After helping the organization expand, the executive director of Harpswell Heritage Land Trust is resigning to pursue a full-time career in children’s education.
Julia McLeod started working for the nonprofit nearly 12 years ago and rose through the ranks to become its leader. She plans to step down in mid-July.
During her tenure, McLeod has greatly expanded the Land Trust’s educational activities, boosting its Nature Day Camp from one week per summer to 12 sessions over six weeks this summer, hosting more than 200 kids. She also initiated a collaboration with Harpswell Community School for nature-based learning.
“I have experienced a great deal of joy and satisfaction during my 11-plus years working for the Land Trust,” McLeod said in a news release. “I cherish many relationships I have made during this time, and I feel a great deal of pride for what we’ve accomplished. I have enjoyed my role as executive director, but I now hope to return to a career that has more time working directly with children.”
McLeod joined the Land Trust in 2012 as a part-time outreach coordinator, a new position at the time that doubled the organization’s staff from one to two. It now has five full-time staff and six seasonal part-timers who help run the day camp.
She was promoted to outreach director in 2019 and then acting executive director in February 2022, succeeding her predecessor, Reed Coles, upon his retirement after 17 years in the leadership spot. McLeod was named permanent executive director in August 2022.
McLeod, who lives in Bowdoin, said in an interview that while she has grown to love the Harpswell community and her colleagues at the Land Trust, the executive director position hasn’t afforded her as much time as she had hoped for to work outdoors with children.
To that end, McLeod said she already has accepted a new position working at a school that will involve teaching students about nature and the outdoors. She didn’t specify which school.
“I really get a lot of joy from working with kids, and especially working with kids outdoors,” she said. “I was hoping to hold onto some of that work when I took on the executive director role, because it brings me so much joy, and then found … that was not really realistic.”
McLeod has built a strong and talented team that will carry on its work throughout the summer, the Land Trust said in the release. The organization’s Board of Trustees is forming a search committee to hire the next executive director, it said, and the committee will begin its work immediately.
“(The Land Trust) is a financially strong organization with superb staff, thanks to the leadership of Julia over the past two years,” said Wendy Batson, the board’s president, in the release. “While we will miss Julia, we wish her the very best as she pursues the vital role of educating and working with our youth.”
In an interview, Batson said the search committee is putting together a job listing for the position and plans to post it publicly in early July.
McLeod is leaving the organization on solid financial footing with a broader base of financial support after helping to improve outreach and fundraising efforts following a major acquisition in 2022, Batson said. She added that McLeod also has, crucially, helped the group expand its focus from just land acquisition to include more outreach and education components.
“I think that’s just as important, in part because if you’re going to preserve land, people need to understand why you’re doing it,” Batson said. “There needs to be some community sense of, ‘This is a worthy goal.’”
The Land Trust’s mission is to “preserve and protect Harpswell’s natural resources, cultural heritage and access to the outdoors now and forever through conservation, stewardship and education,” according to its website, hhltmaine.org.
Its land holdings include 20 preserves, protecting more than 600 acres in Harpswell and offering 11 trail systems.
They include the 71-acre Otter Brook Preserve on Harpswell Neck, the 95-acre Long Reach Preserve south of Dyer Cove, and its most visited site, the McIntosh Lot Preserve, adjacent to the town-owned Giant’s Stairs property.
In fall 2022, the Land Trust completed its previously announced “Forever Campaign,” raising more than $2.1 million to create an endowment and acquire the 57-acre Anna M. Tondreau Preserve on Great Island.
