Introducing our new President...

I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself as the newly elected CMNA President (I’m still in shock to say that!). It will be tough to follow up the leadership of our own Dave Eslinger, who has led us through the last four years—including during the pandemic, when we had to adjust many of our activities. For his service, I hope you can join me in extending a huge thank you!!

Along with my new role as President, I did want to encourage readers to check out our ‘Meet Our Team’ webpage to learn more about my fellow Board Members. Many of us have been serving the association for many years—special shoutout to those veterans!!— but some of us will be new to our roles. We have all had great experiences as Master Naturalists and I hope I can speak for all of us when I say that we are excited to continue getting people outside and learning to be good stewards of the Lowcountry.

While this role is a new experience for me, I’m proud to say I’m not a stranger to being a naturalist. Like many of us probably were, I was rolling in the grass and dirt throughout childhood. I spent a lot of time outside in the woods, getting dirty on the softball field and, when I was older, learning how to do be a field biologist/conservationist. My biggest takeaway from my Master Naturalist class is that I have so much to learn, which keeps life exciting! I still love being outside and have been lucky to have worked in variety of professional roles in the conservation field, including teaching environmental education to students during my Peace Corps Service in Paraguay, where I learned a lot about the importance of this work.

Nowadays, aside from staring at birds and flipping logs to find reptiles, you’ll find me obsessing over my dog, reading or fossil hunting on the beach, and exploring new places around the world. My goal as CMNA President is to make sure that we keep doing great things to teach people about the inextricable link between us and our natural and cultural resources. There is so much to learn and appreciate, so I hope to see y’all around as we keep encouraging ourselves and others to go explore the outdoors. If you have ideas, questions, concerns, a cool tree photo, feel free to reach out to me via our contact form on the website. Enjoy our Spring newsletter!

Yours in adventure and exploration,

Allyssa Zebrowski