Photo: S. Hermann & F. Richter via Pixabay
On June 7, 2020 ASNV held its Annual Membership Meeting “virtually” for the first time since our founding in 1980. Members elected three new board members and a current member to three-year terms. We’re thrilled to have such talented and dedicated people guiding ASNV into the future.
Greg Butcher has been on the ASNV Board of Directors since 2014. Greg is the Migratory Species Coordinator for U.S. Forest Service International Programs. He is a Ph.D. ornithologist who has worked for the National Audubon Society, American Birding Association, Partners in Flight, Birders World magazine and Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Greg is a recognized public speaker and interpreter for bird conservation and ecology worldwide. He welcomes the opportunity to contribute to Audubon's environmental mission at the local level.
Judy Gallagher has been an Audubon member for more than 25 years. She loves birding, but is most passionate about documenting insects and spiders and their behavior and environment through macro photography. Judy is a Certified Master Naturalist and a charter member of the Prince William Wildflower Society. She has a Certificate in Natural History Field Studies from Audubon Naturalist Society. She joined ASNV's wonderful Natural Resources Survey when she retired five years ago and spends most of her free time roaming natural spaces in Northern Virginia looking for bugs. She also participates in several Christmas Bird Counts.
Joan Haffey couldn’t help but become a birder through osmosis and the patience of the birding community in Cape May, NJ where she has vacationed for 30 years. Beginning with NJ Audubon, she is an ongoing and active member of three Audubon chapters. Joan is an Arlington Regional Master Naturalist whose focus is citizen science. This includes participation in regular natural resource surveys and bird counts as well as stream water quality monitoring. She helps enter historical data for some of these surveys in the eBird and PollardBase databases. Until she retired, Joan worked in global health in approximately 45 countries around the globe, including long-term assignments in West Africa, Central America and the People’s Republic of China. She is fluent in Spanish and comme ci, comme ça in French.
Betsy Martin spent her career as a researcher improving methods and measurements in the decennial census and government surveys. When she retired from the U.S. Census Bureau in 2007, she enrolled in the then-new Virginia Master Naturalist program and embarked on a second career as an environmental activist and volunteer. She is an Audubon at Home Ambassador, and since 2012 has served as coordinator for the Audubon at Home program in Fairfax County. Now she is a co-director. She’s a founder and president of the Friends of Little Hunting Creek, leads cleanups, and works to preserve riparian habitat on the creek. She’s organized demonstrations urging companies and associations to take responsibility for the litter their products create, and advocates for laws to prevent litter. Betsy serves on Fairfax Supervisor Dan Storck’s Environmental Advisory Committee and is a member of the Fairfax County Chesapeake Bay Exception Review Committee.
Thank You to our Departing Board Members
Andrea Auerbach, Robin Duska and Traci McGillicuddy joined the ASNV board in July of 2017.
Andrea Auerbach served on the Youth Education Committee which administers mini-grants to schools and scholarships for teachers to attend Educator’s Week at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine. Andrea also volunteered to help with children’s activities at numerous public events and shared her technical and editing expertise with several other committees.
Robin Duska spent many hours as the Co-coordinator of ASNV’s Audubon at Home program. She spearheaded a management plan that focused the program on specific goals and objectives. At the 2019 National Audubon Convention Robin was invited to join a panel discussing environmental work with faith communities. The invitation grew from Audubon at Home’s success in winning and managing Burke Grants for five diverse faith communities in our region.
Traci McGillicuddy served on the Youth Education Committee administering grants and volunteering for many public events, especially those involving children. She also coordinated a successful partnership between ASNV and the Children’s Science Center to teach basic birding skills and support a summer program for children and their families to study our regional birds.