Two New Members Join Green Mountain Audubon’s Board
By Lucie Lehmann
The GMAS board welcomed two new members at its March meeting, Scott Sainsbury of North Hero and Vicki Pattison-Willits, Ph.D. of Essex. Both are accomplished professionals in their fields, as well as longtime avid birders and volunteers.
Sainsbury, 72, is the semi-retired co-founder of Beacon Associates in Moretown. He is a nationally known brand marketing expert with an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell; he hopes to bring some of that expertise to the board. “I usually have the strategic point of view: where we’re going and what we’re trying to do. I apply discipline and I have a good eye for communications, having worked adjacent to the ad world for so many years.” He will join the Communications Committee.
Sainsbury’s passions for birds, nature, and giving back run deep and were grounded in his childhood in the Fingers Lakes region of New York. “It was lovely, and the natural world was around us, but we didn’t even think about it at the time.” He wistfully remembers whip-poor-wills singing at night and the omnipresence of butterflies as things he took for granted that are no longer abundant. “It’s so different today, and that got me interested in helping birds and other creatures.”
Sainsbury served for years on the board of North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, an experience that reinforced his belief that even small organizations “can accomplish great things if you’re willing to work at them” and that he credits with making him a bigger picture thinker.
Citing the strength of and growing collaborations among nonprofit organizations like the American Birding Association, Audubon, and The Nature Conservancy, Sainsbury is clear-eyed but optimistic about the challenges facing the natural world. “I think good things are happening, but it’s a race against what we are doing to the environment and politically. I feel a sense of urgency.”
When he’s not working, Sainsbury is out birding with his wife Pat or with friends, often up in the Champlain Islands, ever hopeful that he might again encounter his favorite bird, the ethereal Ivory Gull, which visited Lake Champlain a few years ago.
Across the Atlantic in England, Vicki Pattison-Willits, 46, also grew up in a nature-centric family, surrounded by farms and woodland, taking camping holidays. “I’ve always had an affinity for the outdoors and animals,” she says. “We had geese and rabbits and bantams at school. I was passionate about wildlife and the environment.”
She earned first an undergraduate degree in environmental science and then a Master’s degree in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the University of Reading. She credits the director of that program for turning her into a birder. “The program was centered in the U.K., focused on insects and birds, but my Master’s project was based in the Seychelles, studying the Sooty Tern, and my passion got ignited there. I bought my first pair of “bins” at 29 or 30,” she says with a hearty chuckle.
Pattison-Willits has dedicated herself to championing nature, education, and helping people on both sides of the Atlantic connect with the outdoors, including “inner city kids who don’t normally get the opportunity to be out in nature.” With an American husband whom she met while he was stationed in the U.K. in the U.S. Air Force, Pattison-Willits has, like the birds she studies, migrated back and forth between the U.K. and the U.S. After working and living in Massachusetts for years, she worked on her PhD in the U.K. during Covid, but the pair returned to the U.S. They eventually settled in Vermont after her husband, Scott, took a job with Beta Technologies, from which he recently retired. Now it is Pattison-Willits who has begun a new job, this time with the Poultney Mettowee Natural Resources Conservation District as a Project Manager and Communications Outreach Officer.
Like Sainsbury, Pattison-Willits is eager to get to work on the GMAS board, especially in these climate-challenged times. “We are facing the direct impacts of climate change, and I want to help make sure that we can mitigate against the issues. I’ve had such a great opportunity to learn so much with my PhD and other experiences, and it’s my time to give back and help.” Public education and outreach are her particular passions, and she will serve on the board’s DEI committee.
In her free time, Pattison-Willits is reacquainting herself with the songs of New England’s seasonal and full-time residents, including her local favorite, the Red-winged Blackbird.