Upstate Forever Staff News

Meet Our New Staff Members

Gretchen Wilson	Nancy Eisen Fitzer	Jennifer Rennicks	Meredith Retsinas

    Upstate Forever announces four new staff additions as the organization continues to expand its work in the Upstate area:

Nancy Eisen Fitzer has joined the staff as Education and Advocacy Associate. She received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in biological anthropology from Harvard and a master’s degree in urban planning from Clemson. She also studied natural resource management and rainforest ecology in Australia.

Jennifer Rennicks has been hired as Watershed Project Coordinator for the Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium. (See pages 10-11 for a discussion of the project.) She will be responsible for the day-to-day management and coordination of the Consortium’s research, outreach, and advocacy efforts. Jennifer has a master’s degree in natural resource policy from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and has worked recently for the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Meredith Retsinas has been named Communications Coordinator for Upstate Forever. Meredith has an extensive background in journalism, marketing and public relations. Most recently she has worked as a freelance journalist for newspapers and magazines across the country, as well as an adjunct instructor of journalism at USC Upstate. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Alabama.

Gretchen Wilson is our new Office Administrator. Gretchen graduated from William Smith College in New York and worked for the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston for 20 years in the Bird Department, the Zoo Hospital and the Records departments. She, her husband and three daughters moved to Greenville in 1994. Gretchen most recently worked as the Administrative Assistant for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. 

Kudos To Our Staff!

    Upstate Forever truly has an extraordinary staff. Here are some recent accomplishments by four of them.

Upstate Forever’s Director of Watershed Conservation, Jason Van Driesche, has recently had his book, Nature Out of Place: Biological Invasions in the Global Age, re-released as a paperback. The book, co-authored with Jason’s father, Roy, focuses on the growing impacts of invasive species on native ecosystems around the world.

Spartanburg Office Director Stephanie Monroe was invited to participate in the City of Spartanburg’s retreat on June 2 at Highland Lake Inn. “The retreat was a great experience and it gave me the opportunity to personally get to know the City’s leaders and for them to get to know me and learn more about Upstate Forever,” she said. During an exercise in which participants envisioned their version of a perfect Spartanburg, Stephanie said she was pleased “to see strong support for more human scale activities and amenities in the downtown area.”

To celebrate her 50th birthday, Cindy Young, Upstate Forever’s Field Trip Coordinator, completed a 50K run/hike on The Foothills Trail, encouraged by her friend Heinz Looser. Starting at daybreak, Cindy carried a 15-pound pack 33 miles up and down the mountain wilderness of the Carolinas, finishing 12 hours later. “Words do not begin to tell what it is like to descend a deep gorge, hear the roar of water plunging over a waterfall, or ascend to a mountain peak. It is indeed God’s Country,” Cindy said.

Designing Outdoor Environments for Children:  Landscaping School Yards, Gardens and Playgrounds, co-authored by Erin Jordan Knight, Director of Natural Resource Protection at Upstate Forever, is being published in hardcover by McGraw Hill. The book is written to serve a broad audience: landscape architects and other designers, those in the field of parks, recreation and tourism, horticulturalists, teachers, parents, school administrators, public officials and anyone else passionate about gardens for children. Erin has not just written about it – she has done it. She designed, and supervised the installation of, the spectacular new Children’s Garden at Linky Stone Park in Greenville.

A child peeks through the wall at the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park in Greenville, which Erin designed.