By Brenden Curry

In 2013, after working for nearly decade in the restaurant industry, Erin Smith, who is now one of the preserve managers at Natural Lands, didn’t like where her career was headed.

She was burned out and wanted to do something that would enable her to have an impact on the environment, which she loves so much. She began her pursuit of something new by enrolling in the master’s degree program in landscape architecture at Temple.

She chose Temple because of the balance between design and ecological restoration with a corresponding ecology class in the curriculum. This distinctive facet of the program exposed her to many adjunct professors who worked in conservation-oriented fields, including a future co-worker, Mike Coll, who manages the Hildacy Farm Preserve.

“I was really able to explore potential career paths with hands-on experiences in an educational setting,” said Smith, who grew up loving the outdoors in the Washington, D.C., metro area, where spent much of her youth at nature camps and hiking with her family near the Potomac River.

During her final semester at Temple, she completed a land management internship at Briar Bush Nature Center in Abington. This was her first time doing consistent, physical work outside, sometimes in challenging weather conditions. She described the experience as fun and rewarding, and it gave her something that she hadn’t had in a while: the prospect of having a career that would allow her to constantly be learning and expanding her knowledge.

“I enjoyed every minute of it, even in the snow and rain,” Smith said.

After her May 2017 graduation, she worked as a land stewardship intern for the Brandywine Conservancy, where she was primarily tasked with monitoring many of the easements that the conservancy holds. She wrote annual reports for each visit, working outside and hiking the majestic landscapes in the Brandywine Valley.

Her contributions to the Brandywine Conservancy led her to Natural Lands, the Media-based nonprofit that saves open space, cares for nature, and connects people to the outdoors. She became the yearlong intern at Crow’s Nest Preserve, one of Natural Lands’ preserves in Elverson, where she started to learn the skills that would enable her to become one of the organization’s preserve managers.

After the completion of her internship, she became a stewardship assistant for Natural Lands, traveling to several of the preserves during the week and supporting the preserve managers. Recently, almost two years from her first day as an intern, she was promoted to preserve manager.

She currently manages three preserves that have vital ecological value to Chester County wildlife. She oversees:

• the 126-acre Willisbrook Preserve in Radnor, which hosts a rare serpentine barrens ecosystem that supports more than 40 species of threatened or endangered butterflies and moths.
• the 200-acre Green Hills Preserve in Mohnton, home to a 90-acre meadow restoration project, as well as a protected habitat area for an endangered species.
• the 500-acre Sadsbury Woods Preserve in Coatesville, which is part of the largest unfragmented woodland in the region, providing necessary habitat for migratory birds and important protection to the stream.

The promotion also put her in the unique position of being an adjunct professor at Temple, where she can connect with young women like her.

“I’m so proud to be able to represent Natural Lands as a woman, and to be able to hopefully encourage other women to seek out this career path, or at the very least know that it’s an option,” Smith said. “I’ve had many jobs and I can truly say that, even though there are few women in land stewardship, I have never felt like more of a peer the way that I do with our stewardship staff at Natural Lands.”

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