It was March 2008, nine years ago this month, that I was hired as the executive director of the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. My predecessor, Wally Elton, had left after a successful stint as director. I was lucky enough to be reunited professionally with John Taylor, with whom I had worked when I first moved to the Upper Valley in 2001.
My first task in charge of the UVTA was to welcome a crowd of nearly 100 people to the Trails Connect Forum at Lebanon City Hall. I recall being nervous, although no one knew. As I stood in front of the crowd on that evening, I introduced myself and shared what we hoped to accomplish. The outcome was that the Trails Alliance was charged with getting more trails on the ground, completing and signing what is now known as the Upper Valley Trails Loop and looking for more ways to develop and connect trails. I am excited to announce that we have a 2017 Trails Connect Forum coming on Monday.
In the years that followed, John and I developed a team approach to our UVTA work. Teamwork is of the utmost necessity in a small organization, and we have continued to develop a high-performing team with other staff members who have come and gone over the years.
In that time, we had transitions, too. After the Trails Connect Forum in 2008, we started to move away from our Active Living by Design grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and developed programs and projects more in line with what we heard at the forum.
This included expanding the Passport to Winter Fun program, developing the Outdoor Odyssey-Upper Valley High School Trail Corps program, improving the Trail Finder online database of public trails in Vermont and New Hampshire, and making a significant investment in our trail building, maintenance and design program.
The results have been tremendous: thousands of youths engaged in outdoor activities through our Passport and Trail Corps programs, hundreds of trail systems mapped and readily accessible to the public, and countless miles of trails built, improved and maintained.
Inherent to our success over the past years has been the partnerships we have developed with towns and municipalities, other nonprofits and local businesses. These partnerships have bolstered our community-based and team-oriented approach to our work.
Next month, the UVTA will enter another transition period as Taylor — my veteran teammate, close friend and respected community member — moves on after 10 years with us (and 26 in the area) to a new adventure in California. For those of you who know or have worked with John, he is one of the most likeable people out there. He is an affable and lighthearted storyteller, an amazing naturalist and a kid at heart, whose Canadian accent tends to come out, especially when he is having fun.
From a trails perspective, John has played a role in just about every trail project that has occurred in the Upper Valley in the past 25 years. Although I have striven to learn alongside John, the depth and breadth of his skills are unmatched in the region.
Other organizations have weathered transitions like this; so too will we. As Thomas Jefferson said upon following Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France in 1790, “No one can replace him. I am only his successor.”
With this in mind, after an extensive national search, we have hired Sean Ogle to succeed John as the new trail programs director. Sean comes to us from North Carolina with robust experience in trail building, maintenance and design, community advocacy, and environmental and conservation education. He also has an entrepreneurial spirit. By design, Sean will have the opportunity to work alongside John for at least two weeks to learn the lay of the Upper Valley landscape before John’s departure in early April.
Our new team will be different, look different and act different, and yet as we move through this transition, I believe that we will continue to do our work better than ever. With change comes opportunity, and we have just that.
I hope that our community will come together to say thank you and acknowledge all that John has done for trails in the Upper Valley and welcome Sean with open arms. Drop by and say hello, send us an email or come to the 2017 Trails Connect Forum on Monday. Check www.uvtrails.org for details.
I look forward to seeing you out on the trails.
Russell Hirschler is executive director of the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, a regional organization dedicated to trails. Find more info at www.uvtrails.org.