CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – The director of the Mount Washington Observatory is moving below treeline to become a vice president at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

Will Abbott becomes the Forest Society’s vice president for policy and land management. He will oversee the Forest Society’s public policy programs and direct the staff that manages more than 40,000 acres of forestland in more than 90 communities.

Abbott was executive director of the state Land Conservation Investment Program from 1988 to 1993 and executive director of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in Holderness from 1993 to 2003.