Q. For those not familiar with the Hawai'i Nature Center, can you give a brief description of what it does?

A. The Hawai'i Nature Center is the state's largest provider of environmental education for families, children and visitors. We provide unique environmental experiences in the field. Every year about 20,000 of Hawai'i's elementary school children go into the field as part of their classroom studies. Our professional educators work with them in identifying flora, fauna and natural processes.

Q. Why do you think it is important to teach Hawai'i's young people about their environment?

A. There are two answers. One's an economic answer and the other one is more of a real-life answer. The economic answer is simple: Visitors don't come here to look at the concrete that we've poured in Waikiki. They come here to look at and enjoy our natural resources. The real-life answer is that if our residents can't take care of the environment, we won't have anyplace to live. Our water comes from the mountains, mauka from where most of us live. We rely on that water as a precious natural resource. And it's important for us to teach our children that importance so that they'll care for the resource and ensure it's there for future generations. One of my favorite quotes is from Chief Seattle that says the land is not ours, but it's borrowed from our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

Q. Can you talk a little about the Hawai'i Nature Center's facility in 'Iao Valley on Maui?

A. We've renovated our Maui facility, which is the old 'Iao lodge, to provide overnight accommodations as part of our program in the rainforest. Locals and visitors alike can come over in a group setting, stay in the rainforest and work with our educators in understanding more about Hawai'i's environment. They're also able to do service projects in the valley removing invasive species, planting native species and experiencing a very archaeologically rich area.

Q. How does the Hawai'i Nature Center distinguish itself from similar groups like The Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club?

A. We like to think of ourselves as purely educational. We don't take political stances on issues. We don't buy land and landbank it to set it aside for the future. We focus on education as our primary mission. The mission of the Hawai'i Nature Center is to foster awareness, appreciation and understanding of Hawai'i's environment and to provide wise stewardship of the Islands' ecosystems. We know that if we want to preserve this place for future generations, we, as a community, have to do a better job of educating not only those of us who live here, but also those who visit here.

Q. What are the Hawai'i Nature Center's primary sources of funding?

A. It's drastically changed over the past four years. When I first came on board we were an organization that had to fundraise about 80 percent of $1 million-plus budget every year. Now we're at a point where we have a more stable mix of funding, which is about a third from program revenue, a third from government and a third from traditional fundraising sources — foundations, individual giving and corporate giving.

Q. How many paid staff do you have, and to what extent do you rely on volunteers?

A. We have 25 paid staff on O'ahu and Maui, full time and part time. Last year we had 900 volunteers who contributed almost 9,000 hours of volunteer time to the nature center.

Q. Is that a sufficient amount of volunteers, or could you use more help?

A. We always need more volunteers. One of the key areas we really need help in is teaching docents. Our greatest line-item expense in our children's education program is our salaried professional educator. We work with schools on a one educator to every 10 students ratio. And with a class of 60 people, that means we need to have six people going with each one of the 400 to 500 classes that we work with every year. When you do those numbers and you think about if you were a business person and had to pay for each one of those six people that are working with the school children, the cost is exorbitant for the schools to cover. So consequently we offset those numbers with teaching docents, volunteers who work with our professional staff.

Q. Before moving into the nonprofit sector, you worked for two major retailers, Niketown and Barnes & Noble. What prompted you to make such a career change?

A. I always felt like I wanted to make a difference in the community. When I was with Barnes & Noble and with Niketown, I began to serve on various nonprofit boards in the community and really received great enjoyment from that service. With both Barnes & Noble and Nike I was asked to leave the Islands and take a promotion on the Mainland, both of which I had turned down to stay in Hawai'i. As I turned down a promotion at Niketown and I began to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my career, Don Anderson of the YMCA of Honolulu suggested I may really enjoy working with their organization. It turned out to be one of the smartest career moves I've ever made in terms of getting out of a for-profit into a nonprofit with a quality organization.

Q. What attracted you to the Hawai'i Nature Center?

A. I grew up on a dairy farm of several hundred acres in southern lower Michigan and I've always been an outdoorsman. When I was in college I was the co-founder of our environmental awareness society and had always been active in environmental issues on campus. When the opportunity came up at the nature center, it just was a real logical fit for me.