New Hampshire's head birdwatcher

Tom Kiernan and his family led busy lives in Washington, D.C., where Tom, MBA '88, served as a Bush appointee in the EPA, responsible for all air-quality programs. Having attended college at Dartmouth together, Tom and his wife, Kathy, shared a fantasy of getting back to rural America, to lead lives where they could chat around the fire at night and participate in community life.

In 1993 the time came, and they headed back to New Hampshire. Kiernan is now president of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire and reckons he and Kathy have achieved half of their dream. With their three children, they get involved in the activities of little Bow, New Hampshire. The same faces turn up everywhere -- as neighbors, at church, in the local businesses, as coaches in town sports. "Life is integrated, and that's a wholesome feeling," says Kiernan. "Logistics are a lot easier than back on the Metro. My commute is four miles with two stop signs. And it's gorgeous."

But the fireside chats have had to wait. The struggle to balance work and family life is as difficult as ever. New Hampshire may be a bit off the beaten path, but management issues are just as pressing there, especially at a nonprofit outfit. "Whatever the topic was at the GSB, it's relevant here: transfer pricing, market segmentation and positioning, receivables management," observes Kiernan, a Public Management Program alumnus. Audubon, with 11 chapters in a one-million-person state, is flattening the organization even more, pushing decision-making and funding downward, in order to get closer to the customer.

Changes afoot in Washington, D.C., will directly affect New Hampshire Audubon, one of the two leading conservation groups in the state. "There'll be some shift in government responsibilities from the federal to the state level," observes Kiernan. "And there's talk of nonprofits taking up the slack where the government cuts back; in our case, in things like habitat protection and endangered species monitoring. Both of those shifts assume we can ante up more, which is open to question. We have to develop a strategy to respond."

One long-term effort Kiernan is looking at is to reengage people in their natural world. "People construct ever more barriers between themselves and nature. We want to get people back out into the woods and fields, to reduce the barriers and the disengagement. New Hampshire is the home of the hands-on volunteer. Once the people get out there, they'll see and feel what needs doing, and they'll act."

Kiernan himself, despite the demands of his job, has taken a page from his own book. He recently visited Lake Umbagog, way up by the Canadian border. There he paid a call on three of his clients: a nesting mother and baby bald eagle; and the father, sporting an eight-foot wingspan, delivering a fish fresh from the lake.

-- Kelly Teevan, MBA '82

Stanford Business School Magazine
(ISSN 0883-265X)
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