Project Management, the Appalachian Trail, and the Trust for Public Land with Francis O'Shea

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Francis O'Shea, Conservation Project Manager at Trust for Public Land about Project Management, the Appalachian Trail, and the Trust for Public Land.  Read his full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 
2:18  Nic & Laura discuss the Appalachian Trail
9:22  Interview with Francis O'Shea starts
14:05  Trust for Public Lands
21:17   Project Management
27:00   Appalachian Trail
34:18   Field Notes

Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review. 

This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Guest Bio:
Francis O'Shea is a Conservation Project Manager at Trust for Public Land. Born and raised in New York, Fran graduated from Skidmore College in 2005. After a decade in a variety of real estate related roles, Francis joined TPL in 2018 and has been working to protect land for people since. TPL is a national non profit that works to connect everyone to the benefits and joys of the outdoors. Since 1972 TPL has protected more than 4 million acres of public land, created more than 5,364 parks, trails, schoolyards, and iconic outdoor places, and raised over $94 billion in public funding for parks and public land. In New York we've created more than 500 schoolyards, parks and green spaces across the state, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. Francis lives in Irvington, NY just outside NYC with his wife Erika, two daughters Margaret (9) and Edith (6) and their dog Molly.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Laura  
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I discuss the Appalachian Trail. We talk to you Francis O'Shea about project management, the Appalachian Trail and Trust for Public Land. And finally, speaking of the at the youngest person to hike the entire 2190 mile trail, depending how you count it was a one year old girl carried by her parents. There have been several five year olds to complete the path with their families. The oldest person to three likes that trail is a man named nimble will nibble will complete the path as an 83 year olds. Yeah, about that. And I'm gonna get going on this thing.

Nic  
I know right? So yeah, no excuses. For us. Because that means a

lot. The annual nav conference and training symposium will occur from Sunday, May 5 to Wednesday, May 8, at the Renaissance Minneapolis hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's always a great time and feature many of your favorite planning sessions with regional flair. register@www.nap.org All

Laura  
right. Well, we do not have a sponsor going for us today. So we would love to hear from you if you'd like to fill a spot. But for the time being, we've got 30 seconds of Nick selling us something fun. Ready?

Nic  
Yeah, here we go. Yeah, a lot of us, as many of us most of us would say I would say, you know, maybe that maybe we're a little follically challenged right? Maybe we don't have all the hair on our heads. I don't I don't I'm not I'm not trying to single anyone out. I'm not I don't know who I would be talking about. But I have a product for you. If you're tired of being bald and you want black to not be bald, we have a thing called hats for life. That's right. We're going to sell a hat on to your head. So you always have one at all times. And even when people think you can take it up or should take it up. You can't. So how about that hats for life? We're gonna make sure that no one ever looks at the top of your head instead of your eyes. Because yeah, that happens and I'm down here. That's all I'm saying. I'm not I mean, we collectively we collectively are down here. That's what I meant. Yeah, definitely not referring to myself that would be ridiculous. But I asked her like

Laura  
I think a little bit when he went but it was pretty close.

Nic  
Let's get to our segment I would love to talk about the Appalachian Trail. Oh, yeah.

Laura  
I think that's as perfect. I mean, I think it's kind of surprising that I've never done it.

Nic  
I know. I was like, I couldn't believe it. I was like, well I mean, I know it doesn't go to Florida, but still I just I figured everyone on the East Coast has at least been on it. A little. I don't think

Laura  
I've even like looked at it. But I know I mean, camp and go to all kinds of places in North Carolina, Tennessee. Even maybe Virginia when I was younger, but we weren't hiking or just camping. Yeah, hill so I think we went to touristy places. I don't think we went to like, something like that.

Nic  
I mean, I don't know. I think honestly, that's the joy of the trail is that there's lots of different ways to experience it and none of them are wrong. They're all just unique ways. You can hike the entire thing. You can hike segments. You can go on a you know, an hour long hike or a six month hiker I think that's how long it takes four months, something like that, to go start to finish. And yeah, I think it's the joy of it. I let me I'm so biased. I grew up there. And it was like, you know, when you're a teenager and there's literally nothing else to do, you're like, Yeah, let's go hiking again. You know, and it's this kind of, yeah, my love of the environment that comes from the trail. So yeah, I can't help it. Gosh,

Laura  
like I am from Florida. We don't have any hills. No, no, I have but there's a short period of my life where we did do backpacking, like I have multi day backpacks, handful of times in Florida, in Florida.

Nic  
Oh gosh. Yeah,

Laura  
sometimes great sometimes brutal because you are painfully hot and humid. But I've also done it in like the Olympic National Forest, but I don't think I've ever done anything as arduous as the Appalachian Trail nor what I think I would even try.

Nic  
Right and you know, it's like I say, there's the PCT and the West Coast. There's so many different kinds of trails like that. And so it's not even like a I think that's just a different kind of experience. I was like, my best friend and I we were like if we don't have jobs in six months. We're going to hike the trail for the year and the rest of the year. And we both got jobs like a week after we said that. It was always it was a dream of mine when I was younger when I was in my 20s I don't I don't have any desire to do it now. But walking for a day or two. Yeah, heck yeah. It's still

Laura  
wonderful. Yeah, well, I'm at the point now where like, I wonder if I could back back again, because for 10 years, like I had such backgrounds like they could not not entertain. But now like, I don't know, I think I'm kind of back to normal, but I also wouldn't want to push it. There's no way I went back to that. So yeah, I think those of maybe with a burrow.

Nic  
The mule that was at the

Laura  
mule that was out there somewhere. Yeah. Maybe that's where it came from. Right.

Nic  
Exactly.

Laura  
That's two people hiking with goats. So if I could get a mule or a goat or something to carry my stuff I might do

Nic  
just carry me and just drag me behind. I'll just be behind just won't even get on the horse. You know, I think it's like I think so like pizza voters like where that was the closest like touristy place to where I grew up, right? It was like, literally 35 minutes or so from my house and like you just go down there. There's no internet anywhere and please there there wasn't last time I did it. It's still kind of funny. Like it's just like they had a TV. And that was it pretty much like all the TV. But that's at the base of the mountain and I'm not talking like 4000 feet, chopped off and flat top. Flat Top is an easy four mile hike. Sharp top is a straight up vertical in a one mile hike. So it's they're very different, but they're very fun and like, I did that thing so many times as a kid. I forgotten how hard it was. Because it gives a kid like nothing's hard. You're like, Oh, it's so easy. I have all the energy in the world. And as adult you're like dying to get to the top of this thing, and but the view is beautiful. It really is. It's a great, great view. So it's always like, that's the joy. Right? You could do that right now. And you'd have no problems. I mean, you would be annoyed with me because I thought you said it was you said to be easy, Nick. But you could do it. And

Laura  
I'll do it. I have to take my time. Right like like, I have to keep up or whatever, but I don't I don't even try.

Nic  
No, no. And like I say like there's gonna be five year olds flying past you. Yeah, I'm gonna chill all the time. So yeah, that's the beauty of something like that. It's even like North Carolina. It's more driving, driven more than I've hiked on in North Carolina, but it's also still very beautiful. It's a winding road through the mountains. It's hard not to drive that listen, Joe was the Blue Ridge Parkway is actually close to it. So like I'm sorry, I should have said that right away. So the Blue Ridge Parkway is actually follows it for that. Yeah. And so there's lots of different ways to get to different parts of it. And like I think that's where you see those intersections of those kinds of things. And so if you can't hike it, you can still drive for parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway, or for the Blue Ridge Parkway, and it does basically follow the trail. So it's pretty cool. It's a really neat experience. So that's what I mean. Like there's lots of different ways that you can still experience how pretty it is. Yeah. Well,

Laura  
like this author and his brother that I mentioned later, who hiked the trail and they're 70 they did do I checked with my business partner they do they did the whole thing.

Nic  
Oh my gosh, there's seven days that I mean, that's that's intense as how long did it take them? Do you know? It's months. It's months long. Anyone? So yeah, but

Laura  
you know, the book will be out later this year. So we'll we can all know when they're gonna do like in September, they're gonna do like a reunion. It's been five years so they're gonna go back and do a little not the whole thing. Reunion trip, so that'll be really cool. But yeah, I'm like, but that makes them feel like such a windbreak. I'm like, I have this book now and I'm reading the story and I'm like, Oh, I don't know if I could do it. Like, oh, man. No, maybe I should. But then how do we do a weekly podcast while you're hiking trail for six months?

Nic  
Exactly. But you can totally do it. I'm sure that there's like the trail also has lots of spots, right intersection, lots of different things. So I think it intersects with the Blue Ridge Parkway a couple of times, but they run parallel to each other. But there's lots of intersections so there's lots of ways that people hike the trail because yeah, I looked into this like years ago, and like you do it. There's like towns even that that the trail intersects so you can get like a meal or a shower or something if you need it. And and you know, that does happen.

Laura  
Like maybe every couple days, you could you

Nic  
could record whenever and then upload to when you get to a spot that hasn't. Although I mean, I don't know it's been I'm assuming almost everything is a lot more connected than it used to be. So I'm sure that's much easier now than it was. But yeah, I mean that's, I can talk about it all day long. I don't want to bore everyone to tears. So yeah, let's get to our interview. Hello, and welcome back to EPR. Today we have Francis O'Shea the conservation project manager at Trust for Public Land on the show. Welcome Francis.

Francis O'Shea  
I think we're having me guys Yeah.

Speaker 1  
So where you began your career is Skidmore College. You got a degree in probably science, and then you went into real estate so of course you're on the environmental professionals radio. So how, how do we go from where you started in your career to where you are now?

Francis O'Shea  
Oh, it was a long and winding road or a nick. Thank you again for having me. It's really fun to be a part of this and to be talking about my journey here. Where do I start? I was very fortunate as a child to be able to be in the outdoors a lot. So while I never got any formal environmental training, I was always interested in the sciences and I was fortunate enough to learn a lot about climate change in the 90s before it became quite as maybe in the collective consciousness is now right. But to answer your question, simply I woke up one day once I had kids and realized that I wasn't happy, selling stuff for a living, and I wanted to try to find something where I could utilize my skills in my experience while addressing climate change and working in the mission based space. And so that led me to quit my old job. And I spent almost, I think almost two years looking back. It was about 18 months from the time I left my real estate brokerage job until I landed the gig at TPL trust Republic land where I work now. And it was a lot of casting about to try to match my experience with what I wanted to do, which was difficult in retrospect and I think I'm very happy to have done it. But yeah, it was Securitas route I really didn't. I don't think that I would have envisioned myself here there. But it's turned out really great. I've been really fun journey.

Nic  
Yeah. And so was that a? Were there times in that process that were difficult? I'm sure that 18 months sounds like a long time to be hunting for something. What kept you going?

Francis O'Shea  
Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. It was definitely stressful. I was lucky in my old career to be making pretty good money. So I had, I was fortunate enough to be able to take time off to do it, which I know a lot of people can't. My wife also works and has a career. We just had our second baby. And so yeah, there were definitely some long nights I credit my wife with giving me the time and the space to be stressed out by myself. stressed out by her. And it was really hard to like to find and I still don't think that this has happened. It was hard to find a way to match what I knew I could do well with like, what opportunities are out there because I think that resumes in the nonprofit space speak a different language maybe than those in like the sales and for profit space. Yeah. And also, I think for people listening to this, they're thinking about it maybe earlier in their journey in their life journey. It's a good idea. To pick up some of the harder skills and education to come into this space. It's hard to say when you're 18 or 20 Oh, I might be into this. So I should do that. But not having a master's degree not having an environmental science or law background for my specific role, which we can talk more about as we chat was definitely a hindrance for me. On the other hands. What I do as a conservation project manager, which is sourcing real estate deals, securing contracts on property, raising public funds to buy those properties from the private owners and convey them to our public partners for public for permanent ownership and access by the public. Those are skills that you mostly gain from working in real estate. So in that sense, I was in a good place, you know, so on the other side for people that are maybe in a more traditional role and thinking about oh my god, how am I going to ever get past the fact that I don't have an environmental science degree, if you're willing or if you want to be in a space like this when you're doing project work? It's good to, to just have been working, you know, so it's sort of a double edged sword, but I think it was the hardest moments to answer your question again, or just like, we're realizing that I hadn't spent the time 10 years before doing things that I knew at the time were interesting or could be cool. Specifically some hard science, geology and or environmental science. And then just like learning how to speak the language, you know, but people that were already in, in this in the nonprofit space that it's that makes sense.

Laura  
It is as a career coach, I'm talking to people all the time about how do I get this job and I haven't got the experience. I don't have the traditional purposes. So you know, I'm always telling them that it's a lot about networking and standing out, in addition to filling any gaps that you might have if there's key requirements or something for the job, people to talk about. naeba got it. What was the key for you to being able to go from the non traditional background to landing the job at the Sure,

Francis O'Shea  
yeah, Trust for Public Land. I didn't know anything about it. I'm sure that my marketing and my team will be a little it's a it's a backhanded compliment, but things have gotten better. TPL since I got here for sure about, you know, what's the term, you know, taking your light out from under the Bush that we know people know about us more, but it's always a challenge for us, right? We're one of the biggest national nonprofits in the space. We raise over $100 million a year. We've done over 5000 projects across the country and raised $94 billion for public funding of open space around the country. It's a pretty remarkable track record and unique really, but first is like is educating yourself now. It's not exactly answering your question, but you need to know if you're coming into it. What are the real opportunities if I had known about the project manager opening at TPL earlier in my process, that 18 months wouldn't have been as long. But the key for me was networking. It was taking time every single day to volunteer for every group that seemed vaguely interesting to me. I knew from the beginning, my first instinct was to go towards sustainable and regenerative agriculture. I happen to live outside New York City and there's a place here called stone barns. There's a very famous restaurant called Blue Hill at Stone barns which you've probably heard of started by Dan Barber, but it's attached to this amazing nonprofit run by a guy named Jack Algeria and a couple others that does some amazing work in the sustainable agriculture space. And so I started volunteering there because you know, I love it. I quit my job, right? And I was like, I can't I gave myself the time and then I started talking to everybody I could about it. And it ended up being literally like, I think, like over a year later, as a result of a string of happenstance meetings and like, you know, eight o'clock like networking events that I it was recommended that I go to a get another conference called Bedford 2020, which is sort of a local offshoot of Al Gore's. When anyway, it's hard to explain everything there. But in short, it was just another event and I ran right into the guy that ended up hiring me, Carter Strickland, our former director.

Laura  
That's amazing. I love this one it validates all of my free coaching.

Francis O'Shea  
Oh, there you go, Laura, anything.

Laura  
Fine. That's what we're here for. Right. Who teaches a networking class called the strength of loose ties, and it's all about how like the one little teeny thread is, is actually just going to lead you to the next one. And then realize like, how they connect together until you look back. So that's amazing. And that's awesome. And congrats on making that switch. And how long have you been there now? It'll

Francis O'Shea  
be six years next month. So a little while now. Yeah. I was working.

Laura  
Tell us about all these amazing projects and you know how long they've been around? Sure.

Francis O'Shea  
Yeah. So at the risk of starting to sound like I'm reading off of a placard which I'm not exactly TPL has been around since 1972. And it's a national nonprofit. We have offices all over the country, over 300 employees, and we like to see our work in the guise of climate equity and health. All under the umbrella of community work. So I'm a project manager that works in our land protection program is the oldest part of what TPL does, which is securing land for public use. So similar to Nature Conservancy, in the sense that we're looking to do larger projects, but not always buy acreage and not for the purpose of preserving ecosystems per se. But we really feel like communities no matter where they are, I should have access to the outdoors. A statistic that we very often use, and I think it was in some of the materials I sent to you is that something like 100 million people across the United States aren't within a 10 minute walk of a quality public space. 28 million of those people are children. Yeah. And so, from the outset, I TPO has been addressing that equity gap by doing the groundwork. It started in Oakland in the 70s. And I mean, I could talk about TPOs genesis for hours. It's a really cool story, and we can, but it's whether it's a public park in the city or preserving you know, 500,000 acres of forest land in Montana, which we've been a part of, there's a lot of ways to view this, right. And it's not always it's not always in an urban context or rural context, what we're doing on the ground project work to make tangible results for the communities that we work with. But we also do a lot of policy support work, right. So conservation finance is another area that we've been involved in for a long time. And that's basically the process of helping aid governments raise public funds for the purpose of creating and maintaining open space. Right. So that's what you would call like a bond referendum here in New York last year. TPR was instrumental and along with partners, of course, in raising a $4.2 billion bond that will be used to both you know, improve our infrastructure and do all sorts of boring and critically important stuff like making sure that our water we can still drink our water all the way on to buying you know raising money to actually purchase new public open spacing, new land. Yeah, I mean, another example that I'm really excited about right now and this is more of a new thing is that we're looking at our board chair Lucas St. Clair and a colleague of mine, Betsy cook and a bunch of other people here at TPL have been working to create a new national park around knock autonomous over 30,000 acres. But yeah, but I mean, this these are all examples of projects that touch people's lives. And I think that that's what I've come to learn when I got here. I was like, Oh, cool. I get to like, expense going hiking, and I get to, you know, like, never be in the office unless I want to and I get to do my thing and, you know, still kind of do real estate but get paid for it. And that was waiting for a commission and I get to, you know, brag to my friends that are finance bros about working in the nonprofit space, you know, or not, or whatever. But I think that the thing that I've come to learn is that of course, is a much bigger story, right? And like, really what it is, and it's I think it's said too much today by too many people because it's become very fashionable, but the center of everything that we do is the communities we work with. And so no matter what project were getting into one of the first tests for us is whether it reflects the priorities of the folks that we're trying to help. So it's our goal. We don't always do it perfectly, to ensure that anything we do is informed by the people that this work is going to affect the most rather than just parachuting in and doing a project that sounds good. He's gonna help us raise money. Not to say that that's like the norm. I just I think that it's really important for folks that are looking at TPR maybe listening to me talking to see that like, it really is authentically where we start and end our our work and what we can how we judge it success.

Nic  
Yeah. So like, Well, I mean, you've alluded to this a little bit, but so what is what is the day to day like for a project manager? Like what are the sure things you you do on a day to day basis? Yeah,

Francis O'Shea  
it's a really interesting job. It's a venerable job here. TPL I mean, the organization's been around since 1972. So there's literally like generations of people that have been doing it. But a project managers role is to manage project budgets. First of all, right, that's not a great answer, but my job is to protect land for people. So I work as a as a part of the state office and we have 14 of them around the country. I've got an amazing group of people that support me my bosses, Roger is just texting me right now actually making sure that I have what I need to get back to him later through and my job is to find land that fits within our strategic plan within our mission, right, which is to protect land for people essentially, right, and to discover three things, one to make sure that we have a willing seller, which means we have somebody that owns a piece of land, whether that be an easement or a property, it's usually a large forested piece of land traditionally, right? Let's just do a simple TPO project. And that wants to sell it is willing to sell it isn't being forced to sell it isn't, you know, right. So that's a that's a whole fun long strike until a lot of real estate stories. At some point it would be fun to do, but we find a willing seller. We find a willing buyer willing holder or willing long term stewards that's almost always either the state or the federal government or municipality like a city or a town or a village so they say okay, yeah, we're, if you could find the money friend and you could find the land. Yeah, we would take it we will own it forever, right. And then a pathway to funding it. A way to raise public funds to buy it. Of course we raise money everywhere philanthropic organization, but we seek to raise public funds to purchase these properties as part of our business model. But we also find it's, it's important for the groups who are working with the agency or the governments who are working with to have skin in the game to have a part of it, you know, and it also helps again, it also helps reflect the community's desires, right? So we're not just coming in and spending somebody else's money on a piece of land we think is important. We want to make sure that there's support and then the government, every government level, what we do, those are the three things we need a willing seller, we need a willing buyer willing long term holder and we need a pathway to funding and then our job is to make it to tie it up in a bow. So my job really is to find all those three things. Think about all the money involved. Talk to a bunch of people at TPL and outside of it. To make sure that they have time and capacity. It's in line with what we do while trying to keep the seller there, you know, top right or then right and then coach everybody through that process, because very often it takes a really long time for real estate professionals that are thinking about becoming it's sort of like trying to pitch somebody on the worst possible real estate deal. Really slow, we might not get you as much money. Right? Right. I mean, that's it's kind of a joke, but it is a big part of it is to is it's managing people. It's managing processes. That's very much a project manager position in the sense that I think a lot of people would understand it, right. It's a collaborative process with a lot of parallel timelines. And I'll say one more thing, which is that at the end of the day, I think the project managers fundamental role is to make sure that all of those things are being balanced that at the end, we have a project that we can all be proud of at TPL and you know, and so a lot of times you're making calls that are difficult for others to make because they don't know what you know, but obviously, you're also you have to work with folks. So it's it's a lot of balancing a lot of learning. So very interesting job in that regard. I hope that wasn't too long an answer.

Speaker 1  
unclearly sounds like a puzzle. You're putting a puzzle together. Absolutely. You have a much better framework for how the puzzle is supposed to look and almost anybody else. But that's kind of interesting. It's almost like you're saying managing people is the most one of the most important things your your job. Is that fair to say?

Francis O'Shea  
Yeah, definitely. It's a sharp learning curve, but I'm lucky to have people that have taught me a lot and it does feel like proposal. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of skills that can come into it. I will say this If, especially for folks that are actually looking at my organization or similar one. It's a very cool peer group. You get a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds. And I don't want to see a lot of different motivations because I think we're all in it for leaving a legacy for other people that come behind us for making sure that future generations are able to enjoy what we are, you know, that's really where it is. But it's an eclectic and funny group of people. That, you know, you kind of have to have a little bit of an independent streak. I feel very humbled to be a part of it really, honestly, it just was kind of a guy that said, Hey, let me do something about climate change. And then around this, like really esoteric, funny place where you can utilize a lot of the skills and learn a lot new things to you know, it's cool.

Nic  
That's awesome.

Laura  
Yeah, so are there any particularly exciting fun or projects you're most proud of?

Francis O'Shea  
Whilst Yeah, I'm really excited about some new project work that I can't talk about yet, because it's not under contract yet that will involve cultural heritage sites here in New York State involving the Seneca Nation. Hopefully, I'm just about to close. Fingers crossed. Until it actually closes you never know. But it's we're just in the final throes of conveying just over 500 acres of land that we've been having been having to hold buy and own for a period of time to New York State along the Appalachian Trail in upstate New York. And that's been a multi year multi million dollar endeavor and require the support of some amazing people and donors. And a lot of patients by a lot of people were calling that depot Hill and camp Lovington is our internal project and for it, but we should be closing on that in about a month. And so yeah, that would be really fun. It's been I've been working on that almost since I got here actually. Not quite the idea there is to like the Appalachian Trail I don't know for folks that maybe aren't familiar with it. But the Appalachian Trail is the Appalachian I think it's called a national historic and scenic trail and probably getting that wrong and my colleagues gonna yell at me after this, but it's a trail that goes all the way from Georgia to Maine. It ends at Mount Katahdin in Maine. But that corridor has been identified by scientists at Nature Conservancy and other groups as a really critical path for species as the climate continues to warm and change. So, at first we were just trying to conserve as many spots as we could. Right in the hopes that that would be enough, right? But it's become apparent more recently and again, I'm sure many people listening this podcast are like Doug and 20 years ago, but I just found out about is that these what's even more important is to create corridors pathways are conservation. So the wider the bigger we make that path, the more likely that more species will be able to use it to move upwards and elevation and northwards and latitude as climate changes, right. Yeah. And so the Appalachian Trail was started not for that. reason at all. It was started in the 20s. I think, originally the idea for it was a place for people to be in the outdoors and to hike. Right. And you know, obviously during the pandemic, we all got a big dose of how important it was to have a place to go outside and to be right and so the Appalachian Trail is this amazing thing. It's in 1000s of miles of this incredible, natural wilderness in the middle of one of the densest population centers in the world. Right. And it's so yeah, oh my God, have you guys ever have you guys ever hiked it? Have you ever been on a I

Nic  
grew up near there. I grew up like maybe 3540 minutes away. Oh, whereabouts in Virginia and Central. Oh, beautiful. Yes. Oh, it's it's still to this day. soft spot in my heart. And oh, that's

Francis O'Shea  
so great. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So we have you know, one of my mentors works in that area in that geography. And so it's cool you know, when you when you work for a conservation organization, you get to drive by the side of the road and pull off and see the sign and our names you know, usually way too small on the corner of a sign somewhere. And you're like, hey, you know, we did we I know

Nic  
the guy that did that. Right. Exactly. That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah.

Francis O'Shea  
So that's something I'm pretty excited about. And it's again, it's just like, a little bit at a time. Sometimes it feels I would say, sometimes it's hard this job because you feel like you there's there's not enough time to do enough work fast enough, you know, to address the concerns that everybody has, right. Yeah. I don't know how political you want to get on the show or like whatever talk about climate change and the you know, the radical emergency that it is, but I mean, no matter what, you become this job to do something and sometimes it feels like you're doing like 100 of what you can but not always, you know, so that should be fun. If you got if you're in Brooklyn Laurel make sure that you know that you should come up and check it out. We'll probably have a little party at some point. So hiking together. Have you ever been on no trail
_________
Francis O'Shea  
yeah, that's all right. Well, that's it's super cool. There are a couple folks that TPL that are what they call thru hikers. Did the whole thing. And plenty of folks that have done it in sections and right I don't know if that's in my future or not. Yeah, I'll

Laura  
definitely share it with you. Worry. I mean, one of them the other. He broke his hip before he finished and he did like three days of it with a broken hip.

Francis O'Shea  
Oh my god. That is crazy.

Nic  
Golly, yeah.

Laura  
I mean, it's really it's a cool story. Yeah, that

Francis O'Shea  
is a cool story.

Nic  
Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. This is beautiful trail. And I love that we're spending some time on it. It's like Laura and I are totally gonna talk about this later whether she wants to or not. Because like I said, I grew up there and like the peaks of otters when I was close to and that's like, a secret gem for me. It's like you go to shark top in September, October, and you hike up a pretty tough trail. But the top is you get to look over at Bedford Valley. It's beautiful, beautiful, amazing.

Francis O'Shea  
You know what we're talking about the 80 It's amazing. And it ends like I said, Catan and one of the most amazing things we're doing right now, and I wouldn't I would be remiss if I left this podcast without mentioning it is that as I mentioned earlier in sort of a garbled way we've been working with the Penobscot Nation, and just announced last November, a plan for the return of almost 32,000 acres around Mount Katahdin to the nation. Well, yeah, so it was stolen from the Penobscot in the 19th century, as we all know, we'll get into that. This is going to represent and I'm going to read this but it's amazing that we're resent the largest land return between a US based nonprofit and a tribal nation in the history of the of the country. And it's all going to be centered on indigenous self determination, or the management of the land. Yeah. So what's really fascinating about that is when you get into this gig, you come into it with this high minded, like, Hey, we're gonna save the world. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And of course, you that motivates what you do every day, but then you figure out like, Okay, how are we actually going to do it? Like, who's going to like unlock the fence like after the snow season and like do you know what I mean? Like it gets down to like, the most basic stuff and of course, especially when you're dealing with the nation's land itself is literally sacred. Right? So, management is a very important notion, and I won't pretend to speak to that with any expertise, but what's fascinating about this is that it involves not just nations, not just EPL, but a bunch of government agencies, regulatory schema laws, right? All of these things play into it. And so I just wanted to say that the right way, which is that you know, the project is going to open up new access to the Tom woods and waters National Monument. So folks up in Maine will have heard about this by now. But I think that's like in terms of our work on the Appalachian Trail that I think that's a really great capstone to that conversation, you know, and an exciting time for us to be talking about. Cool, thanks for letting me do that.

Nic  
Yeah, of course. That's incredible. I mean, that has to be quite challenging. And I can only imagine how difficult and long that process was, but it's very, very cool.

Francis O'Shea  
You can have one of my colleagues on who did that. I assure you, she will agree with what you just said. But that is amazing. That our main program so yeah,

Nic  
I mean it's like the job is off. You know, sometimes it's yeah, the complex thing when there's when you do get to that finish line, it's almost a relief more than anything else, no matter how it turns out. So that's really cool to hear. That's for sure. really well, so I'm really glad to hear that. I love that you you worked on that. And that's that's really fun. Yeah, and we do this thing on the show, we'll be like to talk about projects, meet people doing their job being out in the field, and relating that experience to our audience. They call it you know, field notes or Field Notes section. But yeah, so yeah, it's a it's a good segue to our segment we call field notes, which is when we encourage our guests to talk about memorable moments in the field. And we, we always ask this question before people come on, and you said to ask you about mules, so so please tell us a real story.

Francis O'Shea  
Oh, man, oh, man. Okay, well, I can't reveal the names, names and dates and places because I want to protect the identities of the innocent but the mules man was really Yeah, he won't, my willy won't mind. Right. Right. But it's, it's one of those things we let's just say we were we were really deep into a project and had spent untold amounts of money and time on it and put a reputation into it. Only to get a call from our future Land Steward or future land manager or government partner to say a friend. How you doing? Looking forward to getting this project done. Just wanted to know if you're aware that there's a horse on your property. And, you know, the fact is, right, like, it's not like the property is right next to me. So there's only one of me and I don't yet own a helicopter, so I had to go up and discover that in fact, it was not a horse, it was a mule. And that until we got him off of our property, we weren't going to be able to finish the deal, basically. And, and so I really don't know if I should be saying this, but it's so darn funny. We, we literally had to arrange to have the thing like, shooed off of our property back. Right, right, right. And I thought I was gonna lose my job that we didn't know who was it was, we didn't know what we're going to do with it. What are you going to do you know, am I going to adopt a mule? I don't. And this is the stuff that you know, at one point, I was sort of like well, friend, you know, good job, but you got to figure it out. So I was calling animal rescues and animal control and the sheriff and as it turns out, it was just fine and neighbor owned it and they eventually did the right thing. And it was it was all good. But I definitely wish that I did that actually not the only mule that I've met in my travels. But it was a good one. And it was a learning experience for sure. And that's something that I would have been able to do as a broker in Manhattan, right?

Nic  
Just add mule wrangler to your title. There, that's for

Francis O'Shea  
sure. For sure. A Western. Yeah, exactly.

Nic  
Exactly. So one of the other things we'd love to do on the show is just have people you know, we want to get to know you a little bit too. So you know, we all do this environmental work. We all have passions and wants, needs and desires. But what we do outside of that it's also really important, right? So your personal hobbies I so I'm going to ask about golf, which is the most brutal sport in the world to play. Except you know, and I love it when you do well. It's your it's your fault. You have the power right when you don't do well. It's everything else's fault, right like the weather or the wind blew that's my my ball slice. It's not me couldn't have been when you get that perfect pot or that perfect drive. It's all you so I don't know what what is your relationship with golf? How do you how do you see it? Yeah, well,

Francis O'Shea  
becoming a parent of two young children has made me a more patient golfer for sure. Yeah, it's a difficult sport. It's really mental. I'm sorry, I heard you right. You do play?

Nic  
I have a lot of you had, like my feet keep breaking. So it's kind of one of those things going up too much. Yeah, it's just the torque on it. I'm too. I don't know how to hit the ball without hitting it as hard as possible. And that's my problem, you know?

Francis O'Shea  
Well, you know, this could become a golf podcast really fast. So access is my my one of my other personal hobbies, which is personal fitness. So if you're picky breaking, man, we got to we got to talk about that. Or do we have to get this guy orthotics? He said, without me saying anything?

Nic  
Yeah, yeah, it's the thing I

Francis O'Shea  
don't get I don't get out as much as I'd like to. I used to play a lot more when by before I had kids. I love to do it with friends. It's just so it's social. It is definitely a test of your mental fortitude. Because it's something that you're not very even if you have been practicing. It's just something you're not particularly good at. And I think that's actually been like, for me, it's been the hardest and also the most rewarding thing about golf, which is I'm sure that there's a lot of analogies here but I don't know that there's many better ones, analogous activities, but like, it's to understand how good the good shots that you make were, and to like get over how like normal the bad shots you make are. Yeah, that's the thing. Right, exactly.

Nic  
Right. It's like I actually would the luckiest thing I ever got to do was play at Pinehurst whoa cool, which was super cool. It was in the garbage.

Francis O'Shea  
Do you know how cool that is? You know how cool

Nic  
she's so mad at me right? No, no but yeah, it was. Yeah, right. Yeah. All kinds of anyways. Yeah, I shouldn't put that out there but it was beautiful. I played the worst I've ever played. Yeah, my whole life until the last drive. And then on the last hole, I hit a perfect shot. And that's what I tried to remember you know, because it was it's a hard course it was not easy by any means. But that last hole I was really good on and so I just hold down to that. You know,

Francis O'Shea  
is that one shot that keeps you coming back for sure. Is it is it really? Yeah, no, that's it. I like I used to be better than I am now after a while is really frustrating. Because I remember what it was when I could string together a few good shots or whatever. It's not like it's not really like riding a bike at all. But now it's I'm now I'm bad enough again that when I hit a good shot, it keeps me happy for a while and I'm laughing You know, I hope it's a good time we asked him that question because it's just it's just about to start to be golf. Well,

Nic  
yeah, I was about to say the same. Yeah, it's a beautiful time. Yeah. Alright.

Laura  
relate more to his music. So you playing?

Francis O'Shea  
Oh, I tried to I met my friends here this they're gonna just absolutely roast me. Yeah. I met a dead band. And lucky enough to be able to play. Yeah, we have this really cool thing in Irvington where where I live where some neighbors of mine of ours started about 10 years ago to play on the front porch of their houses we live in like in a little village. And so they started one year they're like, hey, like, Let's dress everybody likes to go and Halloween nice little place and spotted. We exist right next to where Washington Irving grew up. He's the guy that wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow about the Headless Horseman. Yeah. So it's always been a big thing. And so a few about 10 years. ago, they said, Hey, like, Let's dress up for Halloween. Like we're musicians. They were similar, like in a dead band or play part, a couple of more professionals. Let's dress up as the clash. And they said, Wouldn't it be cool if we actually like played as the clash and so they did and it was a big hit. So it started out as one band and now there's like seven or eight bands that play around town. And so I've been playing with that. I just did it again for the first time in a while last year with some friends and play country music. But I've been playing blues guitar for since I was about 13 and just love it. Yeah, and was lucky enough to have some great teachers and I was actually just at the guitar store at lunch break walking around, get some fresh air before this thing so I do it whenever I can. sort of cool Yeah, but it's a lot of fun Lord, do you play I'm saying you like to do

Laura  
or do not seeing or majority of my life. I just haven't played consistently enough to be all that good. But I also do play guitar a little bit.

Francis O'Shea  
Did you say you play cello? Yeah. Oh, cool. I love that instrument. That's awesome.

Laura  
I love the instrument and nothing else. I gotta find appreciation for the history. Yeah,

Francis O'Shea  
yeah, exactly. Yeah. My little girl and my eldest just got like he's been playing piano for several years now. Ghana is nice because you just press the key and the notes like it's the right note. They don't I mean, like it's really easy to flat and sharp with cello. So I think it's been as a mixed somewhat experienced musician. I don't mean to say I'm some kind of special pro but I can play. I'm glad that I didn't have my daughter playing shallow. That sounds a little mean, but like, you know, she's got her but she's got really good now. I used to play cello when I was a kid. I loved it a little bit. That's awesome.

Nic  
I mean, I played trumpet when I was a kid and it's the same problem, right? It's so easy to hit the wrong note. And like then those first years you're learning how to play. It is like you know, I'm always dying. You know, it's just, it's brutal. It's brutal. I don't know how my parents put up with it, honestly. So yeah,

Francis O'Shea  
my wife calls me my wife calls me a highly sensitive person. She calls me a lot. When it comes to sound, I'm a highly, highly sensitive for sure.

Nic  
Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, people would probably say the same about me. Honestly. No comment. No comment. Yeah.

Laura  
This has been tons of fun. Actually. The time has gone by really fast. But is there anything else you want to talk about that we didn't get to you before we let you go?

Francis O'Shea  
No, this really did go by fast. I didn't realize that so I think I think that uh, yeah, it was one conversation. I felt like I was talking all the time. So thanks for being so gracious and welcoming. It's been really fun. I mean, no, I mean, unless you guys have more questions about the career path side, I feel like I've gotten a chance to talk about TPL and, and what it does, and I mean, I would be more than happy to, you know, feel the increase from folks in the future and stuff like that. You know what I mean, if we get around to that, but no, this has been really fun. I really appreciate it.

Nic  
So yeah, we're where can people find you if they want to reach out?

Francis O'Shea  
Sure sure if though our offices are in Manhattan, so I'm around and always welcome to reach out to my LinkedIn profile which I can share with you guys at my email is Francis dot O'Shea at tpl.org. And I'm happy to continue the conversation offline. Very

Nic  
cool. Thank you so much for joining me and I really, really enjoyed it.

Francis O'Shea  
Thank you. Thank you, Laura. And Nick, I appreciate that and I had a great time to.

Laura  
That's our show. Thank you Francis for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye. See everybody

Transcribed by https://otter.ai