Nell Larson and her partner are making the move to New Mexico after both were offered jobs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. She will serve as the program manager for the lab’s new environmental stewardship program.
“The laboratory leadership has really wanted to prioritize this as an important area, to operate in sort of this, this environmentally responsible way,” Larson said. “So, they have almost 40 square miles of land, very little of which is developed. And so, one aspect of this is going to be looking at that land and working on the restoration and management and stewardship of the land.”
The national laboratory is known best for its development of the first atomic weapons. Larson says today the lab is also doing a lot of work on water and air quality and has a number of scientists working on species monitoring and bird populations.
Larson has served at the helm of the Swaner Preserve and EcoCenter for the last decade. Prior to being named as the nonprofit’s executive director in 2013, she started with the organization in 2006, as an intern and was later hired as the land and education manager.
The idea for the Swaner Preserve and EcoCenter started at the end of 1993 with the Swaner family who owned the property where the preserve is located.
“When their husband and father passed away, Leland Swaner, they wanted to do something in his memory,” she said. “And initially, they thought, we'll create sort of a park. And it had much more of like a memorial park vision, you know, a rose garden, maybe an amphitheater for music, things like that. And as they started to learn more and more about the land, they realized, oh, it's a wetland and we can restore this. And that's when I think the Park City community kicked into gear and really started supporting this preservation.”
During her tenure, Larson saw the partnership created between the preserve and Utah State University, which has provided the nonprofit with several efficiencies from payroll to resources and policies.
She’s proud of her efforts to bring in travelling exhibits which has improved the visitor experience and keeps people coming back.
“We realized we need to bring in new exhibits for new experiences and new learning and to engage different kinds of people that might have different interests or learning preferences,” she said. “And so, the traveling exhibits is something that is a ton of fun. It's been really successful for us, just in serving a larger number of people. And it's something we didn't even start until 2014.”
Larson is also proud of the broader reach of the restoration and research work being done on the preserve today.
She starts her new position in New Mexico after Thanksgiving. Her last day at Swaner is Oct. 31.
With her departure, she also vacates the co-host seat for KPCW’s “This Green Earth” show. The show’s producer Claire Wiley will step up to fill that position.
