Celebrating Ann's Retirement & Remembering Her Legacy

As we prepare for the retirement of Ann Baker Easley, VOC's CEO for 15 years, we are reflecting on the legacy she leaves behind. This reflection was shared by Jay Kenney, who served on VOC's Board of Directors from 2009 - 2015.

I joined the VOC board in late 2009 and served as a board member, chair, and past-chair for the next six years. I found it an extraordinary experience, both because of the quality of the board members and because I came to work closely with Ann Baker Easley, VOC’s retiring Executive Director. In those six years under Ann’s leadership, the organization transformed itself from one that had been primarily a trail building organization to one that engaged and educated a broader and more inclusive audience by using outdoor projects to teach volunteers the value of stewardship, to connect them to the outdoors, and to help an increasingly technological population just get outside and appreciate their connection to the earth. 

It was not an easy six years for the organization but Ann’s leadership made it possible. In late 2009, the national and local economies were still recovering from the 2008 crash. Funding had dropped precipitously and VOC’s financial position was thin, if not precarious. That was immediately apparent at my first board meeting. Later board meetings did not, however, become grim reminders of the housing bubble. Instead, Ann insisted (and with the leadership of board chairs Steve Norris and Bob Van Wetter) that VOC begin planning and thinking about the future. She recognized both the huge need for volunteers to help land managers with unmet maintenance work and the impossibility of VOC being able to ever scale up to the point where it could run that many outdoor projects in a season. Organizations do not change quickly. Inertia is tough to overcome. And yet, slowly and subtly, the conversations at the meetings began to change. Staff and board began to imagine what it would look like if we thought of VOC as less of an organization that did trail work and more of an organization that used trail work and projects to teach and inspire others about the value of land and water stewardship—essentially flipping the old paradigm on its head and making the end goal a means to an end.

As I write this today in 2021, it sounds easy and obvious. But the transformational process that Ann initiated in those years took vision, determination, persistence, and an unerring focus on the goal and it is a credit to Ann that VOC made that critical shift in mission and direction. She is by far the most talented, thoughtful, and visionary executive director I’ve ever worked with in 30+ years of non-profit work. When I reflect on what makes her so successful, I’ve come to think a large part of it is her willingness to live with uncertainty, her capacity to be in transition, and her certainty (that she communicates to all the rest of us) that the uncertainty and transition will make the organization stronger and more resilient in the end. The highlights on the six years I spent on the board include an entertaining Colorado Rockies 2011 game day appearance where we collected a five figure check as Xcel’s non-profit partner of the year (thanks to board member Jonathan Adleman), and a 30^th Anniversary celebration that raised more than $300,000 for the organization and featured a dinner that brought together most of the still living past board chairs—and event that allowed us all to think about VOC’s past and join together to imagine a greater future.

Ann will be missed at VOC. Yet she leaves behind an organization that is stronger, nimbler, and better positioned to champion stewardship and to engage future volunteers than when I started on the board. I’m grateful for her service to the organization and look forward to raising a toast to her in person before the year’s out.