HOLLIS – Beaver Brook Nature Center, 117 Ridge Rd., has announced that Lindsay Jones has been named the center’s new full-time executive director.

Jones, who grew up in Nashua, earned a degree from the University of Vermont’s environmental studies program. Prior to moving to Hollis, she and her husband lived in San Francisco, California. Her love for Beaver Brook is rooted deeply in her upbringing.

“I feel very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time,” she said. “I had this opportunity open up to me and to even be a candidate for it, I felt very privileged to have the chance. My love for Beaver Brook runs very deep. I lived in Nashua for 20 years and my husband grew up in Hollis, so BB was part of his every day – it was basically his back yard.”

Jones said she has her husband to thank for introducing her to BB.

“I first came to know BB as a teenager,” she shared. “You can’t help but fall in love with it here. It’s pure and simple nature and they haven’t done much to change it and that’s intentional. There’s not signage or overly manicured trails. You really feel like you’re experiencing nature as it is. And I’ve always felt that’s something that stands out about BB.”

Through some job changes, and a move back east from the West Coast, Jones said she volunteered at BB for many years doing small tasks to help in any way they could.

“I started working here in a part-time capacity in February,” she said. “I began as the director of communications and planning and just sort of moved into this role.”

Before BB, Jones’ career was working in the environmental field as well. She said that she has always been passionate about the environment and protecting it. The company that she worked for previously was an energy efficiency firm.

“Honestly, connecting the environment and creating connections between people and the environment is very important to me,” she said. “For most of my career, I was just fascinated by how people use energy, their opinions on it and how could we get people to care about energy efficiency and that challenge of changing the hearts and minds of people to make change.”

In that role, she spent eight years at a start-up, being the seventh person hired. That company eventually grew to nearly 200 by the time she left, with her focus on marketing.

“I went from doing everything and wearing every hat to supporting engineers and doing energy audits in skyscrapers in San Francisco to leading a marketing team.” Now, Jones feels like she has found a home with her new position.

“It still feels a bit surreal,” she shared. “This is the job, that when I was going to college and exiting college, wondering what I would be when I grow up someday, this is absolutely the type of role that I had hoped for. That was my younger self and now as I have evolved, with two young children, as a parent the importance of fostering the relationship between them and the environment is a challenge and a desire that is of critical importance to me.”

Jones said it’s a common thread that weaves its way through the minds of other parents as well.

“I very fortunate to be able to translate something in my professional world to something that I care very much about in my personal world,” she said. “And to see those two pieces come together is a dream come true.”

As for the future of BB and Jones’ strategy, she said that COVID provided a lot of learning for the center.

“We saw an increase in the number of people who use our trails,” she said. “We know that nature offers a lot of therapeutic value so as we sat here and adapted our programs and adjusted how to continue offering programs to the public when we could, we certainly learned a lot and are digesting those learnings right now.”

Founded in 1964, BB has a rich history to build upon and Jones said that’s what she and her new role, aim to do.

“This was a transition time,” she said. “And we want to build from that. We want to continue to offer programs to the public that we know are so meaningful and impactful and help us in furthering our mission. There are no major changes being made – that’s the beauty of Beaver Brook.”