Trust. She has coordinated documentation and placement of conservation easements for the Centre County Agricultural Land Preservation Program while working with Federal, State, County, Municipal, and non-profit stakeholders. Sarah’s experience also includes field work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Skill Snapshot

Trail Construction
None
Entry
Full
Expert
Trail Maintenance
None
Entry
Full
Expert
Project Preparation
None
Entry
Full
Expert
Project Planning & Design
None
Entry
Full
Expert
Project & Crew Management
None
Entry
Full
Expert
Program Admin & Leadership
None
Entry
Full
Expert

Industry Roles

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Detailed Skill Profile

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Upcoming Trainings

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Trainings I Provide

I offer trainings for the following skills:

  • Construction Specifications
  • Hand-Built Trail Construction
  • Trail Finishwork
  • Water Management/Drainage Features
  • Water Crossing Structures
  • Maintenance Specifications
  • Inventory & Assessment
  • Tread Maintenance - Hand tools
  • Tread Maintenance - Mechanized Equipment
  • Drainage Features/Water Management
  • Land Use Plan Alignment
  • Define Purpose and Need of Project
  • Corridor Planning
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Principles
  • Project Cost Estimation
  • Implementation Plan
  • Trail Specifications
  • Design
  • Trail Plans
  • Interpretation
  • Permitting
  • Universal Design/ADA Accessibility
  • Crew Management
  • Jobsite Safety
  • Jobsite Risk Management
  • Program Budgeting
  • Communications
  • Contract Administration
  • Inspections/Monitoring

Please contact me for more details on the trainings I offer.

Past Trainings

Shared Use Paths in Community Parks
Penn Trails LLC
Penn Trails LLC
Shared Use Paths in Community Parks

March 19 - 18, 2023

Hershey, Pennsylvania

With trail users growing and diversifying, and communities desiring more close to home trails, wider shared use/universally accessible trails might be needed to meet the demand and volume of these trail users (walkers, joggers, families with strollers, bikes, etc). This session will detail how to assess when you need a wider shared use path vs a narrower walkway, and go into analysis of the site, appropriate trail design and construction, and how to achieve universal accessibility.

Trail Permitting 101
Penn Trails LLC
Penn Trails LLC
Trail Permitting 101

April 29, 2022

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Basics of PA Department of Environmental Protection and County Conservation District permitting restrictions and processes related to trail design and construction.

Finding Your Way with Signage and Wayfinding
Penn Trails LLC
Penn Trails LLC
Finding Your Way with Signage and Wayfinding

March 18, 2022

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

WeConservePA Conference: From rugged backcountry trails to multiuse urban trail facilities, signage is a critical part of trail design. All pedestrians and hikers rely on some level of navigation to find their way along a given route, and the National Park Service points out that “signs are probably the quickest and easiest way to leave the trail user with a positive impression.” Aside from the navigational aspects of wayfinding on the trail, signage provides an opportunity to create a sense of place, enhancing the trail experience and reinforcing organizational identity and values. Through branding, signs can promote a cohesive experience, and allow for communication of important trail features, reinforcement of trail etiquette and regulations, and aid in decision-making for trail users. Their importance in overall planning and design cannot be underestimated, and yet so often trails lack adequate signage to allow trail users to determine where they are and where they want to go – let alone enhance their trail experience through meaningful interpretation. This workshop will outline the importance of signage, using signage to enhance the user experience and increase accessibility, content consideration for signage, and technical guidelines for signs – so you won’t feel lost while planning signage for your trails.

Promoting Economic Development Through Trails
Penn Trails LLC
Penn Trails LLC
Promoting Economic Development Through Trails

March 18, 2022

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Presented as part of the WeConservePA 2022 Conference: Trails can be meaningful places to experience nature, but they can also serve as tools to promote economic development and conservation. This workshop will explore the Fruit & Wine Trail, a local case study spearheaded by the Land Conservancy of Adams County to connect multiple working farms through an interactive (and delicious!) trail experience. Learn about the background, goals, and process of planning the trail from multiple perspectives and explore considerations for purposeful trail design that provides a unique recreational and customer experience. Considerations will touch on assessment of the trail environment, accessibility, and how to create a welcoming trail experience from the parking lot to the point of sale.

Cultivating Meaningful Inclusion Through Community Engagement
Penn Trails LLC
Penn Trails LLC
Cultivating Meaningful Inclusion Through Community Engagement

March 24, 2021

Is your conservation organization interested in deepening its community engagement? Many organizations understand that efforts to gather feedback about conservation projects are necessary, yet community engagement for such projects is often used to affirm existing assumptions rather than an opportunity to gain new perspectives. As a result, workshops and surveys often barely scrape the surface of meaningful inclusion and engagement. Such engagement efforts often ask the wrong questions and/or leave out large swaths of the community, resulting in feedback that is unintentionally biased and incomplete. That feedback then skews project and organizational strategies and results in projects that perpetuate the exclusion of marginalized communities in the conservation and outdoor sphere. This workshop will detail the community engagement process undertaken by the Penn Trails Team for the Sarah B. Foulke Friendship Trails Master Plan, including the targeted community engagement process designed by consultants Karen Strong and Judy Anderson (respectively of Strong Outcomes and Community Consultants). This process sought to go beyond typical community engagement efforts to include input of non-traditional, or potential trail user communities, to gather input for a trail system that would address issues of inclusion and access. Learn about the values that established the project design, the methods of listening more deeply, and how they integrated the feedback into trail designs and the final master plan. This workshop will also explore limitations and lessons learned to allow your land trust to explore what is appropriate for you.

Member since Jul 2022
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