NFC Adds Position to Support the South

In just 5 years, NFC has grown from a lone chapter in Maine, with no plans to expand, to what is now chapters in 14 states and counting. Having chapters from as far north as Maine to as far south as Alabama presents an administrative challenge for an organization operating under what is primarily a part-time volunteer model.

Since our inception, the National Vice Chair has been the primary chapter liaison. Up until recently, that position was staffed out of Maine by founding member Emily Bastian. When Emily stepped into the National Chair position recently, we took the opportunity to staff the Vice Chair position from a more centrally located state to better support the chapters. To facilitate this, we moved Philip Light from Pennsylvania Chair to National Vice Chair.

While supporting the chapters from PA was more efficient and effective than trying to do so from ME, it quickly became evident that no matter where we staffed the VC position out of, it was still difficult at best to support the geographic extremes of our footprint which currently includes two contiguous areas: ME, NH, VT, NY, NJ, PA, OH, WV, and the recently added VA; and SC, GA, and AL.

To address the current situation, and be better positioned to support further growth into states like NC, MD, TN, etc., we decided to split the National Vice Chair position into two positions: National Vice Chair - North and National Vice Chair - South. With Philip assuming the role of National Vice Chair - North, we turned to long-time NFCer, Matthew Lewis to fill the National Vice Chair - South position.

The line delineating the north region from the south region will be VA/NC, with the former being part of the north and latter part of the south. Kentucky and Tennessee, both states we would like to establish a presence, will also be part of the south region.

Matthew came to NFC early on as a warmwater species expert on our National Advisory Council, a position he will maintain. Soon he spearheaded the creation of our southernmost chapter, Alabama, something that while it was our intent and part of our mission statement once we decided to expand our footprint, took us from a salmonid centric organization into a state that has no native salmonids.

Like Philip, Matthew will work to transition the Alabama chapter to a new group of officers, while remaining on as a Member at Large, as both Philip and Emily have done in their respective states.