As a project manager for the Chesapeake Field Office of the Trust for Public Land, Rodger Krussman, AS '88, says he feels rewarded whenever he helps to preserve a tract of land. When that land happens to be in Delaware, he savors success all the more because it's his home state.
Krussman joined the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national, nonprofit, land-conservation organization, in 1996. TPL uses its real estate, legal and public-financing expertise to preserve land of recreational, ecological and historical value for the public.
From the start, Krussman set a personal goal of shepherding the first-ever Delaware project in TPL's 16-year history. His work came to fruition in spring 1998, when TPL helped the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service acquire 22 acres of grassland and marshland located in Slaughter Beach at the north end of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. The purchase marked the first new addition to the refuge in more than 10 years.
Krussman says he hopes to add more land to Prime Hook in the future. To that end, he works closely with state and federal agencies, local departments of parks and recreation and such private conservation groups as the Delaware Nature Society and the Brandywine Conservancy. It's all part of "laying the groundwork," Krussman explains, developing relationships with agencies and educating local communities about the services TPL offers.
TPL is the ultimate go-between, with employees like Krussman navigating through the sea of regulations, appraisals, surveys and negotiations so community groups can concentrate on raising money and support for projects. Krussman can help with that, too, by educating groups on planning, re-zoning and public-hearing processes.
"Once a community decides what land they want to buy and how they want to use it, then they can come to TPL and we can make it happen," Krussman says.
It also helps that he can explain the tax benefits of such a deal to the prospective seller. Often, tax breaks allow the current owner to net as much profit selling property to a nonprofit organization as he or she would make selling at a higher price to, say, a retail developer.
Of course, the intangible benefits are immeasurable. "I believe there is a time and a place for development and that, if managed properly, it can be a win-win situation," Krussman says. "But, I also enjoy working with people who understand why certain places need to be conserved. What we're doing isn't for us; it's for the next generation."
The Prime Hook sale took less than a year to negotiate, but most projects take several years. Some can take more than a decade. One purchase Krussman helped to close marked the culmination of 40 years of work by conservationists seeking to protect a strip of Maryland shoreline directly across the Potomac from Mount Vernon. TPL helped the National Park Service add 57 acres, the last privately held property in the threatened region, to Piscataway National Park. "It was the last piece in the puzzle needed to protect forever the view that George Washington would have seen," Krussman says with satisfaction.
In addition to Delaware and Maryland, southern Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky all come under Krussman's purview at TPL.
Krussman has always been a naturalist at heart. Among his fondest childhood memories are the month-long vacations his family spent each summer in New Hampshire, where he searched for frogs, fished in the spring-fed lake and warmed himself after a swim by the pot-bellied stove. Growing up at home on Lovering Avenue in Wilmington, Del., he and his friends (and brother, Fritz Krussman, CHEP '88) spent much of their time in nearby Brandywine Park. (Krussman's parents also are UD alumni: Colwyn, AS '57, and Marilyn Sturges Krussman, CHEP '57).
After graduating from the University, Krussman worked for three years as a market analyst for Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, where he conducted real estate market studies of metropolitan areas to help the company decide where to open new franchises.
But, the corporate world wasn't for him.
To help him make a career-change decision, he completed a three-month internship with the Elk City Ranger District in the Nez Perce National Forest in Central Idaho. No longer was he flying from city to city or stuck behind a desk working the phones. Krussman spent the winter months cleaning, marking and mapping 300 miles of winter recreation trails in the district. By early spring, he was working with a wildland fire crew, conducting prescribed burns. Controlled burns allow for the regeneration of food supply, put nitrogen back into spent soil and prepare logged areas for reseeding, Krussman explains.
This job truly fired his interests, and he spent the next five seasons (spring through fall) working on the fire crew in Elk City. During the winters, he worked on a master's degree in natural resource management from the University of New Hampshire.
Krussman says he views his job at TPL as the perfect way to merge personal and professional interests. He uses his business, real estate and natural resources backgrounds to make a difference for the future.
"I hope that when I walk away from these deals, I leave a positive image of what land protection means, not only to the parties involved but also to the next generation," he says. "My hope is that our children will have the same or better opportunities than we did for experiencing the natural world. Anything that we can do to help ensure that access is important."
-Theresa Gawlas Medoff, AS '94M