Meet Josh Hunter

My path to McIntyre Elder Law was far from straightforward. I grew up in Albemarle, North Carolina, a small town in the Piedmont. I always loved nature and the outdoors, especially wildlife. I remember shouting and stumbling along misty creek beds, gleefully pursuing salamanders and crawfish. I watched Animal Planet for countless hours, jaw agape, as Steve Erwin captured and hand-fed saltwater crocodiles. I even attended camp at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, where I got to see conservation projects behind the scenes and how meals were prepped for different species of animals. In fact, until you junior year of undergrad at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, I wanted to be a marine or wildlife biologist. However, my talents lie in the humanities and did not align with my lofty goals of a career in such a niche and competitive STEM field. 

Instead, I chose a degree in History, studying material culture and piecing together the history of marginalize groups. Given my gifts for reading and writing, I decided to attend law school and study environmental law to support wildlife conservation. While getting my Juris Doctorate from Elon University School of Law, I enrolled in a joint degree program with Vermont Law and Graduate School, attending summer classes in South Royalton, Vermont. I interned at the Vermont Natural Resources Council, where I helped draft and pass H.126, conserving 30% of Vermont by 2030 and 50% of Vermont by 2050. 

However, working in the environmental field can be incredibly draining, and morale was often diminished by the overwhelming task of saving countless species and the planet as a whole. 

As the final course in my master’s degree program, I externed at Catawba Lands Conservancy and got to hear the stories if land owners whose families had owned their land for generations. At one property, I got to walk across a beaver dam and hear multiple generations of hunting stories related to the property. Hearing about the landowner’s connection to their land inspired me to want to help families preserve their legacies.