Job Duties: The Development Specialist plays a key role in the daily operations of the Development team, supporting goals of the department and performing a broad range of tasks while working with development, program and administrative staff at a more independent level. Specific duties include, but are not limited to:
• Manage donor database in SAGE, including maintaining donor records, tracking income, forecasting income projections and producing reports.
• Develop and maintain a familiarity with Director of Development’s portfolio to track gifts, draft correspondence and handle other items as they arise.
• Handle paperwork related to expense reimbursements and credit card payments
• Track proposal and report schedules for active and prospective family foundations and individuals.
• Prepare research on donors and prospects.
• Assist in preparation of/for meetings of staff and donors.
• Assist in preparation for events, such as luncheons and dinners, and share responsibility for Gala.
• Process checks if needed.
• Assist in preparing documents, proposals and reports for donors and foundations, including working with program and finance.
• Prepare first drafts of donor program reports using existing language, organizing and editing. Elicit and edit program reports from staff.
• Develop and implement workflow methods to enhance efficiency of operations.
• Participate in department initiatives, projects, meetings, retreats, and other duties as assigned.
• Assist with fundraising by pulling and editing lists suggested by donor communications, coordinating hard copy and electronic mailings, and personalizing, as appropriate with prospect cultivation strategies.

About the Opportunity: Maryland’s Eastern Shore has all the ingredients to be a living example of a prosperous, vibrant rural region. Nearly a quarter of the rural lands are protected. Renewed efforts and requirements are in place for a clean Chesapeake Bay. Shifting real estate trends are pushing development toward cities not countryside.

There is an important missing piece: focused attention and support for this rural region’s small towns. These communities historically have served as the economic hubs – as market places, community meet-ups, and population centers. They have, however, taken a battering over the past twenty years from sprawl and uncertainty about their identities and futures.

Toward this challenge, with our town work, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) is engaged with the places, projects and people working toward sustainability and vibrancy of our region’s towns. After two years and a set of inaugural projects, ESLC’s Center for Towns is poised to strengthen, solidify and focus our town programs toward making the most difference for the region. A new team member will help build our town programs and deliver projects and education work with excellence.

About the Position: ESLC is seeking an energetic, dynamic individual to join our highly skilled team of professionals as Town Programs Manager. Our work focuses both on on-the-ground projects that effect change through town planning and community engagement, and on education, with a focus on sharing tools, technical support, networking, partnerships and funding opportunities our towns seek. Our programs are community driven, with a deep commitment to diversity and public engagement, and belief in the power of community land projects and education to ignite and amplify positive change. Examples of our projects can be found at www.eslc.org.

The ideal candidate would possess the following skills and qualifications:

•  Degree and 3+ years of experience in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, land use planning/policy, business, law, sustainability, public interest/ community design, or related field;
•  Expertise in town planning, public policy, and/or architecture/design;
•  Experience and demonstrated good instincts in issue education and leadership development (e.g., developing such professional learning programs conferences, workshops, webinars, etc.);
•  Proficiency in partnership building, community building and community engagement;
•  Expertise in project management and delivery; and,
•  Excellent public speaking, writing, and communication skills.

Also preferred are the following skills/traits:

•  Supervisory/management experience;
•  Knowledge of public and conservation funding/financing;
•  Interest in real estate and land transactions;
•  Experience in fundraising, business model development, and foundation grants;
•  Familiarity with AutoCAD, Adobe Creative suite, ArcGIS and other design/planning software.
•  Love of teamwork, and being part of a learning organization; and,
•  Commitment to and knowledge about the Eastern Shore.

About the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy: ESLC is a leading regional land trust on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore responsible for preserving nearly 54,000 acres since 1990. Eastern Shore Land Conservancy launched its town work to catalyze healthy, vibrant and sustainable towns through leadership development, community design, and on-the-ground projects. For more information about our work, please visit: www.eslc.org.

To Apply: To apply send resume, cover letter, and salary requirements to: Attn: Human Resources, ESLC, PO Box 169, Queenstown MD 21658 or hr@eslc.org.

Community Meeting about the Eastern Shore Conservation Center at the Talbot County Free Library

6:15 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21

Open House at the McCord building in Easton

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, March 22

10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 23, at McCord (with doughnuts and coffee!)

Participating in the Peeps contest? See official rules here.

Drop off Peeps entries Thursday evening or Friday, or between 9 and 10 a.m. Saturday

9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at the former McCord building in Easton, just before judging

Judging will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at the former McCord building. Winners will be announced at 11 a.m. Schematic designs for the Eastern Shore Conservation Center will be on display.

The Chesapeake Bay Trust anticipates placing around 25 Corps Volunteers in Host Organizations throughout Maryland for one year terms of service, with service to begin August 27, 2013. Individuals will be between the ages of 18 and 25 years at the time of enrollment. Corps Volunteers will receive stipends of $15,500 per year plus health insurance, administered by the Trust.

Chesapeake Conservation Corps volunteer application

For any questions about becoming a volunteer or about the Chesapeake Conservation Corps, contact Tara Baker, tbaker@cbtrust.org, 410-974-2941, ext. 102.

Editor’s note: Eastern Shore Land Conservancy hopes to purchase and renovate the McCord building to become the main portion of the Eastern Shore Conservation Center.

When Walter Sharples McCord died at his home outside Oxford on Dec. 7, 1981, at age 78, there was no question that the news would break on the front page of the next day’s newspaper. McCord, better known as “Duke” to his many friends, was a respected pillar of the Talbot County business and civic communities. His influence was so in demand that he served as a director of three different banks, board president of Memorial Hospital in Easton, a trustee at Washington College in Chestertown, and in the vestries of two churches.

McCord founded and presided over the local Rotary Club. He was a member of the Talbot Country Club, the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Club, and the Tred Avon Yacht Club. He belonged to Easton’s Elks Lodge and was a past master of Coates Lodge and a 32^nd Degree Mason. He was named in the early 1940s to the board of Easton Publishing Company, which put out the then weekly Star-Democrat newspaper, and served as president from 1947 to 1963.

But more than three decades after his death, McCord’s legacy is tied most directly to a decision he made in 1925 when he was 22 years old and hardly a candidate for any board or prized office. He started a laundry business.

McCord, whose family moved from Radnor, Pa., to Talbot County when he was six, dropped out of high school in the ninth grade to take a job vacated by a brother bookkeeping for the Talbot Packing and Preserving Company, which canned fruits and vegetables under the Le Grande label. In the midst of his stint crunching numbers at the cannery, he married Harriett Valliant, an Oxford girl a few months younger than he and a member of one of the county’s oldest families.

Whether from an abundance of ambition or weary of working for someone else, McCord announced that he was starting his own business. No one remembers exactly why McCord threw his lot in with suds and starch, but the eponymous company he launched in 1926 in a red brick building—erected on property McCord bought from Harry and Leona Hollis in 1925 and which for a while was occupied by a cobbler’s shop—on Easton’s South Washington Street eventually grew to become an Eastern Shore cleaning empire. During the subsequent decades, branch offices were opened in St. Michaels, Denton, Chester, and Cambridge. Centreville had a McCord agent, while farther up the road in Kent County, Chestertown was selected as the site for a second McCord plant.

Generations of customers relied upon a McCord (or McCord’s, as locals preferred) delivery man to arrive at their houses in a white panel truck to pick up or drop off bundles of clothes. Generations, too, found work in McCord’s expanding plant, which at one time was regarded as the county’s largest year-round employer.

The McCord building itself, which was expanded into neighboring lots over the years to accommodate a booming trade, remains a local landmark despite the company’s closing. Walter McCord’s laundry and dry cleaning operation, once a model of Twentieth Century business practices, customer service, and technology, had fallen victim to changing times.

To celebrate his company’s silver anniversary in 1951, McCord stood before his fellow Easton Rotarians at the one of the group’s regular Wednesday luncheons and described his firm’s arc to success. The first week did not start on a promising note.

“We took in $87 and paid out $226 in wages,” McCord told the gathering. “Laundry equipment salesmen had told us everything about the business—except how to show a profit.”

McCord got a handle on the revenue stream and six years later purchased a half interest in the Crystal Dry Cleaning plant. He then sold his share and added a dry cleaning department to his South Washington Street plant.

By the 1950s, McCord’s 78 employees processed mountains of laundry and dry cleaning annually. The business purchased soap by the ton and wrapping paper by the truckload. McCord said the plant pumped a million gallons of water through an overhead system of pipes and ducts and burned 10,000 gallons of fuel oil each month to produce steam in a boiler set up in a separate building. Ninety percent of the plant’s electricity, he noted, was produced in house.

In addition to the oversized washing machines, ironing tables, and dry cleaning apparatus, McCord’s had a room where a crew of women spent the days repairing clothes. The company went through 15,000 buttons annually “to replace those that come off shirts while you are wearing them,” McCord told his audience in a well-received jest.

But missing and damaged buttons weren’t McCord’s biggest problem. “Our greatest headache is concerned with an item which represents about one fifth of one percent of the firm’s operating cost—and that is starch,” McCord said. “It’s not only injurious to material, but we have to contend with as many different desires concerning its use as we have customers.”

McCord added a garment storage division to the Easton facility in 1939. Within a decade, customers had dropped off a half million dollars in clothing—ranging from $5 sweaters to $5,000 Russian sable coats—for seasonal safekeeping.

The McCord sales department, a team of 15 salesmen and women, met biweekly to discuss sales techniques. Tips included the proper way to ring door bells.

As the boss, McCord realized the value of incentives and awarded plant workers extra pay if they exceeded production goals. They also earned more if the number of mistakes fell below his monthly “accuracy standard.” McCord’s management style earned an impressive measure of employee loyalty. During the 25 years that the plant had been open, more than half the work force had received commendations for service ranging from five to 20 years.

McCord served as president of the Tri-State Laundry and Dry Cleaners Association and remained a force in the regional industry until 1961, when he stepped away from the business he founded.

Retirement did not mean McCord faded from the Talbot scene. For a while, he stayed particularly active on the board of Easton Publishing, where years before as president he oversaw the relocation of the newspaper headquarters from Dover Street to a Hanson Street site more suitable for the company’s growing print shop. In 1962, he announced a $100,000 expansion that included installing a state-of-the-art Goss Suburban web offset printer to reduce the press time required for the newspaper. The modernization efforts and enhanced profitability of the plant soon attracted outside attention. When word circulated that the publisher of The Sun had entered into negotiations to buy Easton Publishing, a Cecil County newspaper publisher—after talking privately with McCord—outbid the Baltimore paper and kept the Star-Democrat Shore-owned.

Ten years after McCord died at his home on World Farm Road outside Oxford, the laundry and dry cleaning business was purchased by the Talbot County-based, whimsically-dubbed Lincoln County Land and Cattle Company, a real estate holding company focused on commercial and residential properties.

Lincoln County president Buck Horsey was no stranger to the clothes-cleaning world. Fresh out of college, the Easton native began his business career in 1978 as manager of McCord’s. It remained a viable operation and continued to be an economic mainstay on the Mid- and Upper Shore into the new century.

As many as 40 employees kept the plant humming. The laundry room rumbled with noise as two 400-pound and two 200-pound washers churned through seven different cycles. (Throughout the years, the hospitals in Easton and Chestertown were McCord’s biggest customers.) Passersby could see plumes of steam escaping into the outside air. The front office, repainted in bright spring-like shades, was staffed by personable greeters who often retrieved a customer’s dry cleaning without having to inspect a claim ticket.

But times had changed since Walter McCord first opened his door to the public. For one thing, very few homeowners in McCord’s days owned washing machines. And the cost of fuel oil, which was pennies a gallon when McCord was building his laundry empire, soared so high that the plant’s crucial steam-generating system became a financial liability. Technology and economics antiquated the once modern plant. When Horsey turned off the power one last time on December 31, 2009, the silence of the machinery ushered out an end to an era on South Washington Street.

Create a diorama using Peeps, depicting what you would like to see at the Eastern Shore Conservation Center.

Do you have a great idea for office space; the courtyard; art installations; community garden, lunch or meeting spaces? Conference rooms? Living roof spaces?

Maybe you envision outdoor picnics in the community garden, outdoor classrooms in the courtyard, meetings on the living roof. Maybe you have a great idea for converting a conference room into a classroom for a multi-functional space.

Use your marshmallow creatures to create your dream for the Peepstern Shore Conservation Center.
The First Place winner will receive a basket of Eastern Shore goodies (including a guided ESLC bird walk or canoeing at our Sassafras Environmental Education Center). Second and Third place winners will receive a certificate and some Eastern Shore Land Conservancy swag (including a guided ESLC bird walk or canoeing at our Sassafras Environmental Education Center). All three will receive a one-year membership to Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, which offers discounts on bird walks and other events, as well as complimentary passes to our Walk and Talk series and invitations to special events. (Team entries are welcome, and we can tailor prizes to accommodate.)

Drop off your diorama at one of the following times and locations:

6:15 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, Community Meeting about the Eastern Shore Conservation Center at the Talbot County Free Library
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, March 22, at the former McCord building in Easton, where ESLC will be hosting an Open House
9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at the former McCord building in Easton, just before judging

Live far away? Going to be out of town? We will award another first prize only to the best of the photo entries. Photo entries should be submitted to spearce@eslc.org no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 20.

Judging will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at the former McCord building. Winners will be announced at 11 a.m. Join us for donuts and coffee. Schematic designs for the Eastern Shore Conservation Center will be on display.

An entry from the 2012 Contest

Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) seeks a highly-motivated, energetic professional to lead and manage the direction, planning, and execution of all fundraising and development activities.

Position will work under the direction of the Executive Director, be part of his senior leadership team, and be based at ESLC’s Queenstown office.

Qualifications include a minimum of five years of full-time, progressively-responsible fundraising experience, with CFRE or other advanced certification or training preferred. Passion for and commitment to conservation and the lands and waters of the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay a must.  Demonstrated ability to plan and execute funding drives with a track record of success in achieving fundraising goals.  Top candidates will also possess a love of teamwork, advancing excellence and innovation, and being part of a learning organization.

The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is a leading regional land trust on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore responsible for preserving more than 53,000 acres since 1990.  To apply send resume, cover letter, and salary requirements to: ESLC, PO Box 169, Queenstown, MD 21658 or HR@eslc.org.  For more information about our work, please visit: www.eslc.org.

Queenstown, Maryland – Februray 8 ,2013 – Eastern Shore Land Conservancy Tuesday was awarded one of Maryland’s first Sustainable Growth Awards at the Governor Calvert House in Annapolis. The award program recognizes the people, projects and programs that model smart growth and sustainability in Maryland.

ESLC was honored for its town projects, which aim to give citizens the support they need to develop and implement visions for transforming their communities into vibrant, sustainable and well-defined places.

“Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is focused on helping to preserve and sustain the communities of the Eastern Shore,” said ESLC Community Design Manager Sarah Abel. “Our town efforts focus on working with members and leaders of communities to help keep our towns economically and socially vibrant through community design and planning. We cannot thank enough our elected and appointed leaders and members of all the communities who have welcomed us into their towns.”

ESLC’s town work is focused on ensuring that communities have the tools and assistance they need to realize their visions and helping those communities implement their visions. ESLC’s town work weaves together its planning and conservation expertise to serve more deeply a broader spectrum of the needs of Eastern Shore communities. It is based on fostering empowerment and engagement, following the philosophy that the best future plans come from the whole and from within the community. The goal of town work is to promote ecologically sustainable policies and practices on the Eastern Shore in service to the landscape.

“The intent of these awards is to help shed light on some of the exemplary work going on in Maryland to focus new growth in existing communities, to preserve sustainable places and to conserve Maryland’s rural and natural resource lands,” said Growth Commission Chairman Jon M. Laria. “I am thrilled by the quality of nominees that were put forward for the awards.”

Del. Addie Eckardt, R-37B-Talbot and Dorchester, and state Sen. Richard Colburn, R-37-Mid-Shore, presented the award to ESLC.

Christopher B. Leinberger, noted speaker and author on sustainable growth and walkable urban places, gave the keynote address for the program. He spoke on “Economic Growth through Smart Growth: How Smart Growth Makes Economic Sense for Maryland.” Mr. Leinberger is President of Locus, Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors and the Charles Bendit Distinguished Scholar and Research Professor, George Washington University School of Business, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C.

Awards were presented for (1) leadership and service and (2) smart growth communities for public and private-sector projects or activities that improve the economy, the environment or the quality of life.

Nominated projects or programs must have completed within the last two years or be ongoing. Likewise, nominated persons must have been involved in the activity or service in question within the last two years or be ongoing. As part of its evaluation, the commission’s award committee assessed how the people, programs and projects – whether private or public – have helped further the 12 Planning Visions for sound growth and development policy.

The Maryland Sustainable Growth Commission advises the Governor, state agencies and the General Assembly on the progress of state, regional and local planning to achieve the goals of the economic growth, resource protection and planning policy in Maryland.