News from Marie your FOTR Executive Director
Dear Friend of the Rouge,
When I started at Friends of the Rouge in the dreary days of January 2017, I still remember my first day at the double-wide trailer. Walking down the asphalt path, beneath the branches of the Osage Orange trees paralleling the 80-acre preserve on the U of M Dearborn campus – I held my breath, opened the door, and walked into a new chapter in my life.
Through a merger investigation, physical office change, navigating COVID, building internal structures, weaving in DEI into every fiber of our work, tripling our team and quadrupling our budget – you have all been here for this crazy ride.
After over seven years in this role – I share the bittersweet news that I will begin the transitioning process out of my role as executive director. Finally saying it out loud to you all feels so heavy. So, I want to pause for a moment.
While this may come as a shock to you, it has been something I have been soulfully considering for the past year. Nonprofit work has been my world for the past dozen years, preceding FOTR. It is and always will remain a passion of mine – and something that I will continue to be involved in at various levels.
At the end of last year, my father approached me as he considered an option to purchase my uncle’s company Masonry Accessories, Inc. to serve as the CEO/President should we acquire the business. My father, and my grandfather, JR Snyder, have been steeped in the masonry industry since 1938. Our bread and butter have been made on the backs of brick-layers for nearly a century. In my teenage and early twenties, I worked for my father’s business – from driving a forklift, to a flat-bed semi, to painting ballards in the parking lot. While technically I worked on and off in the industry for 15 years, I never imagined myself taking on a leadership role in the business. Yet – here I am – accepting it as a new step in my professional growth: moving from nonprofit – to small business. Taking a leap into this strange, yet so-familiar industry.
The work I do at FOTR will mirror my new role in our family business: masonry speciality supply distribution company [the interface between manufacturers and contractors] where I will work to see our family’s business have a ‘green’ edge – and take a lead in shifting the masonry industry to be more sustainable overall. The products themselves have demonstrated millennia of resistance to the changing environment and human use, making them a premier example of how to build sustainable, climate-resilient building materials that will meet the changing world. I hope to become involved in the Masonry Society, the Michigan Masonry Institute, and maybe, in the future, sit on our local Planning Commission – as I firmly believe so much untapped change happens at the local level.
I look forward to continuing my work with the Plymouth Pollinators, Plymouth Rotary, Michigan Environmental Council, the Sustainable Business Network of Detroit, and the Rouge River Advisory Council, and possibly one day [after at least one-year break], serving on the FOTR board of directors. And of course – I will be at FOTR’s volunteer events as a volunteer helping to count bugs or pull weeds.
The opportunity to lead and grow my family’s business – which serves the entire U.S. [focus on Florida and west of the Mississippi right now], will come with many challenges – and hopefully rewards.
This transition process has been in the works for some time and many leaders and stakeholders of FOTR are busy at work with me planning for what the next chapter has in store.
The FOTR board has been working diligently behind the scenes to plan for next steps. They have established a search committee and engaged a search firm to facilitate the hiring of a new executive director, with a job announcement expected very soon. Our board and staff are also working closely together to ensure that the organization’s operations continue moving forward seamlessly during this time period.
On my end, I will transition slowly. My last day as executive director will be June 28, after which I will be taking a two-week break to visit family on the East Coast. These seven and a half years have allowed me to walk closely with so many of you in short and long stents. If this news is coming as a surprise, I ask for your grace to know that I could not possibly tell everyone personally. But I invite you to reach out for coffee or a walk or to drop notes, as I’d love to hear what this transition means to you as well as any questions you might have about what I anticipate it to mean for me.
In spite of all this transition, so much of 2024 will remain consistent. I’ll be around for celebrations and various events including our Earth Day Celebration on April 20, as well as our Gathering of Friends Celebration on June 11. Our well-established programs, events, and work will continue operating without pause as FOTR leans into the rhythms of our mission for the long haul. While my role as steward of FOTR has nearly concluded, it is each and every one of you who has made this organization so successful. My confidence in the organization’s strength of leadership, structure, transparency, and dedication for this work to continue and grow never waivers.
It is with deep gratitude, hopeful anticipation, sentimental nostalgia, and an overall sense of right-timing that I extend three intentions: to what is with each of us to know our true self, to those of you with whom I’m honored to share in this incredible mission-centered work, and to the wide world brimming with possibility.
Humbly Yours,
Marie McCormick
