Friends of Acadia Raises the Roof

And Honors Three of Its Own

Jul 11, 2024

BAR HARBOR—Friends of Acadia’s CEO Eric Stiles said he thought of himself as a wildlife biologist. He liked hiking. He liked nature. He liked it outdoors.

“Housing?” Stiles thought. “That’s what developers do?”

But, Acadia National Park has 25 vacancies on its meant to be 100-strong year-round staff. The park should have 150 seasonal workers. It’s only been able to hire 115.

About 30% of Acadia National Park’s seasonal positions have gone unfilled recently due to lack of workforce housing. And now? Now, Stiles doesn’t think housing is just something that developers think about.

“Gosh darn, if I am not passionate at this point in time about workforce housing,” Stiles told the 200 or so attendees at Friends of Acadia’s annual meeting, July 10.

The organization announced its “Raise the Roof” campaign at the end of its hour-long meeting at the Bar Harbor Club, Wednesday afternoon. The workforce housing campaign is meant to raise $10 million dollars to create housing that will help the workers at the park for at least sixty to seventy years.

The campaign in its soft (or quiet and unpublished phase) has already raised $7.5 million. The goal is to raise another $2.5 million, which will leverage federal and other funding. Friends of Acadia board member Julie Banzhaf-Stone and her husband Steve Stone have pledged to match the next $20,000 in donations.

The organization is already building new homes at the Dane Farm property in Seal Harbor. That will provide eight bedrooms in Spring 2025. So will the Harden Farm property. Harden Farm currently has eight housing units. It will host another 50-60 beds as it expands. Both sites will be given to the park once completed. It has also converted the Kingsley Inn in Southwest Harbor to employee housing.

“The six condominium units on Route 204 will be renovated into townhomes and used as housing for seasonal workers, which is in short supply in Hancock County. Friends of Acadia, which is buying the property, will give first priority to drivers for the Island Explorer bus system, which has had difficulty filling positions in recent years because of the severe housing shortage in the area,” Bill Trotter of the Bangor Daily News wrote about the 1980s condominiums next to the former golf course in Trenton.

“In addition to the condos, Friends of Acadia is buying four adjacent undeveloped lots totaling roughly 17 acres, which could provide space for more workforce housing for Acadia National Park and its nonprofit partners,” Trotter wrote.

The organization’s annual meeting focused on the park’s needs.

“Finding housing is simply impossible for our seasonal workforce,” Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider said at the meeting.

Two-thirds of the workforce, he said, can’t afford to live within a sixty minute drive of park headquarters.

“This work (FOA is doing) is getting noticed,” on a national level, Schneider said.

“There is so much positive happening at ANP right now,” Schneider said and that a great deal of it is due to the FOA leadership.

“Housing makes it possible for people to work here,” Vice President of Conservation Stephanie Clement said and they need those people to create the positive conservation outcomes.

THE LURE AND LEGACY OF ACADIA

Eric Stiles’ father told him that he introduced him to Acadia National Park when the FOA head was just nine months old. There’s a photo in Stiles’ office of his wife and child in the park when his child was just a year old.

The park becomes ingrained in many families. It becomes a part of who some of us are.

“National parks are for the nation. We aren’t trying to attract the nation,” Stiles said, but he stressed it’s a right to visit them, not a privilege.

“When I started here, I won the lottery,” Stiles said of his job at Friends of Acadia.

He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Three of the night’s honorees stressed that they felt a duty and an honor to give back to the park that had given them and their families so much.

One of the ways they had all done so was through Friends of Acadia.

“We celebrate our collective accomplishments for the previous year,” Chair of the Board of Directors Bill Eacho said. He called 2023 a “groundbreaking year” for the group.

But it’s not just about groundbreaking, he said. It’s about thinking of the park and the people who use it for the years to come.

“None of that impact is possible without each of you,” Eacho told the crowd of staff, volunteers, and donors. “And the local community, the businesses and residents,” he said are important.

“As I look around the room today, I see the faces of so many friends. It’s almost like a family that you choose to have,” Stiles said.

The park binds that family, unites that family, and celebrates it.

“Everyone is here today because of that love,” he said. “We all want to protect the park. We all want to improve the park.”

The baton they hold as they participate in that preservation and improvement, he said, is something they hold now but will pass on in time.

THE IMPACTS

Every year, Friends of Acadia talks about what the organization has done for the national park. It’s a celebration of work and of volunteerism and care. It’s also a celebration of legacy.

Impacts can be huge, such as the housing projects. But they can also be on a personal level.

“Every summer when I was growing up, I would look forward to the weeks I would spend visiting my grandpa in Acadia,” donor Mindy Gosselin said. “All my experiences on the mountains, in the woods, and in the water inspired me to pursue an environmental science career. The impact of both my grandpa and Acadia National Park helped make me the person I am today and I’m proud to donate to Friends of Acadia every year on his birthday."

“In the spring, Acadia broke ground on its new state-of-the-art maintenance facility, which was funded through the Great American Outdoors Act. A few weeks later, Friends of Acadia and other partners celebrated the groundbreaking of the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton—a critical transportation and information center for thousands of visitors each year,” Eacho wrote.

The steel framing of that building is going up now. The Great American Outdoors Act, which funded it was lobbied for by FOA.

With Acadia National Park, FOA works “to identify places and projects where our effective mix of private philanthropy, volunteerism, innovative leadership, and strong partnerships most benefit the park’s critical needs.”

Those needs might include the park’s new maintenance facility. It might be their help with the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton. It might be a boat.

Superintendent of Acadia National Park Kevin Schneider said, “We now have a new workhorse of a boat,” he said. The boat, which he rode on in the parade, was funded through a paddle raise at a Friends of Acadia event.

The *Friendship* makes her debut in the Fourth of July parade

The park named it Friendship. Her maiden voyage was last week to Isle Au Haut.

“Thank you for the Friendship,” Schneider told those gathered.

Getting Acadia National Park up and running this summer, he said, was much more challenging because of the winter storms. “There was about 1,000 feet of Ocean Path that was just gone, washed away in the storm.”

FOA stepped in immediately, he said.

“The trail crew is the kind of crew that doesn’t go halfway,” he said of the group that fixed some of those areas. FOA’s organization of clean-up events, funding of mini excavators, also helped with storm recovery.

The group’s upcoming paddle raise will help replace 40-year-old equipment that is used for the trails.

“We’re going to be able to put those donor assets to use immediately,” Schneider said.

“There were other milestones as well. Acadia received nearly $1 million in federal funding to scale up its climate-smart restoration work in Great Meadow, Bass Harbor Marsh, and Acadia’s Summits. We celebrated 50 years of the Acadia Youth Conservation Corps program, 30 years of the Schoodic Education Adventure program, and increased the number of grants to help bring urban and diverse youth to the park,” Eacho wrote in the impact report.

ISLAND EXPLORER

The group had another celebratory moment. This week it was announced that $23,529,000 in federal funds was made available to electrify 24 of the Island Explorer fleet, which is currently propane busses. It will help pay for charging stations as well. FOA was part of that request.

“We just got a 28.5 million dollar grant to ultimately acquire busses for the Island Explorer,” Schneider said, just in time for the Island Explorer’s twenty-fifth birthday.

The Island Explorer is a fare-free bus system. It is seasonal. And it has been propane-powered. It travels through Acadia National Park and has some routes in other communities.

“This year,” Clement said, “we are likely to carry our ten-millionth passenger.”

ACADIA WINTER TRAILS AND FINANCIALS

For the first time the park didn’t groom any trails because it was impossible due to the roads not being frozen enough or long enough, Clement said.

The impact report also included FOA’s financial statements. It has approximately $92 million in net assets, much of which is restricted. Its program expenses are just over $5 million. Its operating expenses are just over $7 million.

THE AWARDS

Three distinguished community members received awards this year in a ceremony that brought tears to Stiles’ and other’s eyes as they honored and said goodbye to long-time staff member Mike Staggs.

MIKE STAGGS

Mike Staggs received the President’s Darn Good Work Award for more than 23 years of dedicated service as a Friends of Acadia staff member. Staggs has been administrative assistant, operations manager, and systems administrator.

Staggs has worn many hats, performed many roles, and has seen lots of change at Friends of Acadia over two decades, Stiles said. “He helped the organization launch its first website, progress to cloud-based computing, and more recently helped develop robust cybersecurity practices. Mike also helped organize and champion Friends of Acadia events such as the Annual Meeting, Annual Benefit, and Earth Day Roadside Cleanup.”

“Mike’s work has been excellent, dependable, and a gift to all of us,” said a visibly moved Stiles said as he presented the award.

“He’s one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, who never says no to anything,” Stiles said. “I’m getting touched. I’m starting to tear up, Mike.”

Staggs smiled and nodded his head just the slightest of bits, encouraging his boss.

“As of Monday, Mike officially stops collecting a paycheck and officially becomes a volunteer,” Stiles said.

Staggs will be heading up the Seal Cove Auto Museum. One of the people replacing him is John Bench, formerly of Cool as a Moose and a Southwest Harbor School Board member and member of the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Board.

Stiles gave a quick rundown of some of Staggs’ attributes that didn’t make official press releases. These included an occasional staff lunch interpretative dance and the reading of staff horoscopes, Stiles joked.

“He loves a good problem,” Stiles said. He took a heavy breath. “We will miss you terribly.”

While accepting the award, Staggs joked that he had to frame it himself earlier. He quickly explained that he came to Maine after hiking the Appalachian Trail. He knew he wanted to stay. The park. The community. The people. They got to him and he enrolled at the College of the Atlantic, determined to give back and determined to stay.

“I don’t think I could have imagined I would get to that point,” Staggs said of his time with the organization and on Mount Desert Island.

Friends of Acadia gave him the opportunity to serve, he said. His titles may have changed, but the job stayed the same: to take care of the park and the organization that worked toward conserving and protecting it.

“From the first job to the last, I’ve just wanted to take care of everyone,” Staggs said.

Like former executive director Ken Olsen, Staggs ended his speech with an Edward Abbey quote

“Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe-deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards.”

LILI PEW

Lili Pew, who has served on the Friends of Acadia Board of Directors for 19 years received the Acadia Preservation Award and an immediate standing ovation when her name was announced.

Pew’s depth and breadth of service to Friends of Acadia since 2005 was recognized, including serving four years as chair of the board of directors, and her terms on just about every board committee. Pew was acknowledged as a natural “connector” who has invited people of all ages to develop a relationship with Acadia. Her positive energy and dedication to ensuring that visitors understand how to enjoy Acadia safely and for rescuing them when accidents happen was also honored.

“No one could ever have done more to deserve this award,” Eacho said. “Lili, your tireless energy, strategic leadership, and dedication to Acadia National Park are inspirational to all of us. Thank you.”

“When I moved here full time in 2001, I came here with three goals,” Pew said. The first two goals were to bring economic development, broadband. The third goal, she said, was to give everything she could to FOA and Acadia National Park.

“That is the essence of my soul,” Pew said.

DAVID EDSON

David Edson received the Marianne Edwards Distinguished Service Award, Friends of Acadia’s highest honor, for his steadfast leadership on the board for a decade.

Friends of Acadia’s Vice President of Development Lisa Horsch Clark called Edson “the most excellent chair of the Housing Task Force.”

Edson has filled multiple roles including board vice chair, Acadia Winter Trails Association winter groomer, strategic planning committee member, finance committee member, Acadia experience task force contributor, and chair of the housing task force and Raise the Roof Campaign leader.

At the annual meeting, Edson was recognized for his sage advice and calm demeanor under pressure, and for sharing his expertise, management and knowledge of conservation and construction as Friends of Acadia invests in important seasonal workforce housing initiatives.

In presenting the award, Clark said, “Dave’s selfless leadership of Friends of Acadia has advanced our seasonal workforce housing initiatives, fostered great teamwork, and served as the best kind of sticky glue holding our organization’s building blocks together.”

Edson received a standing ovation as well and credited his family and fellow volunteers.

“I’m going to credit my wife for having introduced me to Acadia fifty five years ago,” Edson said. “Whatever I’ve done has been done with hundreds of others.”

He said he owes a debt to Acadia and he still has a debt to pay. It’s given him and his family a legacy of love and memories.

“This is home now,” Edson said. “The lure of Acadia…. It’s a legacy that’s going to go on for many, many years.”

Photos: Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story