Inside

First Impressions
Sharing the "First Impressions" that make an Environmental Difference

According to Erik Eckl, the founder of Water Words That Work, his market research shows that there is a common progression among people who consider themselves to be "environmentalists."  It starts with a "first impression" or experience that then makes them take a first environmental step.  This step is usually then followed by a greater environmental awareness and a behavior change, and ultimately results in a "big step," such as choosing an environmental career. 

This column features the "First Impression" that set someone on his or her path to environmentalism.  We hope Sound Outlook readers will relate to these "First Impressions" and recall their own experiences that led them to appreciate and care about Long Island Sound.

This month, we share the First Impression of Nathan Frohling, Director of Connecticut Coastal and Marine Initiatives for The Nature Conservancy in New Haven, Connecticut.  Nathan is a member of the Long Island Sound Blue Plan Advisory Committee and is Chairman of the Plan's Stakeholder Engagement Subcommittee:


Nathan's "First Impression" came about during his younger years, spent in New Jersey on Barnegat Bay, visiting his grandparents at their home on the shore:

I may not have fully understood at the time how the wildness of the sea I experienced as a kid would get into my gut and drive me the rest of my life, in terms of what I love and feel drawn to.  Barnegat Bay, even in the early 1960s, was fairly developed, it wasn't a pristine, untouched wild land.  But my father's passion was birdwatching, and we'd go to the islands which were undeveloped, open and wild.  There was a solitude there, with the wind blowing and the active birdlife.  And you'd go fishing or seining in the flats or the shallow areas and you'd feel alone but very happy out in the elements.

Family trips to the Northeast also played a role in shaping Nathan's love of the sea:

I fell in love with wooden boats and the experience of being on the water.  The whole thing just felt like heaven to me.  I just couldn't get enough of it.  We went to Maine, and Nova Scotia and Peggy's Cove, and that was another one of those things of just being entranced, literally just charmed and drawn-in.  It caused me to start drawing boats by the age of 4 or 5 years old.  

From his younger experiences, Nathan's "First Environmental Steps" focused on getting out into nature whenever and however possible:

My family moved to Michigan when I was 9 years old.  That's where my brother and I lived the "Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn life." I was so sad about losing the saltwater coast of New Jersey, so I did my best to try to find that in Lake Michigan and in smaller inland lakes mid-state between Ann Arbor and Lansing.  My brother and I got a small aluminum rowboat and small outboard motor that we bought with our savings when I was 10 years old.  Because we were trying to restore the kind of joy we had down at the Jersey shore.  

Nathan's new life in Michigan was set in the countryside, surrounded by rural farms, rivers, fields, and the woods:  

My brother and I would play with our neighbors in the rivers, play games out in the woods, building forts.  Again, we were just being adventurous boys playing outside.  But in my heart was the beauty of nature and sense of inner well-being. I built a small log cabin, using dead trees to make the logs.  I called it "Log-a-Rhythms" because I was into math--I carved the name into the base plate of the door.  It was built on top of a big hole I dug in the ground, around 10 x 15 feet, in the woods on our property and it was a way for me to hang out with my friends, sleep out in the woods.  We built some bunks and it was a fun way to be outdoors and in nature.

Nathan's family was very environmentally conscious; they were recycling before it became the norm for the rest of us.  Even so, Nathan did experience a "Behavior Change," but it was more focused on reducing environmental hazards to the "human ecosystem," much to his mother's chagrin:

During the 1960's and early 1970's there was emerging information about nitrites in bacon and other processed meats, and other concerns about pesticides and herbicides on foods.  There was a growing awareness of the harm that you could do to yourself with carcinogens, and I remember becoming a crusader within my family that we should pay attention to these things and buy different foods and eat differently...to the point where it really got under my mom's skin.  She'd say, "Leave me alone already, I'm the mom, I'll decide what we eat!"  My family still kids me about my being such a pain about this.

It would seem that Nathan's environmentally aware upbringing would have predestined him for his environmental career.  Not so.  Instead, Nathan followed his passion for drawing boats and attended the University of Michigan, with the career goal of becoming a marine engineer and naval architect.  He was interested in the engineering and the technical side of boats and ships, but it was really "the art of it" that drew him into that field:

I've reflected on this as an adult and as an environmental professional: how did I get here?  My career path was naval architecture.  I had a four year college process at the University of Michigan as an engineering student.  I could take a few electives here and there, but the vast majority was pretty hardcore math, physics, and the sciences.  You felt like you had already been in the field a bit by the time you graduated, and I had done some summer jobs for naval architectural firms.  I had a really great job as a naval architect with Bertram Yacht down in Florida after college.  They are a relatively well-known builder of motor yachts and sports fishing boats.  I worked in the field for two years, but by then I knew I needed to make a career change and get into the environmental field.

By now, the environmental challenges of the late 1970s became more and more apparent to Nathan, particularly the way suburbanization was changing the landscape.  His experiences as a child were starting to catch-up with him, prompting him to take his "Big Step":  

This was when it seemed like my experiences with nature as a younger person had, without intention or design, become an important part of what mattered to me.  It was like discovering a piece of my soul that I had been missing.  Through my family, I saw the beauty of "grand nature" out west when we hiked in Alaska or Glacier National Park, or backpacked in the Sierra Nevadas or New Mexico, with grand mountains, huge expanses, and cold, crisp rushing rivers in untamed landscapes; in Michigan I was exposed to rural "old-time America" with its particular kind of beauty, which included playing outside every day and  bushwhacking through the woods of the Upper Peninsula without following trails, just following a topo map with the goal of reaching Lake Superior; in my earliest years it had been the salty sea and the natural world there, whether the Maine or Jersey coast.  All of that exposure was something that I took for granted at the time, but as an adult it emerged as shaping my sense of the world and what mattered.  

Ironically, even as a graduate from college it wasn't yet clear to me how much these experiences as a kid had, in fact, shaped my understanding of meaning, beauty, and the sense of inner well-being that comes from these natural places.  That sense of well-being comes not only from one's direct experience with nature but also knowing that these places exist and are intact, supporting life and the well-being of the planet.

Nathan started volunteering for environmental organizations pertaining to the Everglades and the Florida coast.  Soon, a job opportunity as an engineer came up at Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management:

They were looking for an engineer who could help them do beach restoration, literally mining sand from the ocean waters off of Miami Beach and restoring the beach which had severely eroded.  We also did a 10.5 mile revegetation project on the reconstructed beach.  Initially there were no plans to vegetate any of it, but we were able to get enough people to support the project and raise the money to do it. The irony was, it wasn't really an environmental protection job per se, but it allowed me to get into an environmental department and learn about environmental science and policy and gain some environmental credentials along the way.

After six years of fun-in-the-sun in Dade County, Nathan heard the siren song of working for an environmental non-profit organization in Connecticut:

I knew I wanted to work for an organization whose sole mission was to protect the environment.  And having spent time in Maine and one summer in Boston working for a yacht design firm, I knew I would eventually move to New England.  So I got a job as the executive director of the Farmington River Watershed Association here in Connecticut.  I worked there for another six years, and then went back to school at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for a masters degree.  From there I worked for Sound Waters, and then came to The Nature Conservancy in 2008 to direct the Tidelands Program and have been here ever since. 

Florida's loss is Connecticut's gain.

Nathan plays a significant role in making sure that stakeholders are fully engaged in the Blue Plan process.  As someone who understands the "sense of inner well-being" that Long Island Sound gives to us, whether we directly use the Sound or we merely know it exists and it's in good shape, his background makes him uniquely qualified for the job.