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Dear Members and Friends:
In the forty years since its founding, Flanders’ staff has grown as the center’s programs, participants, land holdings, physical structures and administrative responsibilities have expanded. In our 40th year, as we look back historically on Flanders’ path since the 1960’s, we will trace the growth of the staff. In this issue, the focus will be on the Directors over the years, and next time we will profile administrative support and land management staff.
Miss Van Vleck never imagined that she could open and operate a nature center all by herself! It takes many types of expertise to run Flanders successfully, and she was the first one to recognize that. Miss Van Vleck shared her vision of a nature preserve with a number of people who were knowledgeable about issues in conservation, forestry, wildlife management, nature center administration, fundraising and publicity.
When Miss Van Vleck began exploring the possibility of founding a nature center, she gathered a group of expert advisors around her. Once Flanders had been created as a legal entity, Duncan McDougall was hired as the center’s first Naturalist. As Arthur Milnor says, “Duncan did a wonderful job of creating the trail system and the Botany Pond at the Van Vleck Farm Sanctuary. He also established Flanders’ relationship with the Whittemore family, which resulted in Flanders’ managing the Whittemore Sanctuary from the 1960’s until the late 1990’s, when the nature center purchased the sanctuary”.
When Ed Briggs was hired as a Naturalist and Land Manager, he became Miss Van Vleck’s right-hand man for several decades, retiring in 1996. As Milnor says, “Ed had an encyclopedic knowledge of nature and wildlife, and an insatiable curiosity for learning more. Besides that, he was an outstanding educator, and many of our teaching programs—the Summer Nature Camp, Outdoor Rangers, and the Maple Syrup program, for example—bear his stamp today”.
After Miss Van Vleck’s death on Christmas day in 1981, her estate endowed the nature center, ensuring its continuation. Patricia Christgau became the first full-time Executive Director of the “post-Natalie era”. Arthur Milnor describes her, “Pat Christgau was a passionate environmentalist. I was hired as she was retiring, and she spent several weeks orienting me to the position. She cared deeply about issues affecting the environment, and in her life as well as in her work she was motivated by a personal philosophy resting on deep reverence for the interdependent web of all life”.
In addition to its executive director, the staff expanded in the 1980’s to include nature educators Susan Davis Piel and Sue Quincy, who contributed enormously to the breadth and depth of Flanders educational programs. Current Director of Education, Jolynn Rostowsky, has further developed our programming, expanding Flanders’ educational offerings tremendously and supplementing the staff with part-time educators, who teach thousands of pre-school and elementary school visitors throughout the year. As Arthur Milnor says, “No one on our staff can know everything about nature, but we’ve been fortunate enough to have educators with advanced degrees and extensive knowledge of the natural world, and who have also been gifted teachers”.
Arthur Milnor came to Flanders as Executive Director in 1997, bringing a love of nature and the out-of-doors along with over twenty years of experience in non-profit management. His background in fundraising, volunteer and board development, fiscal management and personnel issues has served the nature center well as Flanders has expanded its land acquisitions, built and expanded buildings, developed new programming initiatives, hired additional staff, broadened Flanders’ constituencies, and strengthened the nature center’s presence throughout the region.
In Milnor’s own words, “To successfully lead a non-profit organization, one needs a vision, and I am passionate about what I see for Flanders. I’ve learned a lot here, and I feel very lucky to follow such a legacy of leadership. What’s really amazing is that most of the staff who have served Flanders in the past forty years, with the exception of Miss Van Vleck herself, have either worked with me directly or offered me guidance during my tenure here. Even some of our volunteers have been with us for forty years! That speaks volumes about our nature center”.
“Duncan, for example, lives in Woodbury and has often shared his insights and encouragement with me. Ed recently passed away, but served Flanders as a consultant almost until the end. Pat Christgau has devoted herself to working with environmental issues and recently moved to Oregon to be near family. Sue Piel still volunteers for Flanders, as does Sue Quincy, who is now at the Kellogg Environmental Center. I am very grateful for what these dedicated professionals have done; the foundation they laid has become the springboard for our next forty years!”
Sincerely,
Arthur S. Milnor
Executive Director
Flanders Nature Center & Land Trust
Winter 2003
Summer/Fall 2002
Spring 2002