Meet Ted! Maine Audubon Welcomes New Leader

May 06, 2009

Topics: Conservation | People Profiles

 

Theodore S. "Ted" Koffman says a favorite memory from his youth is time spent with his father, listening to loons on Moosehead Lake. Now onboard as Maine Audubon's executive director, Ted will lead efforts to protect special places, such as the Northern Forest's Moosehead Lake region, that have shaped his commitment to conservation and a career that already has helped diverse groups of people see the value of protecting Maine's natural resources.

 

Early Awakening

Until moving recently to Portland with his wife, Joanna, Ted was a longtime Bar Harbor resident who grew up in the countryside of New Jersey, “a corner of the state that was quite beautiful,” he says. He has four grown children.

Encouraged by his mother and father—a businessman father who kept Thoreau’s North Woods next to Fortune magazine on his bed stand—Ted spent his early years digging in the garden, sledding down hills, and swinging on birches (well before he’d heard of Robert Frost’s birch- swinger poem).

“As a kid, seeing some of my favorite rural places get subdivided awakened me,” he says.

Ted’s environmental ethic continued to grow in college, at the same time as his growing appreciation for “learning communities” inspired him to become an administrator and educator. He spent 30 years working in different capacities for College of the Atlantic (COA) in Bar Harbor, an institution committed to producing students who will work for an environmentally sustainable and just society.

One of his proudest accomplishments at COA was heading Eco-Eco, a project that brought together Maine business and environmental-group leaders to reach common ground. Launched in the 1980s, a time when links among conservation and Maine’s prosperity were not well understood, Ted says many of the people who agreed to meet would more commonly have “hired lawyers before even talking to each other.”

It wasn’t easy, he said, but the group succeeded in discovering shared values needed to make state policy recommendations that balanced the needs of each “eco,” ecology and economy.

Learning in the Legislature

The Eco-Eco process inspired Ted to run for the Maine State House of Representatives in 2000. “We needed more people to go to bat for the environment,” he said.

In his eight years in the Maine Legislature—six as Natural Resources Committee co-chair—Representative Koffman earned respect by winning bipartisan support for conservation and the natural environment. Once again, he recognized that education is the key to change.

“If you’re dealing with vernal pools, for example, and some members are skeptical about regulation, you absolutely must give them the information they need to value that resource,” he said.

Honored last year, at the end of his term, by the Maine League of Conservation Voters, Ted is beginning his newest environmental leadership role at a time when Maine’s conservation issues clearly demand action.

“The 21st Century poses distinct new problems, especially climate change,” he said. “It’s all connected.”

By addressing climate change through smart growth, alternative energy, and efficient transportation systems, he said, we’ll also protect wildlife habitat, clean air and water, and Maine’s special places—including those places people may first learn as children to love visiting.

“I can’t imagine a better way to get involved with Maine’s future,”
 
Ted says, as he begins his tenure as executive director. “I expect it will be a great adventure.”