American Chestnut Land Trust Interpretive Plan

I just finished the start-up meetings here in Maryland with the American Chestnut Land Trust. This group had begun with a few hundred acres of protected land and grown to over 3000 acres of land protecting and conserving important habitats and watersheds. With a paid staff of just three talented people, and a core of dedicated volunteers they now have about 15 miles of trails as well as offering guided walks and more. We finished our initial site visit and conducted a focus workshop to begin teasing out the main interpretive objectives that the interpretive plan will focus on accomplishing. Here are two photos of some of the landscapes. I will be back toward the end of July for a week of site interpretive inventory work and moving the plan forward.

Advanced Interp. Course

Heading home from Huntsville, AL. We finished our Advanced interpretation course yesterday and we had a great group of participants from Corps of Engineer parks and offices from around the US. One participant came in from Alaska and one from Hawaii as well. Our team of instructors (Pat Berry, Nancy Rogers and myself) want to thank the participants for their course engagement, ideas, and contributions to helping make the course a real success. I get to rest a few days, then on to Maryland to start interpretive plananing with the Chestnut Trust. More on that next week. Here is the group photo of the participants and instructors.

Corps of Engineers Interpretive Course

Hi folks,

We finished our COE "Introduction to Interpretation" course here at the Tom Bevill Center in Huntsville, Alabama. We had 26 COE staff from around the US participate in the 3-day course. Here are some pics of them in action - critiquing the visitor center exhibits at our host field trip site - The Wheeler Wildlife Sanctuary - and planning/design of outdoor interpretive panels. This coming Monday we gear up for our Advanced Interpretation Course for Corps of Engineers Managers.