I was very pleased to attend an informal gathering with a few former coworkers yesterday to honor our former boss Bob Shay, who was recently awarded a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alliance for New Jersey Environmental Education. What follows is an excerpt from my letter of support for his award nomination.
My fond and personal affiliation with Bob reaches back 44 years. Then-Senior Naturalist Bob was instrumental in hiring me as a very green (inexperienced!) environmental educator at the Somerset County Park Commission’s Environmental Education Center, and mentoring me in such a way that has deeply influenced the arc and success of my career ever since.
In 1986, Bob was promoted to Director of Natural Resources with the responsibility of coordinating activities of three Departments until 1995: Park Rangers, Horticulture, and Natural Environmental Sciences. He then headed Land Acquisition until his retirement in 1998. He’s authored three poetry books, and is working on a fourth, with many poems based on his observations and thoughts related to the natural world.
I started my career in environmental education without the traditional educational background. I believe Bob saw more potential in me than in my preparation, and chose to invest himself in my professional development. The foundation I built under Bob’s instruction and supervision not only skilled me in behavioral objectives, environmental education techniques, and the application of scientific principles; but also in such invaluable life skills as professional ethics, interpersonal communication, advocacy and public education, and organizational and community leadership.
The top tier of leadership in any profession is achieved when a leader develops other leaders, who in turn multiply the influence to an increasingly diverse audience. In our case: to nurture environmental awareness, grow understanding of the underlying issues, and raise motivation toward actions to solve the environmental and human problems facing our modern society. This very well describes Bob’s lifetime achievement. I submit myself as just one example of his professional reproduction.
From Bob’s competent mentoring, and his professional and personal friendship, his guidance set me on a career trajectory that extended the principles I learned and practiced under Bob to hundreds of thousands of people. I brought his knowledge to my later positions and in producing the master development plans for other environmental education centers.
I incorporated Bob’s environmental education principles when I founded The Roving Nature Center, America’s first fully mobile environmental education facility—bringing the resources, equipment and staff to any indoor or outdoor site throughout the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states. Bob deserves derivative credit when The RNC was nationally recognized by the Take Pride in America Campaign for “commitment and exceptional contribution to the stewardship of America’s natural and cultural resources.”
And I do not exaggerate to affirm that Bob’s influence stuck with me even to my current statewide responsibilities as CEO of the principal professional member association for those who work in parks and recreation. I serve on a number of national-level Boards and committees, and even there, I carry forward the personal and professional skills I learned from Bob’s example.
I do not describe my accomplishments here to boast, (which were certainly achieved with the cooperative assistance of many other skillful, talented, and united colleagues), but to draw the detectable lines demonstrating the far-reaching and long-lasting scope of Bob Shay’s influence and leadership in the environmental education profession. And I know there are many others like me who have extended his impactful example far and wide.
I am a product of Bob’s professionalism and a proud conveyor of his legacy. I enthusiastically recommend his nomination for consideration for the Patricia Kane Lifetime Achievement Award.
