Community Voices

Laurie Dirkx grew up a few minutes’ drive from the city of Rochester, New York, and has always been drawn to the quiet of the natural world and to animals – both wild and domestic.…

Amara Ifeji has a unique perspective on the outdoors and environmental education – and the importance of access to those arenas. She is a first-generation American, a Mainer, and…

Charley Eiseman grew up in central Massachusetts, surrounded by woods, with a small pond nearby. He credits that setting, and his mother’s long involvement in conservation work, for his…

Growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, Lisa Sausville reveled in trips to her family’s retreat near a working dairy farm once owned by her great-grandparents in a rural part of the state.…

A child of the Midwest, Robert “Thor” Thorson loved the lakes and forests of that region from an early age. Although he started his career as a geologist in Alaska – with a…

Ecologist Rick Van de Poll’s interests in the forest are as varied as the species that live there. He is a mycologist and a wetlands scientist, a teacher and a mountaineer, a poet and a…

Vermont born and raised, Zarabeth Duell grew up hiking and camping around the state – activities she has continued with her now-teenaged children. A structural engineer by training, she…

Brett Chedzoy has worked as a forester for the past 30 years. His work – and his interests – bridge forestry and agriculture. A forester with the Cornell Cooperative Extension…

As the child of a military family, Janel Lawton moved often as a kid, including stints in Key West, Florida, rural Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and urban New Jersey. She opted to attend college in…