Sometimes positive childhood experiences prevail over even the highest echelon of educational achievement.
Renata Pomponi, a 1986 Bedford High School graduate, recently was named senior regional director of Massachusetts Audubon’s Metro Boston region. She oversees more than a dozen wildlife sanctuaries and urban greenspaces across eastern Massachusetts, with a staff of around 300 and numerous volunteers.
The job is described by the agency as “a new staff leadership position signaling the organization’s commitment to achieving statewide conservation goals including a focus on access to nature for all.”
Pomponi, 54, holds a Ph.D. in technology management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for 12 years as a management consultant.
So what happened?
“My mom and dad took us outside every summer, camping and hiking in the White Mountains, she remembered. “That framed my own love of the outdoors.”
“I really have to credit my BHS education for providing the foundation for how I think about science and the world, of understanding the ecology of life cycles and systems,” she commented, mentioning teachers Larry Palmer and Calvin Tingley in biology and advanced biology, respectively.
After graduating from BHS, Pomponi studied at MIT, graduating with majors in physics, engineering, and music. Even after completing her doctorate, she said, “MIT may have taught me a lot of the analytical background that I have, but it’s really those roots that come from BHS.”
But how did she transition from what she called her “technical focus” in college to top management of the largest nature-based conservation organization in New England?
“After my doctorate, I went into management consulting focused on business strategy for high-technology firms, Pomponi said, which she found “very rewarding.” She said she specialized in strategic planning and the integration of new technology in high-tech organizations.
But at the same time, “I really felt like something was missing,” she continued. “I wanted to do work that felt like it really mattered in the world, more focused on people and our planet.” And after the birth of her second child, she said, she made a spreadsheet of professional possibilities and personal considerations, and determined that she wanted to be involved with “science education for kids.”
And she found her opportunity in 2007 – a part-time position at venerable Drumlin Farm, Massachusetts Audubon’s working farm and wildlife sanctuary at the organization’s headquarters in Lincoln. “I went around to schools with an owl on my arm,” she laughed.
Pomponi said she learned about teaching, and the following year a full-time position opened up in the Education Department. The position also provided an opportunity to use “my business background to help with some strategic planning work across Mass Audubon.”
She was named director of Drumlin Farm in 2015, and reflected that “it looks very much the same” as it did when she visited as a child almost 40 years before.
During her tenure, Pomponi said her emphasis was “the role of science, giving children and families opportunities to connect with the natural world, and what they can do to be more sustainable in their own lives.” Themes included climate change and the centrality of local agriculture.
“Some people think it’s a place to visit baby lambs and the joyous wonder of nature,” she reflected. “But also it’s really critical to understand the science in a really approachable way. Some saw it as a change but I think people did embrace it,” spurred by “the pressing threat of climate change and the direction that Mass Audubon as a whole was headed.”
Then Mass Audubon shifted to a regional model of administration, and Pomponi’s role expanded to include Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick and Belmont’s Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary.
In her Mass Audubon biography, Pomponi defines her “highest priority as “encouraging scientific thinking and using the sanctuaries as living laboratories to develop deeper understanding of sustainability, climate change, and ecological issues.” She also described her educational philosophy as “looking for the spaces in between the disciplines—the ways in which nature and people interconnect.”
Pomponi, whose office is at the organization’s headquarters in Lincoln, is also leading the development of new Mass Audubon enterprises in Cambridge, Lowell, and Concord. “I travel around and that’s the most fun, working with our staff, getting to see the public out enjoying these educational programs.”
She added, “I do still spend a lot of time with spreadsheets to get the resources for a lot of this programming. It’s rewarding to use my technical skills.”
Gail Yeo, Mass Audubon vice president of wildlife sanctuaries and programs, referenced Pomponi’s multiple skills. “As we scale up to meet the growing challenges and opportunities of 21st-century conservation and community engagement, her training in science, management, and cross-functional solutions could not be of greater value.”
Pomponi and her husband Karl Buttner live in Sudbury with their two teenage sons.
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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