The Honorable Tayloe Murphy served conservation in Virginia with distinction. A longtime member of the Northern Neck Land Conservancy, Tayloe served in the Virginia legislature for 18 years where he achieved a long list of accomplishments the greatest perhaps being passage of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act in 1986 and its renewal in 1996, despite the political peril of imposing state authority on local land use decisions in his conservative district. He also sponsored legislation regulating nutrient runoff from agricultural feedlots and boat paint pesticides into Chesapeake Bay. Murphy served on the Chesapeake Bay Commission (1980-1999), including his time as chairman. In 2002 Tayloe was appointed Secretary of Natural Resources under Virginia Governor Mark Warner.

Tayloe and his wife, Helen were members of the NNLC since its inception in 2004.