By Tom Ayres , Senior Staff Writer
Alden Smith, who took over as the executive director of the Quechee-based Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) on April 1, brings a new vision and resolve to the vaunted raptor and avian rehabilitation and nature center previously led skillfully through challenging times by former director Charles “Charlie” Rattigan for the past 10 years.
Smith headed the Mountain School of Milton Academy, a semester school for high school juniors located on a farm in Vershire, for 20 years. Now at VINS, he is serving as the chief strategist, fundraiser, educational leader, and operational manager of the nature center. He spoke by phone last week from his new office, reflecting on his first six weeks on the job and the history, mission, and future of the celebrated natural science center.
Alden Smith, right, the new executive director of the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) in Quechee, visits with avian educator Mya Wiles and one of the center’s raptor residents. Courtesy of VINS
Founded in Woodstock 50 years ago and now headquartered in Quechee on 47 acres of forest, meadow, and rolling hills, VINS features 17 state-of-the-art raptor enclosures that house hawks, eagles, falcons, owls, and other birds of prey, in addition to two songbird aviaries. Four education, rescue, rehabilitation, and research centers operate under the VINS umbrella: the Visitor Welcome Center and Nature Store, the Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation, the Center for Environmental Education, and the Center for Field Research. In addition, VINS sports indoor and outdoor classrooms, interpretive nature trails including a celebrated Forest Canopy Walk, a heated four-season pavilion, and an outdoor facility especially designed for exhibits, events, meetings, and live raptor programs.
Smith has spent his first two months at VINS taking it all in and beginning to shape the future of the center in consultation with Rattigan and close collaboration with a staff of more than 30 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees, plus a sizable coterie of devoted, community-based volunteers. “I’ve taken the opportunity to really get to know VINS. The best way to do that has been to meet with every employee, sit down and learn what they do, and what fuels their passion for VINS and their work,” Smith shared. “I’m also getting to know the board and some of the important people in both the internal and external circles,” he added. “It has been a luxury to have some period of overlap with Charlie, learn some of the contacts that have been so important to him, and to have his vision for the inner workings of VINS. He continues to be supportive from afar — it’s been a really healthy transition in that way, too.”
Smith looked back on the challenges Rattigan and the VINS team encountered over the last decade and spoke about the present state of the nature center as he takes the helm. “I’ve known about VINS for a long time — I’ve admired it as an organization. But there have been two surprises,” he added. “First, I didn’t know how tough things had been a dozen or so years ago. A lot of the non-profits in the area were coming out of the recession — it was just a lean time. Charlie and his team did a remarkable job of bringing the finances back in order, garnering support for events, and building out some of the infrastructure. The institution today is much stronger than what Charlie discovered when he got here in 2014.”
The new VINS leader cites one of those infrastructure enhancements — the Forest Canopy Walk — as emblematic of the expanded mission of and vision for VINS as the organization ponders its future. “It’s hard to separate the Canopy Walk from Charlie’s own vision and the vision of the organization as a whole,” Smith offered. “Part of what is so magnificent about it is that it brings us up into the treetops, involving people in areas of nature beyond avian education and rehabilitation. It just gives us a view and insight into other possibilities for how VINS can be a player in conservation and education about the natural world going forward.”
Smith stated that the organization does “something very specific that very few places in the world do. That’s what initially really grabbed my attention. VINS routinely takes injured birds, restores them to health, and releases them into the wild — a wonderful service that requires an enormous amount of expertise and care,” Smith said. “The release of a healed bird into the wild offers a kind of hope for the ways we can steward our watershed and planet. And what VINS is doing now extends well beyond restoring birds to health, because research is so obviously important to our mission. And the education component is essential: I bring more of an educator’s lens to the work than some of the other areas, yet all three of those areas — rehabilitation, research, and education — are equally important in terms of VINS delivering on its mission.”
Speaking of VINS’ efforts to bounce back from hard times, particularly coming out of the pandemic, Smith was unequivocal, especially about the role of skilled staff members and committed volunteers in rising to the challenge. “People have been showing up for a long time, taking care of the place with remarkable expertise, not just around the edges, but taking center stage in some of our programming, doing really essential work,” he commented. “When you see a program involving birds – these magnificent birds, flying from trainer to trainer, and you hear those presentations, you understand how much we can learn from these birds and what they can teach us about their companions in the wild.
“What you don’t see is the dozens of hours working with that animal behind the scenes, nurturing them, training them by engaging in choice-based training exercises, and cleaning up after them,” Smith added. “The professionals here are very talented and everyone has chosen to make VINS a home that they are really committed to. That’s the promise for the future. I have ideas, some of which I’ve set aside for right now, because it has been great to learn from the people who are here, because they are full of fantastic ideas about what this place could do moving forward.”
One idea that Smith has embraced for the immediate future is the implementation of special VINS programming for the nature center’s youngest visitors. “One of the areas of focus and growth lately has been early childhood education. We’re committed to creating an exhibit for infants and toddlers, where they can explore and experience nature in a way that’s safe for them and developmentally appropriate in that window of time,” Smith noted. “We know more than we’ve ever known before about how crucial it is to have that exposure to the natural world at the earliest stages, especially at the ages at which they may not even recall later. At the same time, it gives the parents who are coming in here with strollers and baby carriages a little bit of a break and a chance to watch their child immerse themselves in an exhibit that is safe.”
Smith, his wife Missy, and their own children — sons Henry Atticus (9) and Alden (13), and daughter Ellicott (15) — have settled into a new home in Norwich, in closer proximity to VINS as the natural science center’s new leader embraces his work with passion and purpose.