Deep Roots in Conservation

By Doug Nicholas, Director of Communications

From TLC News, August 2007

When we started looking early this year for a candidate to fill the communications coordinator position, the task became a lot easier when the person who has written the best-ever magazine article about our White Pines Preserve (more below) sent an email saying, “This position sounds very fulfilling to me in many ways. Creative communication for conservation causes—I like all those C’s.”

It didn’t hurt that the person also:

• Worked as a freelance writer and communications consultant for seven years with clients including Duke Forest, US Fish and Wildlife Service, NC Division of Parks and Recreation (State Parks), and NC Coastal Land Trust;

• Worked for 11 years as a communicator with the NC Nature Conservancy, reaching the level of director of communications;

• Has written two books, The Duke Forest at 75: A Resource For All Seasons and North Carolina Afield: A Guide to Nature Conservancy Projects in North Carolina.

• Co-owns Niche Publishing, a publishing/consulting firm

Our challenge quickly changed from “find a great candidate” to “land an unbelievably great candidate.” That was February. The unbelievably great candidate was Ida Phillips Lynch. And we landed her!

Ida started her tenure as TLC’s communications coordinator on April 2. She’s primarily responsible for producing TLC’s newsletter, E-news, website and annual report, along with other publications as needed. It was a big change for Ida to return to an office setting after seven years as a work-from-home freelancer. But the transition has been smooth, Ida says. “I like working with people who have a similar mindset and focus. There’s a good vibe at TLC. And I like being involved with conservation in the Triangle area, so that I can make a contribution to the area where I grew up.”

Ida has been working directly or peripherally for conservation groups her entire professional career. She began her career as an administrative assistant with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Atlanta in 1989. The next year she transferred to a membership services position with TNC’s North Carolina Chapter in Carrboro. “I was the only communications person in North Carolina at that time,” Ida said. “I had to learn to juggle a million things. I was there for 11 years and it was a great learning experience and work atmosphere.”

Ida was born and raised in Chapel Hill, and except for her college years at Davidson, a year after college in England and France, and her year with TNC in Atlanta, she has lived here her entire life. Her love of the outdoors grew naturally through her family. Family vacations to the mountains included hiking expeditions. Trips to the coast included fishing lessons from her father. Her parents are native North Carolinians from the Sandhills area, her mother from Gray’s Creek near Fayetteville, her father from Laurinburg.

She also loves hiking and found her work with local clients as a freelancer opened her eyes to the Triangle’s outdoor destinations.  "When I was working on the Duke Forest book I realized there are a lot of really interesting places in the Triangle that I had not explored,” Ida said.  Among her favorite spots are TLC’s White Pines Preserve and Johnston Mill Nature Preserve, other places along New Hope Creek like Duke Forest’s Korstian Division, and Eno River State Park. Umstead State Park has become a recent favorite. “It’s nice to have that big a protected area so close to an urban area, and to visit at different times of year to see changes in nature and also changes in how people use the park,” Ida said.

Note: Ida’s article about White Pines, “White Pines Primeval,” appeared in the April 2005 issue of Wildlife in North Carolina magazine.

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