Smith: With a change in leadership, the Urban Ecology Center remains in good hands

Our shovels dug into the moist earth on the eastern shoulder of the Milwaukee River and carved a new home for a burr oak sapling.

In minutes the root ball had been walked into place and the hole backfilled. The tree now stood on the flank of a savanna restoration.

"You can tell it belongs here," said Ken Leinbach of Milwaukee, sizing up the Oct. 18 addition at the Rotary Centennial Arboretum in Milwaukee.

The arboretum, a 40-acre oasis of native plants and public green space, is adjacent to the Urban Ecology Center's Riverside Park location in Milwaukee.

Like all tree plantings, our gathering was an act of hope, an investment in the future.

But this one was also a celebration of a career and the transition to the next generation of UEC leadership.

Ken Leinbach was executive director of Milwaukee's Urban Ecology Center for 25 years

I joined Leinbach, a friend I first met in 1982 in a different part of the country and at a very different point in our lives, to toast to new beginnings in a way we both honor.

Leinbach, 60, served as UEC executive director from 1998 to June 15, a span of 25 years.

He decided to "rechapter" his life earlier this year and, as part of a succession plan at the nonprofit, Jen Hense was hired as executive director. Hense had previously served as UEC's director of development.

Leinbach and I first crossed trails in May 1982 in Grand Junction, Colorado.

We were a couple of Midwestern college kids – he from Michigan, me from Wisconsin – hired for the summer to work on U.S. Bureau of Land Management projects through the Student Conservation Association. Our compensation, in addition to a $44-a-week salary, included lodging in a mobile home park.

Once we met and found what we had in common, Leinbach and I spent as little time in the trailers as possible, venturing out to fish or play basketball in the evenings and travel and camp across Colorado and Utah on the weekends.

We returned to our home states after the three-month work detail in Colorado and, though we kept in touch with periodic letters, years passed before we saw each other in person.

UEC's mission is to connect city dwellers to nature

In 1998 Leinbach left his job at a nature center in Virginia and moved his family to Milwaukee to take the job as executive director of what would become the UEC. He had two employees – himself and CariJean Buhk – and his facility was a trailer near Riverside High School on the east side of Milwaukee.

In the subsequent years I started to see conservation-related articles in Milwaukee newspapers quoting a Ken Leinbach.

I wondered: Could it be my Ken Leinbach?

I decided to visit the UEC and, sure enough, it was.

Leinbach's quarter century at the nonprofit has been filled with achievements and growth.

"It's amazing what can happen when you add just a little nature into someone's life," Leinbach said.

The UEC's mission is to "connect people in cities to nature and each other." Its vision is "to inspire generations to build environmental curiosity, understanding, and respect. We restore hope and heal our urban natural world, neighborhood by neighborhood."

Urban Ecology Center programs at three sites reach 30,000 school kids

In 2022, the UEC reached 30,500 school kids with its programs at its facilities in Riverside Park, Washington Park and the Menomonee Valley, according to the center.

Over the last 25 years Leinbach has helped revitalize Riverside Park, which includes 15 acres of wooded land and riparian habitat on the east bank of the Milwaukee River, and establish the 40-acre Milwaukee Rotary Centennial Arboretum and its associated playground, gardens, trails and bridges, native plant restoration and public art installations.

During his time as executive director the UEC also created campuses in Washington Park and the Menomonee Valley. The building in Washington Park is being revitalized as part of a UEC capital campaign.

He's also written an acclaimed book called "Urban Ecology: A Natural Way to Transform Kids, Parks, and Cities and the World." The book serves as a text to help other groups replicate success of the UEC in their communities.

Jane Goodall, famed chimpanzee researcher, author and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and United Nations Messenger of Peace, provided this testimonial about the book: "As more and more children are growing up in cities, teaching land stewardship and nature conservation to children and their families is critical. I am excited by Urban Ecology as it puts forth a practical blueprint for how to do this well. Urban Ecology shares the story of a model that has been perfected in three unique urban neighborhoods in Milwaukee, is being modeled in other cities in the United States, and is beginning to spread to cities across the globe."

I've always been impressed with Leinbach's ability to create partnerships and a sense of community.

In 2014, when I joined him and 99-year-old Richard Franz for a canoe outing on the Milwaukee River, I wrote Leinbach is a "master of the collaborative process and leveraging the power of 'we'."

Over the past 25 years the staff at UEC grew from two in 1998 to 75 in school season and 125 in the summer in 2023, Leinbach said.

Ken Leinbach continues to work on fundraising for nonprofit Urban Ecology Center

Kevin Whaley of Whitefish Bay, a retired attorney who volunteers at the UEC, said he has been continually amazed by the center's achievements over Leinbach's career.

"I worked with people who wanted to be visionaries and people who thought they were," Whaley said of his legal career. "Ken has proven over many years he is a visionary."

Leinbach said he figured out early in his UEC tenure the only way to make a vision become reality is to have adequate resources. A significant part of his job proved to be fundraising.

Even though he's no longer leading the UEC, Leinbach is working with Hense and the rest of the staff on a capital campaign for the Washington Park facility. Several million dollars are needed to complete construction of the new building.

Leinbach said the selection of Hense as executive director filled him with optimism and excitement.

Hense's dedication to connecting young people to nature and her leadership as Director of Development has been invaluable to the UEC's growth and success, Leinbach said, and she earned the trust and respect of the UEC staff, board, donor base and community.

"I know that she will continue to build upon our mission of connecting people to nature, and I am excited to see where she takes the organization in the years to come," Leinbach said.

The UEC is poised to mark a new leap in growth in December under Hense's leadership when The Nature Place in La Crosse is scheduled to become the first licensed UEC outside of Milwaukee.

After we planted the oak and sat on a bench to talk, Leinbach said he was working to "rechapter" his life. He plans to remain a resident of Riverwest.

"I'm a believer in trying to live a peaceful and powerful life," Leinbach said. "I'm going to be cheering on the UEC while trying to stay out of the way. And eventually I'll move onto another role, most likely one related to nature."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Urban Ecology Center in good hands as Jen Hense replaces Ken Leinbach