Abigail Ertel (she/her/hers)

Director of Community Engagement
Huron Pines
Gaylord, Michigan

Abigail focuses on bringing people together through facilitation, strategic planning, and education. She’s passionate about community engagement and building programs that actually stick. Abigail holds a Master's in Geography, her background spans conservation work from North Carolina to Michigan and she has worked for Huron Pines and Northeast Michigan's communities since 2010. As part of her role, Abigail coordinates the multi-national Lake Huron Forever iniative. Lake Huron Forever is focused on working directly with local leaders and elected officials to build capacity for natural resources and water quality protection using municipal planning tools and resources. Using a the Lake Huron Forever Pledge, Abigail and her partners from Michigan and Ontario are seeing local communities create their own vision for protecting Lake Huron and adopting realistic action road maps to complete projects, build partnerships and invest local resources in ensuring a healthy environment, economy and consituency. Originally from New Brunswick, Abby now calls Grayling, MI home. Outside of work, she’s usually reading, trail running, or onstage at the local community theater.

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Presentation(s):

• Destination Alpena: Planning for Lake Huron...Forever

  Tuesday, April 28, 2026
  10:15 AM - 11:00 AM CT