Former Damariscotta River Association Executive Director Mark DesMeules takes pride in the organization’s evolution and growth during his 10 years at the helm, from 1999-2009.
The organization made advancements in conservation, fundraising, membership and public relations and started a number of ambitious projects in those years.
DesMeules talked about his background as an environmentalist, his legacy at the DRA and his post-DRA career during a July 19 interview at his Alna home.
DesMeules hails from the Boston suburb of Winchester, Mass. He fondly remembers childhood bird-watching and salamander-collecting expeditions. His first job was at the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Later, he taught at the Hathaway School of Conservation Education.
“I’ve always had an interest in nature and I’ve been working in conservation ever since,” he said. “I have never had a job that I have not enjoyed, which is pretty amazing to be able to say.”
DesMeules earned his bachelor’s degree in plant ecology from Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vt. Following a three-year stint in the Peace Corps in Belize, Guatemala and Honduras, he attended graduate school at Dartmouth College.
For the next 15 years, he worked around the Northeast as the science and stewardship director for The Nature Conservancy. In 1994, he accepted a position as the executive director of Land for Maine’s Future under former Gov. Angus King.
“That was a big move, but we had always wanted to move to Maine because we missed the ocean,” DesMeules said.
DesMeules counts the November 1999 passage of a $50 million bond to expand and rejuvenate the program as a key achievement of his tenure.
“We protected tens of thousands of acres of land throughout the state” during his years there, he said.
He also joined the board of trustees of the Damariscotta River Association. The non-profit land trust asked him to consider taking the position of executive director and he accepted.
“They basically asked me to take the organization to a new level,” DesMeules recalls. “It had a strong foundation at the time, but some of the organizational pieces and its capacity to do conservation work was not what it could be in a Midcoast community.”
DesMeules set to work with an ambitious agenda to help the association reach its potential.
He obtained $800,000 in grants from his former employer, Land for Maine’s Future, to start the River~Link trail system in collaboration with local land trusts and municipalities.
The ongoing project – the association announced the acquisition of the newest piece of what DesMeules calls a “jigsaw puzzle” this spring – seeks to connect the Damariscotta and Sheepscot rivers by means of a trail network across public lands and easements.
The land trust raised $1 million to purchase a property on Seal Cove in South Bristol and, in total, established 18 preserves spanning more than 1000 acres during his 10 years.
DesMeules names Marsh River Bog Preserve, in Newcastle, as a personal favorite. The plant ecology major likes it for the extraordinary variety of plant life, including orchids and insectivorous sundews, and for non-botanical attractions as well.
“It’s a photographer’s paradise and a birdwatcher’s paradise,” he said, and “it’s a stone’s throw from Rt. 1.”
The DesMeules’ era saw the founding of several education initiatives, including Camp Mummichog, the School for Field Naturalists and Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture. The Great Salt Bay Music Series – a precursor to the Midcoast Music Fest – was launched in 2004.
DesMeules oversaw a dramatic increase in membership, from less than 300 to more than 500 in a five-year period. He instituted a planned giving program that has resulted in a series of large bequests.
He worked with clammers to increase access to clam-flats. The DRA worked toward the 2001 designation of Great Salt Bay as a marine shellfish preserve and the clammers, after initial resistance, supported that, he said.
The people who make their living off the river make for natural allies, he said. The conservation of riverfront land helps keep the river clean, and clam-diggers and oyster farmers, perhaps more than anyone, understand the importance of clean water.
He sought to increase the accessibility and visibility of the organization through press releases in local newspapers, information in area towns’ annual reports and publications like A Small Craft Explorers’ Map & Guide and Jon Luoma’s Great Salt Bay poster, resulting in recognition by the Maine Land Trust Network as a leader in community outreach.
Then, in 2009, DesMeules, suddenly and without explanation, was no longer there.
The organization, so adept at public relations during his tenure, did nothing to announce or even confirm his departure.
A November 2009 article in The Lincoln County News reported that DesMeules was “on leave.” The president of the board of trustees declined comment and DesMeules didn’t return calls.
Now, DesMeules said he can’t explain the trustees’ choice to decline comment, which gave rise, he said, to rumors of scandal.
DesMeules’ version of events describes a routine parting of the ways.
“I had been at the association for 10 years, five more years than I had committed to when I took the position,” he said.
From a professional perspective, “I never saw myself stagnating in a position and I didn’t want that to happen,” DesMeules said. “You have to realize that there’s always a time to move to your next professional experience.”
He received a job offer from Viles Arboretum, “a relatively young conservation group” in Augusta. The offer afforded DesMeules a fresh challenge, the opportunity to use his substantial experience to build a firm foundation for a small, yet important, environmental organization.
“That’s exactly what I built at the DRA, which is what I found so appealing,” he said. “I accepted and I transitioned out.”
As for the newspaper article, “I wouldn’t comment because it’s the trustees’ role to comment,” he said. In November 2009, he was already at his new job, he said.
As a former staff member, “I couldn’t just jump in and act as if I was speaking on their behalf,” he said.
The trustees recently released what DesMeules called a “long awaited” statement. For the full text, see “DRA board releases statement about former director” in this edition.
“I found it really unfortunate that they chose not to comment long ago and left sort of that appearance that something had happened,” he said.
“It was a smooth transition,” DesMeules said. “I worked on the transition for them for a number of months, even while I was at the arboretum.”
DesMeules said he thinks the DRA has “a very good future,” due in part to the foundation he and his team built there.
His successor, Steven Hufnagel, was lands and stewardship coordinator under DesMeules for six years. DesMeules said he and Hufnagel “worked as a very close-knit team” and enjoyed a “constructive, positive relationship” during that time.
“I think the DRA is a leader among land trusts in the state,” DesMeules said. “I hope they continue to prosper.”
DesMeules has put the same non-profit foundation-building formula to work at Viles Arboretum, formerly Pine Tree State Arboretum.
“The formula that we used at the DRA is a winning formula and it’s applicable wherever you go,” he said. “It’s all about engaging people and having engaging programs and events that bring people to the organization and generate an interest and a connection.”
DesMeules and his team are busy building membership, establishing a donor base and innovating activities and programs for the 30-year-old arboretum.
DesMeules, despite the bumpy exit, remembers his time at the association fondly. He is proud of the organization’s accomplishments under his leadership and savors the many friendships he made during his time there.
David Bailey served on the board of trustees that hired DesMeules and would later be elected president of the board during DesMeules’ time as executive director.
Bailey said DesMeules had a gift for working with the wealthy donors the DRA often turns to for the backing it needs to further its mission.
“He didn’t have to plead,” Bailey said. “He had a way of doing that with people.”
“I think that was one of his greatest strengths,” Bailey said.
Sometimes, DesMeules would hit on an idea for a new project and immediately start work – to the chagrin of some conservative board members, who would question him about where the money for his latest undertaking would come from.
The executive director would always say he’d figure it out, and he always did, Bailey said.
Tatiana Brailovskaya was the president of the DRA board of trustees late in DesMeules’ tenure.
Brailovskaya said the combination of DesMeules’ enthusiasm for the association’s work, encyclopedic environmental knowledge and strong organizational skills contributed to his success.
People in similar positions often possess one or two of those qualities – the enthusiasm, the scientific know-how or the organizational skills – but only rarely do all three exist in the same person, Brailovskaya said.
“In Mark, [all] of those things came together,” she said.
The growth of educational programs and other activities under DesMeules’ leadership and the diversity of offerings expanded community involvement at the organization, Brailovskaya said.
“Everyone could find something to be interested in,” she said.
As for DesMeules, he remembers his work as executive director as “some of the most fun and productive that I’ve ever had,” he said. “I look back on those 10 years with nothing but good and positive feelings.”