Leadership and the Land Ethic with Buddy Huffaker from the Aldo Leopold Foundation | Episode 105

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: I like to use Leopold's line near the end of San County Almanac where he writes, In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial. And I think if you're working in this field, you know it's not easy and you also know it's not trivial. But so my message would be to remember that and lean into that and just recognize that it's not easy, but boy, this is the most important work that you can be doing.

Chris Lee: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Parks and Restoration Podcast, the show for parks and natural resource professionals who want to be better leaders. I'm your host, Chris Lee, and co-hosting with me today is Telly Van Rickey, the director of operations here at Parks and Restoration LLC. As many of you know, we're based in Burlington, Iowa, which I've long been proud to say is the birthplace of Aldo Leopold, the man known as the father of wildlife management and one of the key figures in the modern conservation movement. And that's why I am so excited today to welcome Buddy Huffaker, Executive Director at the Outo Leopold Foundation up in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Buddy's story is awesome. In 1996, he showed up at the foundation as a seasonal intern, and by 1999, he was running the place, and he's been running it ever since. So I can't wait to dig into some of that. But in that time, the foundation has protected the Leopold Shack and Farm as a National Historic Landmark. Built the Lead Platinum Legacy Center out of trees the Leopold family planted, put out an Emmy winning documentary, and helped get a Sand County almanac translated into 10 more languages. If you look behind me, I've got a copy of it right here. There are several others on my shelves, both here and at work. It's one of the greatest books of all time. And that doesn't even mention all the work and programs that have literally brought Leopold's land ethic to life for the countless people that have been impacted by the work of the foundation. Buddy, welcome to the show.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: thanks for having me, Chris and Telly. A real pleasure and honor to be with you and continue this conservation conversation, especially given your roots right there in Burlington.

Chris Lee: Absolutely. So all right, I want to start at the inflection point. So I read online that you arrived at Nina Leopold Bradley's dining room at that table and Aldo's daughter, Nina, was heading into her second retirement, and it was her trust in you that got you to step into the executive director role well before you had the experience for it. So I'm curious. Oftentimes those of us in this line of work, you know, we we start out as field tech or we go into this line of work to to be a field person and then sometimes reluctantly, sometimes excitedly, we rise up into leadership roles. And that's you know, that's quite the experience. You did it in such a short amount of time for such an incredible organization. I really want to know how did that conversation or those conversations with Nina go and how did she play that role in your life?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Well yeah, definitely bit reluctantly and excitedly stepped into

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: that role. And you know, first I might just share that I I landed at Nina's dining room table because I have been doing botanical surveys across the upper Midwest, sometimes for environmental consulting companies, sometimes for units of government or n or NGOs. And what I would do is I would go out, do floristic inventories, leave them a list. And then I would go on to the next property and and never really got to be involved with taking care of these amazing places or even degraded places that I just did these botanical surveys. So I was really looking for an experience to kind of get my hands dirty, so to speak, and actually do the restoration and management work. And at that point, I was wrapping up my graduate program at the University of Illinois, and the International Crane Foundation had a kind of field ecology internship that looked just perfect. Give me some more real-world experience, but be able to say I've done things like prescribed burning or invasive species control, not just botanical surveys. So I applied. I thought I was pretty competitive, but I didn't get the job. However, they thought my stuff looked good enough that they sent it down to Nina and Chris, as you said, who was kind of ready for her second retirement. They had gotten some startup funding to kind of help with that transition. And so it the their immediate need was just some field help. And so I raised my hand and and signed up for the the kind of field season. And then at the end of the field season, they thought I did a pretty good job. They asked if I would stick around for a little bit longer. that point I didn't have any better to do, so I said yes. And meanwhile, they had hired an executive director, and I think now, you know, I think that's the value of your podcast here is to help those in conservation understand leadership and leadership lessons. And now, when you look back, like the first couple executive directors were almost doomed. Right? You had a family that was stepping in to be in a board. Yeah, professional staff coming in trying to figure out how to you know create some leadership and movement. I frankly had the good fortune to just kind of be on the sidelines. I was kind of in the mix, but I wasn't really you know, kind of in a role of authority. Meanwhile, perhaps the most important lesson is just building genuine trusting relationship. So over the couple of years while I was doing field work, I got to know Nina. I got to spend a lot of time with her. I got to be there when her siblings and her family would get together for the early board member board meetings. And really it was just that kind of trust and confidence in one another that led us as we were coming up to 1999 without an executive director. It was going to be the 50th anniversary of a San County Almanac. And it was a little bit like if this place didn't get its act together. I wasn't gonna have a job and and they

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: didn't really have a better option than Buddy Huffaker, so they took me up on my offer to step in as executive director.

Chris Lee: Wow. So had you been immersed kind of like what was your relationship to Leopold and San County Almanac and the land ethic prior to that?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Kind of rank amateur. I had I had read the book in as an undergrad, revisited it in graduate school, had actually a stronger working knowledge of Aldo's son, Luna Leopold, who was a hydrogeomorphologist. And so I had read his book, Environ Water and Environmental Planning, in a graduate class. And so I really, in all candor, didn't understand the opportunity that was in front of me. Maybe good thing, I probably would have Or like overdid it, but wouldn't have known how to step into it. But it it all kind of unfolded. I mean, I knew I I knew enough to know that this was a special place, a sacred place, that this family had made amazing contributions to science and conservation. But you know, 30 years later I look back and I think, wow, I knew so little, so little about Leopold, about the land ethic, about leadership. it so it's really been kind of fascinating. Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: Yeah. What was the the state of the property at the time? So you know, this is late nineties coming up on the fiftieth anniversary of of Sand County Almanac, and you and you've got the shack and the farm. like today it's it's protected, it's a National Historic Landmark. it's I I mean it's kind of Mecca for those of us that are, you know, are are conservation at our hearts. Like I've been there a couple of different times and it's like going to the, you know, it's going to to the promised land. It's it's it's it really is a s a it's a spiritual encounter, right? It just it's it is such a a sacred place. What was the the state of it then? Like what was it viewed as that or was it just still like the family's farm?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, a little bit of both. They you know, the the Leopold the children of Aldo and Estella Leopold created the Aldo Leopold Foundation in nineteen eighty two. somewhat in a recognition of their father's continued and and growing legacy, somewhat for their own kind of estate planning and and just kind of recognizing what they could and couldn't do to maintain such a property. but I always point to that as a really important moment an act of generosity where effectively the Leopold family shared their farm with the rest of the world. I mean, Chris, you people come from all over the world to as you say to to kind of travel to their Mecca, the wellspring of of their inspiration ideas on conservation. And they they did you Know knowingly set in motion the situation where that opportunity would be available. So prior to that, they had been doing kind of on a case by case, or if you knew Nina, you could get in and see it, but it was a bit more of a protectionist mentality, and then really again in the late 90s and the recognition that that Nina was gonna need help because she'd been a full-time volunteer, So those were some of the early days in my leadership is navigating that, both a kind of desire to to make sure the place was taken care of and not overridden by visitors and yet accessible to the public. And then I think also importantly to have it not just be a historical site. So that is true, it is a national historic landmark. We do things to ensure that the Leopold family's hand is present well into the future. But we also, I mean, they were doing groundbreaking ecological research and restoration at the time. I mean, this stuff hadn't really been done prior to the nineteen thirties and the way they were they were trying it. And so we wanted to maintain that spirit of experimentation, of Of conservation outcomes and objectives. So that was also another important aspect is, and conservation biology was kind of really emerging at that point in time, and things like adaptive management. And so building the framework about our larger property, which is 600 acres, and then setting it within a landscape that's about 10,000 acres along the Wisconsin River, was

Chris Lee: Mm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: one of the first key objectives. So that we weren't just managing this. slow historic site, but we were managing a historic site that was the wellspring of the modern conservation movement, but modern conservation science and management was being done as the context around it.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it it it isn't necessarily preserving place. It's it's it's preserving the legacy, hence the name Leopold Legacy Center. yeah,

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, yeah.

Teli Van Rycke: I just have to ask, and maybe some of our listeners want to hear this too, but what was it like being a young executive director, sitting in that seat and trying to continue the work and push it forward? And how old were you exactly?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, so I was thirty in in f effectively in nineteen ninety-nine. at moments it was totally overwhelming. but I'll be honest, today I feel slightly totally overwhelmed too. So I I'm not, you know, those that that

Chris Lee: Right. We all do.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: sit in leadership roles kind of kind of can appreciate that. I also used to think I should get a PhD honorary PhD after every board meeting because the whole board had PhDs and they would grill

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: you on your evidence and assumptions. but I I also used to counsel new executive directors or or leaders really in in any role that if you just be really quiet. You can hear plates crashing all around me. And it's really, you know, important I think as a a leader that's trying to make a big difference in the world, whatever that is, that you're probably biting off a little bit more than you can actually chew every minute, every day, every week, every year. And so it really is about advancing the most important things and recognizing you can't advance everything. So that that was hard lesson to learn. you know, I'm just kind of enough of a control freak to to really have a hard time letting some of that go. But but that was one of the most important lessons that I try to well again when I talk to kind of new or or less experienced executive directors to just help them know that's okay. Like that's okay to feel some of that.

Teli Van Rycke: Awesome. I really appreciate that response. And you know, I really have always heard about the work that Aldo and and your foundation also has been doing, and to really see where it came as history here in Burlington and is continuing to develop with your foundation, I'm just super impressed. So that with that being said, I want to talk a little bit about your connection to Burlington. and as you know, Aldo Leopold was born right here in Burlington. We have a middle school named after him. You spent nearly 30 years carrying his legacy forward. What do you think? Burlington and communities like it should understand about the man who started here and the ideas he ultimately gave the world.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Well, yeah, let's start with Burlington and then then may we could say way to other communities, but you know, Burlington's not only his birthplace, it's also where he's buried. in the family

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: cemetery. And just the legacy I think again, you know, Chris used that term legacy, that we all have these legacies and they're maybe Increasingly they feel disconnected from place, but I'm not sure that they are. and the Leopold family just kind of really does help ground us in in their the the way they committed to Burlington, the way they committed to their farm along the Wisconsin River, the way they committed to sharing their family's legacy with the world. So they serve as kind of a nice model and reminder of that. But I'll I'll also say when I arrived in Baraboo, Wisconsin, which is the community outside of where the shack, Leopold Shack and Farm sits, there was not a lot of community identity around Leopold, the land ethic, conservation. It was mainly, we were a circus town. This is where the Ringley brothers had their winter circus. Now there's

Teli Van Rycke: how cool.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: murals of Leopold, there's murals of cranes in the in the local high school on the big mural. There's a Leopold quote. So in 30 years, I've seen, like to think I helped push, a little bit of a community reorientation identity around these kind of conservation natural values. And I see that happening in Burlington, with the protection of the Leopold family homes up on the bluff along the Mississippi and the Leopold Landscape Alliance trying to do community programming. And so for Burlington, I think it's just great that that you know you've kind of recognized connection to this global conservation legacy and are kind of building identity and programming around it. so that that would be the Burlington specific piece. And then for other communities, just you know, who's your local conservation hero and build identity around that? because I think what we're all seeking is to have this these normative values permeate our culture that combat social media and attention deficit disorder, and that these special places that every community has get get raised up and elevated and cared for. And nurtured. So where are you from? Who are your special people and special places?

Teli Van Rycke: love that and I really think that you know people like Aldo Leopold and his family and the work he's done really help create pride in a community and so I think we do have that here and I agree every community should definitely be working towards that. yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: I might also just pitch in quick that we have a little mini grant program for communities to get some resources to do community conservation reading events associated with our Leopold Week programming in early March. but anybody can find that on the Leopold Foundation website and apply. You get some free books, you get a little resources to convene a group, but we've had libraries, nature centers, conservation parks, do those kind of programming all over the country and then you get to kind of connect to the the bigger name of Leopold, but again develop that sense of place for your own community.

Teli Van Rycke: Sounds like a great program. Thanks for sharing that. I'll check it out later. but what is something that you understand differently about Leopold today than you did when you first started?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Ooh, boy. How much time do we have? Yeah, that's a that's a big one. I

Teli Van Rycke: Sorry to put you on the spot.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: I mean, hey, just the beauty of Leopold. For those that have have read his writing, this won't be new. If you're relatively new, hopefully it'd be encouragement to to dive in. But he he really was so thoughtful and so deep that every time you read his writing, you pick something new out. And I think some of that is because you yourself as a reader are in a different place than when you read it the first time. The world is in a different place. But I do think that's part of the magic of his writing and why he's still relevant and people still look to him. but I think kind of the big things are, you know, he's always attached to wilderness preservation ideas because he helped create the first wilderness area in the world, the Gila Wilderness area, in 1924. And people kind of think of him as a big public lands champion, which he was, but I think Perhaps the more important and relevant piece in today's world is that he also was about caring for private land and engaging farmers and landowners to find ways to implement their own conservation ethic. He always had a garden as his own backyard, you know, growing food for for himself and his family, so that at these small scales, the window box scale even, you know, you can have something out there that hummingbirds can feed on. And so that's I think the the piece that I've really come to appreciate over time is just how he really was thinking about the entirety of the landscape from urban centers to wilderness remote areas and everything in between. So that I think that's the piece. And then the other element that I love about Leopold and have really come to appreciate is that he really challenges and empowers us as individual human beings to be positive actors of change. You know, it's not about somebody else doing something somewhere. It's about what can we do where we're at. and taking action. So he has this kind of somber element in his writing, but at the end of the day he always comes back to believing in people that we can that we can make the world better.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Teli Van Rycke: You're speaking to me right to my heart whip because I'm a former English teacher, so I totally get that about the wording that he uses and I'm definitely inspired to read some more of his work. So thank you. I'm gonna pun it back to Chris now.

Chris Lee: Yeah. So that's a good segue into the question I had about, you know, living the land ethic. And I this is big with the foundation. So Leopold's land ethic asks us to expand our moral community to include soil, water, plants and animals, collectively the land, as he says in the book. But your focus has always been on the harder question and and I see this in a lot of the the stewardship work that the foundation does and a lot of the programs that they put on. And that's asking the question, how do we actually live that ethic? It's one thing to read about it, it's one thing to philosophize about it. But how do you actually live it? And so you mentioned private landowners. How do you help private landowners and communities move beyond just understanding these ideas to actually implementing them in their everyday lives? I mean, what does that look like for the foundation, maybe for you personally? And then what are maybe some of the takeaways that those of us in the parks and conservation space could apply?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, good great. Question, Chris, and I think we do ask ourselves that regularly and challenge ourselves to both do it and and help others live the land ethic. Just quickly, our programming kind of radiates out from the historic site out into the world. And so we again manage the historic site for its historical values, then cascading out from that, we have a property that we manage for conservation outcomes. Us for a variety of reasons, which if we want to go into we can are around advancing a grass-based ecosystem with grassland birds and pollinators as our indicators because they're in steep decline across the continent. and then we have an education and outreach program called My Wisconsin Woods, where we try to take the lessons learned, what we've done right and what we've done wrong, out to landowners all across the state of Wisconsin. It's a partnership with our Wisconsin DNR. And so we're engaging 30,000 landowners that own a million acres across the state of Wisconsin in thinking about what their own management plan is for their property, how to secure state or federal cost share to do conservation practices, how to prioritize their limited energy and resources to achieve their conservation objectives, whatever that might be, and think about the future of their property. And that's a partnership that we're looking to kind of grow and have some ideas on how we could take that. to other states and and create Positive feedback loops with private landowners. And then kind of every circle we get a little bit more philosophical, less, a little less applied, and then we get into some of our virtual programming like Land Ethic Live, where we're trying to help people think about their relationship with the natural world, understand things like micro-rhice or wilderness policy protection realities, and just kind of expand their sense of community. And their knowledge and give them some practical ideas of how to engage the natural world. So a lot of that is often around observing and journaling and those kind of skill sets. And then even further out is just kind of the big picture of reminding ourselves that really what Leopold was challenging us to do is reframe, just as you said, Chris, with this kind of ecological community lens on the world. Is that if we really did see ourselves as part of the biological community, not apart from it, that then we we would be challenging ourselves on a regular basis to give ethical consideration and care to the flora and fauna just as we do our friends and family. That doesn't mean it's easy to do, always means there's kind of trade-offs. But you know philosophers tell us that really sophisticated moral thinkers can hold multiple challenges and balance at once. We just

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: And many of us choose not to do that. It's just easier to forget about that

Chris Lee: Sure, yeah.

Teli Van Rycke: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: and not keep challenging ourselves. So that's a little bit, and again, we talked about place and how important that is. That's how it works for us is you know, the closer you get to where we are, the more tangible we can get in helping you think about

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: what you might want or be able to do. And then the further away you get in geography, doesn't mean we're not still on the same page from a philosophical perspective, but it is a little bit. bit more theoretical and conceptual around how you would engage in and live the land out there.

Chris Lee: Yeah. And that it harkens back to in a previous episode, I talked with Dr. Doug Tallamy. he wrote the book Nature's Best Hope and and Bringing Nature Home and bunch of others. He's the co founder yeah, yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah.

Chris Lee: he's he's the co founder of homegrown national park movement. And, know, really Like there there's parallels here and I you know when I was talking to him, I just like the land ethic was just ringing in my head of like he makes this point of if we own a piece of property, we we have the responsibility to be stewards of it. And he's coming at it from the approach of maybe we don't need to mow all of it. Maybe some of it could be put into native species, right? And that that that runs perfectly aligned with with this land ethic concept of we're not just We're not just viewers of nature, like that, you know, like nature's this thing that we look at that we're not part of. We we are part of it. And you know, it also makes me think, I think it was it was Ryan Hawk that in one of his podcast episodes, he's he said that you are the traffic. You know, so you're like you're sitting in traffic, like, you know, like you and you see yourself as separate from it. But if you were to just take one step back, you realize that you are part of it. And and and so like all these concepts. seem to align. And usually when I see something like that, that indicates to me that it's it's it's kind of universal. Like like there's a there's a there's a principle here, like a core universal principle. And I think that's what has resonated with me, with Leopold from day one, is that like the concepts in there seem so universal and and timeless. You know, I mean it it he's talking about thing, you know, the the stuff that he's writing about was was generations ago and yet it's as relevant today as it was then, even more so in in a lot of ways. So it it begs the question, you know, in in this work that the foundation does and and the experiences that you had, what are what are some of the successes? Because it's it's one thing to, you know, to to talk about the land ethic and something else entirely to put it into practice. And I and I liked Dr. Talamy's, you know, talk about how he shifted his landscape. He's got 10 acres and in the course of twenty six years he's he's documented like thirteen hundred and something moths and and just all these species that came back just by going out there and removing the invasive species and make sure that the native species were there. What are maybe through programs or just anecdotally, what have you seen as some successes that those of us in this world could could again go and and inspire others to apply?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah. Let's see if I can come up with specifics. But of course, one of Leopold's famous lines is one of the challenges of living with an ecological education is that you live in a world of wounds and so you're better able to

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: see the threats and the challenges, and and the negatives about how we're treating the land. One of the kind of amazing privileges and blessings being associated with the Leopold Foundation is that our orbit is is so comprised of those that are living the land ethic. Like sometimes it's hard for me when when I travel and step outside of the Leopold bubble to realize what all's going on out there because so so often

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: we're we're engaging people like you two and your listeners who are committed to this and doing everything they can. And that is one of the things that I like to always share from my perspective is how much good work is going on out there.

Chris Lee: Hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Doug Tolemy it's

Chris Lee: That's good. Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: just The latest example and a great one. but you know, I have stacks of books on my desk and and email exchanges with people literally all over the country, all over the world that are are doing again pollinator gardens to oak groves, to prairie restoration, to wilderness protection, across all scales, across the entire landscape. And so one of the things, again, my challenge is is to just tell people like Well, find out what's going on in your community, because I almost can assure you somebody is doing something to advance the land ethic in your community. Find out who it is, what they're doing, get involved, volunteer, help out, donate, whatever, you might be able to do. But truly, I mean, it it would be hard probably to find many communities where nothing is going on. And so sometimes we lose the forest for the trees, right? Like if we could really step back, like you said, step back and look at traffic, like you are the solution. Like there's

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: a constellation of conservation activities happening all across the country and world. it is undoubtedly within the challenge of a lot of other threats and pressures, because our current economy is built to separate and fracture our relationships with each other in the natural world. but that doesn't mean it's not going on and that's not where the potential lies.

Chris Lee: So what I'm hearing is there's opportunities to tell stories. And so something that jumps out at me here recently was so we we've got a a family that they're kind of I don't know, for lack of a better term, amateur entomologists and and they're participating in the state's bumblebee atlas. And so they're going around the community and they're documenting bumblebees that they find and stuff. And they were at our our volunteer appreciation dinner here a while back, and one of the things they were telling me was So they go out and they they look at some of our restored prairies on our county conservation areas, you know. So we have whatever a hundred acre restored prairie here or fifteen over here, whatever. They're going out and they're looking at those and they said actually what they're finding is that there are some species that they're not finding in these big restored prairies, but they're finding them almost reliably in these little tiny pollinator garden plots in town. And

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Assim.

Chris Lee: yeah. Because so many of these pollinator species are they're they're species specialists. And so they have to have a certain type of plant. And that plant might not exist in the restored prairie in this year because of the timing of your fire in the spring or something like that, versus these ones that are in town, they they were planted. That that very species was planted as a plug and it's it's literally being gardened right there. And A lot of folks kind of, you know, they're like, well, my little my little ten foot by ten foot pollinary garden isn't going to mean anything. But hearing this, it does. And I I keep hearing this more and more and more and talking to to Dr. Tallamy and and the people around the community that put these in, like, holy smokes, like these things are incredibly important. And if we're going to play a role in in changing the the biodiversity loss that we're facing, it's going to take everybody. Whether you've got a little tiny postage stamp plot in town or you've got acres that you can restore prairies in, it's gonna take all of us. And and everybody has an opportunity to play role and no and no role is too small. And and so it's it's like you said, it's finding those successes and and kind of highlighting those. And so every chance I've gotten I've I've I've made sure to tell people like, don't don't discount the the impact that you can possibly make no matter what you have available to you, you know.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: No, I love that. And

Chris Lee: So yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: and I also think, you know, it just creates this positive feedback loop. Like when you

Chris Lee: Right.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: walk by and you see these little pollinator gardens and they're beautiful and you see the life literally buzzing in them, like how can you not help but say, yeah, that that's good. And then, you know, s I just also believe, I mean, this has been my career has been built on success, beget success. Like, you know, find what's working, build on that. keep you just gotta keep plugging, kind of literally and figuratively. and that and then over time, you know, you have a body of work that that really is impactful.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I don't know. It just it it it is. It's it's that impact that we have the ability to have, and sometimes we we discount that. And so that's just that's one of the things I I keep on emphasizing is I know a lot of us in this line of work, like we go out and we we we do all this work and it's it's like especially with invasive species, right? You go out and you spend all this time clearing invasive species and the damn things are right back next week, you know, and it's like It feels like a fool's errand, but I just you gotta remind yourself that every little bit helps. All right. I'm gonna get off that soapbox. I wanna I wanna go all the way back. I wanna I wan back this get this back on the on the leadership track. So we said earlier that you kind of, you know, somewhat reluctantly stepped into a a a leadership role maybe before you're ready. your academic background, as you said, is in landscape architecture. You were a hands on person, you know, so you're doing the you're a prescribed burn line boss and chainsaw operator and that kind of stuff. And then You went from the ground level work to leading the organization in a f in a fairly short amount of time. What what was that experience like? What what had to change? And what were maybe some of the some of the missteps? Because I know in my leadership journey, I had a hard time giving up that frontline technician stuff. Like I know I'm good at that. And you can go out there and you can run a chainsaw and you can do a burn and you can see the results of it. versus being the leader where now you're leading the team and they're going out and doing the stuff and you're having to go off to the next meeting. And that's kind of a bitter pill to swaddle sometimes, but that's the roles that we step into when we step into leadership. So how did that pan out for you and and what were some of the lessons along the way?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, I a really great point. I mean it is hard to you get into this line of work 'cause you you wanna do it and you wanna

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: make an im impact and difference and so giving up on that is hard. I will say that's a little bit how I spend my own free time now is, you know, finding places to care for or being outside. so I've you know, in many ways Leopold talked about vocations and avocations and

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: needing more people to spend their avocational time in in conservation and so in some ways that's how I get my my nature fix is

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: on the time off the clock. so that that's an important part. I I think again it's it gets driven by seeing impact, seeing our team grow, be able to do bigger projects, more important projects, and be able to celebrate that for them and then, you know, to to go along for the ride with that. The the real key, I mean I I it Maybe goes without saying, but I just I just still see so few people kind of really willing to step in and embrace it is really understanding the business side of the operation. So I took several classes on financial management and nonprofit finance for nonprofits, but just really being able to understand how the enterprise operates so that you can drive the mission work forward. by operating efficiently and effectively. knowing where resources are going. So you know I would always and I and I think it just is illuminating on how the world works. again in s in a real way and maybe at times unfortunate way, that we're such a capitalist-based, you know, economy. But understanding those mechanisms, I think, was really critical for me to understand and help grow the organization.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: So and that was stuff I just couldn't learn on my own. Maybe in today's world you could, I don't know, but that took classes and some studying and and getting, you know, cr critiqued by finance committee chairs and and those in the organization, but being being will willing to listen to to those that have more financial savvy and experience so that we could be as stable as of a organization as possible so that we can grow capacity and and grow impact. And and so then like lessons learned. I mean, again, this this might be a bit more unique in the nonprofit world, but one of the challenges in the nonprofit world is you're kind of always growing in the rears. In other words, you kind of gotta come up with the idea, then you gotta raise the money, then you gotta do the work. It's not so you don't really have the capital available to do the work and kind of reinvest it. And so there were early on, we got a little out of whack, like we had Commitments, but we didn't have the cash. But we had been talking about doing the work for so long, it's kind of like a few people are like, hey, let's see a little action here. you did

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: take our money 18 months ago on the promise you were gonna do this work. So there were a few times, and and now we're a little more sophisticated when we build bigger efforts or campaigns to think about cash flow relative to expenses. it's not glamorous stuff, but it's all the the kind kind core reality of how you deliver the the work product that makes the world better.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of an episode I did quite a while ago with Hannah Inman. She's the director of the Great Outdoors Foundation here in Iowa. And one of the things kind of the whole point of that talk was nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan. And and she talks about bringing that business mindset to an organization, to a nonprofit organization and and looking at it through this kind of business lens and that that the growth and and this kind of goes back to that leadership thing of stepping into these higher roles of leadership, it's it's about scaling impact. Right. So so on any one person can only swing a chainsaw so much and impact as so many acres, but stepping up into a leadership role leading an organization of people that go out and do that and then spreading that land ethic across the nation, like now now now we're talking impact, right? And it sounds like there was some value in learning for you. You recognize that you you don't have all the all the answers and there's a lot you had to learn, and so you kind of jumped into that and and There's I mean there's a lot of kind of enjoyment in that too, right?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, and and truly like, you know, as the organization grew, I got to grow. So I've

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: held the same title now for what, twenty years or more. But every five years the job has effectively been different. You know, we we're we have a different size team, we have different abilities, we have different skill sets. We have different ambition. So that's also again, I've just been very fortunate to have that opportunity. Sometimes you gotta move institutions to find the next opportunity or to get to the next level. I've been able to be part of that and experience that and grow along with it. but that's been part of what's been kind of not even rejuvenating, but you know, motivating and

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: and inspiring for me is to to be able to challenge myself in the same role in a different way, new composition of board members, new kind of environmental and social context for our work and challenges. But but it does require that. It requires, you know, kind of to be intellectually curious, willing to learn, put yourself out there a little bit and and try some things and see what works.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah, that that Hannah Enman said just don't be afraid. And I I think that was the the key takeaway from that episode that I did with her and I'm hearing that again here is you know, sometimes you just you just gotta kinda jump with both feet. You mentioned projects and how, you know, things change over time. So under your tenure, the foundation built the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, which is lead platinum certified. and it was constructed using trees actually planted by Leopold and his family, which is incredible. I visited, I remember so I I was involved with the Leopold Education Project back in the day when it was still a thing. and I visited the legacy center for the first time, I think within a year or so of completion. And I remember hearing about the process and and If I remember right, it was the only structure that was lead platinum certified in the United States at the time. I think there was maybe one in Canada. I may have that wrong, but it was one of the most greenest buildings that that existed at the time. I think there's been some come on since, but So quite the project. And if anybody knows anything about lead, like this you you don't just go buy two by fours from Menards and go stand them up. Like like everything is documented. The the process is just crazy. So where I'm going with this is a lot of new leaders find themselves leading projects and working with contractors and just kind of having to figure it out as they go. Walk me through that legacy center project, looking at it through the through the lens of an organization leader. And you know, you're you're overseeing that, you're having to deal with contractors, but you're also leading an organization. You got a team there working for the foundation. What was that like? And and what were some of the learning points along that project?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, well again, in some ways, early on, that I mean that was relatively next year will be the 20th anniversary of the the opening of the Leopold Center.

Chris Lee: Wow.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: we, you know, the organization and enterprise overall was was considerably smaller then. So kind

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: of our work was building the center. I mean, that's not totally true.

Chris Lee: Okay.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: We did have some other programs going on. But we had a bit the luxury to focus on this signature project. And that's where again success begets success. Like we did that.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: and then the next one was Gring Fire, the documentary, and then the next one,

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: was a a living and learning center for our fellowships. And each time we grew, the enterprise had kind of we created new benchmarks, so the enterprise was growing. So then it became a little bit more of a challenge because we were managing a special project amidst an actual organization or enterprise operation. Now so but then it was kind of like well that was that was what everybody got to kind of focus on. So it was it was a little bit easier in that respect. Although there's still you know a lot of moving parts. I think again as a leader, some

Chris Lee: For sure.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: of the lessons are you gotta really lean into expertise where you can find it. So you gotta trust your colleagues. So Steve Swinson, our our ecologist at the time, he had the whole massive spreadsheet on every tree that we were cutting. And where it was going to be used in the building, and how much slack we had for overages. and then we had to trust the architect and the engineer. You know, you got to take good information in and then kind of decipher that and make decisions. But again, like you get sometimes you just gotta make decisions that with the best information you have.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: So I think those are a couple of the lessons is you gotta trust others. you gotta keep moving forward. You gotta, you know, no decision is a decision. Oftentimes people forget that. It's like, well, I'd rather it's easier not to decide, but every minute in a construction project is a cost overage. So you gotta keep the, you know, keep the wheels turning. And then the the fun part about projects are that you know they usually culminate in something that again you get to celebrate with the world that helped make it happen. And that's the other thing I think sometimes we forget is consecrating success is really important so that those involved get that positive feedback loop and understand they are part of something special. And so when we opened

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: the Leopold Center, we had like 1,500 people for the the the day we opened. center it was absolutely unreal.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: and just the excitement and energy that we were able to catalyze.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. I I remember just the excitement that was around that at that time. It was just it was such an incredible project and what it represented was w it was so much more than just a facility. It was it was what it represented, right? And and and that bringing that land ethic and and this this concept to construction and to an actual facility and knowing what that what that represented going forward. You know, that that this place built from the very pines that he talks about planting in the book and now ha are making this building it is just it was it it was so cool. but anyway that

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Well, and I I think that, you know, what I like about that, Chris, is it also I think at times what limits us is our imagination. And so here this we were able to put that in practice. That we get to say the Leopold family started growing our building eighty-five years ago. I mean,

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: like you wouldn't think about it, but that's exactly what happened. And we got to demonstrate

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: that if you have the foresight and the fortitude to keep planting those trees and caring for them. that in eighty years you can build a building out of them and still have a forest left over. We still have a lot of pines

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Right.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: out there, sequestering carbon, producing clean air, providing wildlife habitat. I mean, this is all within the realm of possibility if we allow ourselves the opportunity to imagine and pursue it.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And I what's so much fun about that is because if you read the book, like Leopold talks about the struggle of getting those pines established. You know, the deer would bite off and the the conditions weren't right and they would die. They go plant some more and then they go and plant some more. And I've heard I I remember hearing Nina talk about that of like we just kept going, we just kept planting the dang things. We'd just plant some more and we'd plant some more and plant some more and then all of a sudden boom, you know, and and just that that that tenacity I think is a really great lesson for those of us in this line of work because sometimes Our work does require that. Like you just you just have to keep going and just know that that over time the the the impact is is gonna be there. All right, Telly, your turn.

Teli Van Rycke: All right, I know you've already mentioned it, but I want to dive in a little bit to another project. Green Fire. you were instrumental in bringing it the award-winning documentary to the world, the first full-length documentary about Al Aldo Leopold. Walk us through the process, through the lens of leadership. What did you learn when working with diverse partners, filmmakers, all the various people involved, and how did you balance organizational leadership, which you touched on at the foundation, with what you had to be an all-consuming project?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Wow, how did we ever do that? I don't know.

Chris Lee: I know.

Teli Van Rycke: Ha ha ha.

Chris Lee: Like I just I can't imagine what an all consuming project that would have had to have been. And this is after the legacy center was built and and like the foundations a like it's a big thing now. And then that comes along like

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah, they did overlap a little bit. So, I mean, just the quick origin of that project was in 2009, the US Forest Service was celebrating its hundredth anniversary. And so they had filmmakers that they actually were Forest Service employees, but they were professionally trained filmmakers that were assigned the job within the agency to to tell this the history. And Leopold became a kind of central figure in the In the kind of the way they tell the evolution of the agency. And so they had all this footage. So originally it was supposed to be an easy project. We were just going to do the outtakes and the extras, and there was going to be almost enough material that we could piece together a little Leopold documentary without much work or effort. Well, once you really start to Dig into the story you want to tell. And then we began to realize that there had been other documentaries, but they hadn't been filmed in today's technology and film resolution. And we really wanted to show the diversity of communities and landscapes and people that were advancing the land ethic, that we didn't really have in the can what we needed to tell the story we wanted to tell. So the first challenge was kind of accepting that and then challenging ourselves to understand this is going to be more time, more money, more effort to really bring to fruition the vision that we had. and navigate with a a board of directors you know that maybe didn't fully know or understand why a video of documentary would would be so valuable. And then again it's leaning into those people who know these pieces and parts better than you do. So we the the really good fortune we had was the Forest Service was able to detail to us those filmmakers to be the director, to be the editor of the piece. And so is trusting in them to, you know, we would talk about the outline and the the shooting, but I wasn't at every shoot. You know, you had to just kinda come back and really the the role I took on was the hard decisions of what got cut out of the film. It wasn't even the fun part about what got put in. It was the hard, it was decisions

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Teli Van Rycke: Mm-hmm.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: of like, okay, who do you want to make upset here? You know, Chris or Kelly. We got to cut one of them. We're going to have time

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Teli Van Rycke: Ha ha ha.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: for both of them. and and that was kind of my role is is navigating some of those political realities about how do we have as much diversity as possible and and just recognize we couldn't tell every story we wanted to tell. so yeah, I I think and then again there's a lot of business management. There was a lot of pieces of the puzzle. and so we had a production budget, we had a marketing budget, we had a follow-up education budget, and and that whole effort. with stress because it was coming to fruition in that early tech bust and so the economy was down, fundraising was pretty hard. We had to give up on some of our our goal original goals and focus on kind of what was the the key element which was the best product that we had the longest shelf life. and and navigate that and kind of, you know, help help people again, sometimes you gotta help people celebrate the wins, sometimes you gotta be the counselor to work through the losses too. And that project had a little bit of all of that.

Chris Lee: Yeah. What was your approach to helping navigate those those losses?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Well, you know, that's kinda one well, I I would suppose it's individual by individual. Some of it is at the team level. and I you know, again, I not to get too esoteric in leadership, but sometimes you just have to be willing to hold some of that and and you know, let it go for everybody else doesn't mean you're not disappointed, but it's just helping them vent and you kind of absorb some of that and hold it for people. and then you you roll on and and again get back to well but here's the br here's the good things that are gonna come out of that. so yeah, I think it's being a bit of that sponge and and that shock absorber, that you let other people respond and react, maybe in the way you'd want to, but you can't 'cause you gotta hold that

Chris Lee: Sure.

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: for

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. So kinda just being available and and yeah. And and making it such that they're they're not just in a vacuum. And yeah. And that's the failure I see of

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Yeah. Yeah. Well you know, right right there, cr I mean, you know, not to to assume too much or imply too but communication is always the key. and I think accessibility is really important. Sometimes you might not have the words, you might not be able to communicate it as as well as you would like, but but being genuine, being available, being accessible and being you know, trying like Here's what I think, here's how I see the world and where we're at, what we're gonna have to do to get there. and with a fair amount of confidence. Like, yeah, it's too bad. We we we didn't we didn't get to do these other pieces that we wanted, but I g we feel good. This is let you know, don't lose the forest for the trees here are still the good things that came out came out of that. But communication is almost always key.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep. I like that. All right. So as we wind this down, buddy, we always ask our guests one final question and it's this if you could get one message out to all the parks and conservation leaders out there, what would that be?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Great question. Well Keep at it. Like what you do matters. I I like to use Leopold's line near the end of San County Almanac where he writes, In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial. And I think if you're working in this field, you know it's not easy and you also know it's not trivial. But so my message would be to remember that and lean into that and just recognize that it's not easy, but boy, this is the most important work that you can be doing.

Chris Lee: That's fantastic and yeah, for sure.

Teli Van Rycke: That's great answer.

Chris Lee: That's again, it's funny how s so much of that is kind of goes parallel with what Talamy said. His his closing one was you're doing God's work. Keep at it. And I'm like, that's it, yeah. So so that's cool. buddy, thank you so much for joining us and for what you do bringing Leopold's land ethic out to the world and and just Conserving, protecting that legacy that that Leopold and Leopold family has. It isn't just Aldo. I mean, the whole family has has made their mark on on on the world of conservation. And it's it's it really is great that the foundation exists and and all the work that you guys do. If someone wanted to connect with you or the Leopold Foundation, where would you send them?

Buddy Huffaker, Leopold Fnd.: Well, just Al www.aldoleopold.org, real easy. you can find me on there, but my email is super simple too. Buddy B U D D Y at Aldoleopold.org. but our website really is a wealth of information, both about conservation history, philosophy. We have resources like the Exercises from the Leopold Education Project are available for free downloads on there, discussion guides. You can watch Green Fire on there. You can see stories about the land ethic in action. You can sign up for our Land Ethic Live, free monthly virtual programs. So lots of resources there. If if any of this is sparked any interest for your your listeners, I really would encourage them to go dig deeper.

Chris Lee: Right, that's autoleopold.org. I'll be sure to include that in the show notes. So, buddy, once again, thank you for being here and for what you do. And for everyone listening, thank you for what you do. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate the show, leave a thoughtful comment or review, and best of all, share this episode with someone else in this industry that would benefit from it. And when you do that, you help create better parks, healthier landscapes by helping create better leaders. And for that, I will forever be grateful. So thank you. And we'll talk to you again in a couple weeks. Take care. Wait, wait, wait. Don't go yet. Don't start that next episode. I've got something for you. The Parks and Restoration Better Meetings Field Guide. See, most meetings just suck. And I'm going to wage war on crappy meetings. Go to parksandrestoration.com, enter your email into the next level leadership community mailing list, and you'll get access to the free PDF download, which is the Better Meetings field guide. It will walk you through what meetings to get rid of, how to make the standing meetings better, and just all around get things done and not just sit there twiddling your thumbs and wondering why. Did I get myself into this? The Better Meetings Field Guide from Parks and Restoration. Go to parksandrestoration.com, join the next level leadership community, get the download. See you at the next episode. Take care.