40 Under 40: Hazel Stark is guiding others to better understand and value nature
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Hazel Stark co-founded Maine Outdoor School in 2016 and is also a registered Maine guide.
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Significant professional accomplishment: Beyond co-founding Maine Outdoor School L3C in 2016, getting to the point where I was able to be full-time and salaried within my own business during the early years of the pandemic. Not having to have so many side jobs to make ends meet was a particular accomplishment.
Current state of mind: My mind is busy these days, constantly trying to strike a sustainable work-life balance, alongside a working-on-the-business vs. working-in-the-business balance.
Passion project: I spent the last seven years producing and writing half the episodes of a five-minute weekly podcast and radio show called “The Nature of Phenology,” all about what’s going on outside through the seasons. It was a rewarding outlet for bringing lessons from nature to a different audience than I reach by my work at Maine Outdoor School.
In June, I stepped away from that project to focus on some self-care and to start dreaming up my next passion project — stay tuned!
‘Lightbulb’ moment: At the very end of college, just when I seemed poised to go down a path of ethnobotanical research, I realized that what I loved about ethnobotany was the human-plant relationships, not the research. So I took a leap and moved from Maine to California to work at an outdoor school where I taught sixth-graders science outside in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, in giant sequoia groves, and in a cave.
That year was the lightbulb moment when I realized that teaching people about nature outside to build positive human-nature relationships had to be my career path.
Audacious goal: To work myself out of a job because all Maine public schools integrate outdoor education so effectively that they don’t need me anymore.
Favorite quotes: It’s a tie. “In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught” — Baba Dioum.
“The environment, after all, is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest. It is one thing that all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become” — Lady Bird Johnson.
Influential book: “The Other Way to Listen,” by Byrd Baylor
Favorite podcast: “Ologies” with Alie Ward
Best way to recharge: Quiet nature time, especially hiking, canoeing or camping with my dog
At age 60: Retired early, watching Maine Outdoor School continue to thrive without me, so I can spend even more time adventuring outside and working on other passion projects that yield a healthier planet.
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