Summer staff transitions

We have some exciting staff changes to celebrate this summer, and two few fond farewells to Sam Armacost and Laura Mann Hill as they take on new roles.

FMR promoted Carrie Pomeroy to volunteer coordinator after Tabitha Birdwell stepped down to take a coveted position with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Ivy Song, former Environmental Stewardship Insitute (ESI) council member and assistant, will move into our event assistant role. Since ESI is one of our career pathways initiatives, we're thrilled that a former ESI participant is now in a staff position.

Get to know Ivy and Carrie if you haven't already:

Welcome Ivy Song, seasonal Event Assistant

Ivy Song (she/her) is a freshman at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities majoring in Sustainable Systems Management. She was one of the original FMR Environmental Stewardship Institute (ESI) council members in 2021. She spent the next two summers supporting the program as an ESI assistant.

Now that the ESI summer program has wrapped up for 2023, Ivy is moving into a new position at FMR. For the rest of the 2023 event season, Ivy will work alongside the Stewardship & Education team in planning and facilitating our storm drain stenciling program and water quality education, as well as supporting various community stewardship events.

When Ivy is not in class or working, she loves to play her flute, read fantasy novels and take walks outdoors with friends. She also enjoys baking and making art, and sharing that with friends and family. Her favorite place to take walks is Como Park. 

Welcome Carrie Pomeroy, volunteer coordinator

Carrie (she/her) has a background in writing and education and has taught at the Loft Literary Center and Metropolitan State University and served as a writer-in-the-schools with the COMPAS program for many years. She's also worked extensively with volunteers in a variety of community settings, including the pollinator garden at the Hamline Midway Library. Since 2020, she's been honored to facilitate restorative justice circles with St. Paul's ETHOS program.

When Carrie first moved to the Twin Cities in her twenties after living in much smaller towns in Illinois and Arkansas, she worried she would have trouble connecting with the natural world in such a big metropolitan area. When she discovered the beautiful hiking trails along the Mississippi River Gorge, she knew she was home. She has since enjoyed volunteering with her two children at FMR volunteer events such as garlic mustard pulls and native plantings. 

As the volunteer coordinator, Carrie manages FMR's wide range of volunteer events. She is deeply inspired by FMR's efforts to engage people in showing up for the river, whether it's through hands-on restoration events or invitations to contact legislators. She looks forward to meeting many of you, learning more about the river by working alongside FMR staff and volunteers, and spending lots of time outdoors at FMR stewardship and stenciling events.

Outside of work, Carrie loves writing, reading, going to plays, bicycling, hiking, camping, gardening and going dancing.

Thank you, Laura

Stewardship & Education Program Director Laura Mann Hill joined us during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and has since brought our educational programming to another level. 

Laura's values showed up in all of her work. She believed in collaborative partnership and community, moving at the speed of trust, foregrounding justice and equity, and finding ways for art to intersect with science. In three years, she evolved FMR's Environmental Stewardship Institute for youth, built career pathways with other environmental organizations, launched a curriculum revision project and shaped lessons around stories from Indigenous voices, and created connections with organizations and communities new to FMR through debut projects like the Water Knowledge Network.

She was a compassionate supervisor to her team, and brought her humor, inclusivity and facilitation skills to FMR staff gatherings, helping us learn and grow together. 

FMR Associate Director-Development Director Sara DeKok says, "Laura deftly applied her knack for relationship-building, easy leadership style and creativity to grow and innovate new stewardship and education programming that has touched thousands of local residents and young people. She will be greatly missed at FMR, but her legacy and its impact on our communities and the river will be long-lasting."

We're excited for all the students that will get to learn from Laura this fall as she begins her new position as a dance and theater teacher at a Minneapolis elementary school.

Thank you, Sam

Stewardship & Education Program Associate Sam Armacost came on board in 2022, less than a year after paddling the whole length of the Mississippi River. After that deeply immersive experience, she brought to FMR a passion and energy for connecting with communities around our shared waters.

Sam led our storm drain stenciling program for two event seasons, working with volunteers and groups to mark thousands of storm drains with water quality reminders and starring in FMR's latest educational video on the top metro river pollutants. Sam also led the Stream Health Evaluation Program, which looks at insect and crustacean populations as a measure of water quality. If you volunteered with FMR or attended education events, you probably met Sam and experienced her warmth.

Sam's leadership and organizational skills and her compassionate, insightful nature made her a beloved coworker. Communications Manager Ellie Rogers notes, "I'll miss Sam for so many reasons. As just one small example of how wonderful Sam has been to work with, check out the volunteer photo in the slideshow above. I knew the photos would be beautiful when she was behind the camera at events. Volunteers lit up around her, and I could see her love of place and people come through each shot."

Sam will stay on at FMR for a few more months, solely coordinating the Stream Health Evaluation Program as it wraps up. We're grateful for all Sam has done for the river, and we wish her the best as she moves on to grow BIPOC affinity programming in the Duluth area.

Read more about our staff.