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Green Shoots & Big Shifts is hosted by Reetu Gupta, who started the show to have open, hopeful conversations about what it really takes to make sustainability part of how we live, lead, and work.
Each week, she talks with people doing innovative, meaningful work, turning ideas into action. From startup founders and corporate change-makers to community leaders - reimagining how business, society, and the planet can thrive together.
These are stories about innovation, collaboration, possibility, and the everyday shifts that move us toward a more abundant and resilient future.
you're listening to Green Shoots and Big Chefs
the show that spotlights the people and ideas
transforming our world for the better
I'm your host Reetu Gupta
in every episode
I'll be talking with innovators and trailblazers
who are reimagining our relationship with our planet
earth whether it's a small spark of innovation
or a sweeping shift in how we live and work
we'll explore the stories that give us hope
and the actions making a difference
together we are planting seeds of change
and driving big shifts for a healthier
abundant sustainable future
listening to this episode
and I want to invite a guest today
welcome Rodney
for joining us today very excited to
to chat with you today just to get started
you've been
part of Strawbery Banke Museum for over three decades
can you share a little bit more about your journey
what drew you to the museum
and how your role has evolved over the years
absolutely and thank you for having me
this is a this is a great opportunity
Strawbery Bank is really part of who I am
at this point I've always had a passion for history
and that's what I went to school for
and Starved Bank is a unique
outdoor living history museum
and that we're using
an existing neighborhood of 37 historic buildings
on nine acres to tell the history of this site
from as early as the indigenous people
all the way through the cold water apartments of 1950
and there aren't a lot of museums that can say that
they do that full range of history
so I love that we're in an original neighborhood
that we're using original buildings
to teach that story it's a unique and fun experience
and so been here for three decades as a result
yeah and what's
what's your current role
so I am now director of environmental sustainability
it's really a a pivot for me
I started my career here at Strawbery Bank
as a collections manager
working on exhibit design and installation
uh huh with the curator
and then about I guess
18 years ago or so I was named uh
director of facilities
and that was really taking care of all of the buildings
taking care of landscape and overseeing the
the care of the entire site essentially
but sort of part of that was
this realization that we had flooding problems
and that as we began to look at it
it we knew it was gonna be a big
big project frankly
the largest project the museum's ever undertaken
and recognizing that
it really was important for me to drop the facilities
work and really focus on environmental sustainability
so that's what I'm doing I've been
director of environmental
sustainability for a couple years now
and that's my sole focus so that hopefully
we can find success in becoming a resilient yeah
thank you thank you for sharing
I know we've talked a little and when we talked
you talked about the sea level rise
initiative at Strawbery Bank
and how you're pioneering this effort
for historic preservation
in face of climate change
I know you've talked a little bit about
how you move from facilities to
to sustainability full time
if you think back to that moment
were there any pivotal changes are like slow changes
like what LED to this change in investment
and what were you seeing that made it so important so
you know prioritize the climate resilience work
yeah I mean
they're definitely interconnected
what we were seeing as as director facilities
I could see that the recurring
maintenance that we needed to do on the buildings
seems to be speeding up
that something was causing
the paint on the exterior of the buildings
to degrade faster
we could see in the basements of the homes
that wooden members were rotting faster
or brick or mortar was decaying faster
uh and
you know when you're
when you're talking about an institution that has 37
historic buildings part of our challenge is
maintenance on all of these structures
before they reach a point
where they need a lot of work
and so if there's something that is making that period
speed up we need to identify that and we try
we need to try to counteract that
because we had a hard enough time
keeping up with all the maintenance on our buildings
as it is so
identifying what was causing this
rapid decay of our buildings
and paint to just
not to stay on the exteriors was really important
that was sort of the aha moment
got it and like
what did you find when you started investigating
what did you find was happening
yeah the
well the first step was to
partner with the university of New Hampshire
to do a study in 2,012
and really what that showed us is that we had very
very high
relative humidity values in the basements of our homes
and that the groundwater in this area was very
very high and so
what that told us is that our basements were very wet
and from that moisture
but you have off gassing into the basements
that enters the frame of the building
and it causes all that degrade I talked about
so that really explained
that's why the paint isn't lasting
it's actually being it's
it's blistering on the clapboards
because of that moisture
that's traveling up inside the wall cavities
so that was that really
is what set us on a path to realizing that we needed
to control our moisture levels
not just storm water you know
that most people are dealing with
say in their yard or something
but these groundwater issues were a big problem
yeah and
and it looks like the ground water from base
I'm just trying to
like see where it might have changed
it looks like before there was this ground
water issue was not as big of an issue
and it looks like over time
it has become bigger and bigger of
of an issue yeah is it
it's interesting
because a lot of people are focused on flooding
that we see in the news every day
and so you expect the water to impact your home
or your business
from wherever that water is coming from
with us it's coming from underneath and that's uh
it's a unfortunately because of where we're located um
the river that runs by the museum
is impacting groundwater levels
and so we never see it coming
it comes up from underneath
and bubbles up into the ground
and when you think about these buildings
as I said are on their original locations
they when they were built
there wasn't a problem but now it is
and certainly part of that
a probably a pretty big part
is because there used to be a tidal inlet
in the center of what is now the museum
it's a large green field
that used to be a tidal inlet that the city filled in
in 19 0 3
so they put all this fill and reclaimed that water
but that doesn't mean the tide isn't coming and going
as it always has
and so because there's all that soil that infill
it's pushing the water into new places
and unfortunately that ends up being our basements
yeah yeah
thanks for sharing so
you talked about like
this is one of the biggest projects
that you're working on can you share some examples of
some of the work that's happening
I can this entire project comes under um
the name the Sea Level Rise Initiative
that's what we've called it
that's uh
what we fundraise for is the sea level rise initiative
and it has three pieces the first is
dealing with the groundwater
that I've been talking about
so
how can we adapt or modify each of our historic houses
so that the groundwater isn't impacting them
like it is today so that's the first thing
the second thing is recognizing that
in addition to the groundwater
we have surface water flooding
whether it's tidal impacts from the river
or whether it's because we are geographically
the lowest point in the city of Portsmouth
so all the stormwater from the surrounding areas
flows down to us and has nowhere to go
so we we have to recognize we're also at risk from uh
stormwater flooding so we need to have uh
adapt the site if you will
to how to manage the stormwater
so that's two and the third piece is public outreach
we know that we are not the only site
that's dealing with flooding issues
in fact there are many
many institutions
across the world that are dealing with flooding issues
you can hear about it in the news all the time
and so anything that we learn
anything we do we are committed
to sharing
and that can be like doing a podcast like this
it can be from speaking publicly at
at conferences and then we actually did an exhibit
gallery once on sea level rise and its local impacts
so that our visitors could understand
what we were going through
yes public outreach
and education is such a huge part of this work
because as you said it's
this problem is not unique to Strawbery Bank
and that's part of the mission of this podcast is like
how can we share those learnings
how can we share what worked
what didn't work so
as you I know it's still a work in progress
and it'll continue to
this project will continue to evolve
and as you continue down the progress
are there any key learnings or
that you would want to share with our audience
or others who are trying to preserve old buildings
absolutely I mean
from the perspective of Strawbery Bank
we are museum professionals
that's what I went to school for
and I've been working away here
you know building exhibits
and doing the things that you'd expect
for a history museum um
now all of a sudden
we need to be hydrologists
and engineers and landscape architects
and there's just no way we can do that
and so the biggest lesson thus far is
find partners who are the people that can help you
understand the problems
and come up with tangible solutions
for your institution for your property unfortunately
I'm learning that each
location is gonna have unique impacts
you can't just say oh
they did this here so I'll do that here
you really have to understand the full breadth of the
the impacts to have the
the solution that's gonna work best for you
so finding partnerships is
is certainly
the number one thing that has helped us through that
and I'll give a shout out to the
it's a conference that was put together by
the Newport Restoration Foundation
called Keeping History Above Water
they started an annual conference back in 2000
and 16 really helped
institutions like Strawbery Bank and myself
find that path forward it was just a lot of
a lot of experts in one room
talking about
what they're doing and solutions they found
and so that was tremendously helpful
so finding people who can help uh
is great and then I think the other thing is
there's always gonna be the science piece
you know
doing the testing whenever I hire a contractor like
well
do you have data that can help me understand whatever
and so um you know
it's gonna be a long road and
and you need to collect some of that data
to help the scientists understand the impacts
and how frequent it is and all that other things yeah
yeah and speaking about partnerships
thanks for sharing about that conference
is it an annual conference
or do you like this was it one one time conference
is this something you go back to work with those people
yeah continuously
it was pretty funny I think when they uh
you know invented it in 2,016
they thought it was just gonna be one
they just wanted to get some ideas
it was so popular
and they heard from so many of the attendees
how absolutely critical it was uh
that they decided to do it again and again and again
and there were actually some times
that it was twice a year um
and they were looking for host wow
host towns to do it yeah
it the the need was great um
Portsmouth so
both Starview Bank and the city of Portsmouth hosted
the Keeping History Above Water conference
in 2023
as part of our messaging and as learning
and again we Learned
as much as we sort of taught at that conference
it did
take a brief break and we'll be back again this fall
it's gonna be in October back in Newport
back to its hometown
yeah
so it's definitely there'll be announcements coming out
but it's gonna be in October of this year in Newport
Awesome talking about partnerships
what regional partners um
or coalitions have you been working with
I know for each location it'll be different
but maybe talk about like who they are
and almost like categories
like what are the categories of
sure stakeholders
coalitions that has helped this work
absolutely and they are just at their categories
so you tend you end up going to conferences
like Keeping History Above Water
and some of the speakers are inevitably
going to be local professors
at universities
and colleges'cause they are the experts
they're doing research
and they're teaching about specific subjects
whether it be climate change or um you know
the sea how the sea's uh
levels are gonna change and so for us
it was the university of New Hampshire
they're the they're in Durham
New Hampshire it's very close to us
they were doing a lot of local studies
on the impacts of climate change in our area
and so that was a great natural partnership for us
in terms of trying to understand
especially the groundwater in our area
we're partnered with UNH but also
getting some of the modeling that they were doing
about what's predicting
storm levels might be in this particular area
so that's one and then what I'm finding is that
because there is such a great need
and it is regional
there are these smaller cluster organizations
often volunteer run
that are forming to help the greater community um
with resiliency and adaptation uh
in our particular case
it is the New Hampshire Coastal Adaptation Work Group
um
and it is a volunteer run organization consisting of oh
I think it must be up to about 75 members
that include a university of New Hampshire staff
and department of environmental staff from the state
Park Service staff town employees
uh huh people like me
I'm a member of CA through for Strawbery Bank
so it's a very broad range of knowledge that you
all of a sudden have access to
so I would definitely
advise people that they look for those kind of regional
cooperative ventures in their area
when they're seeking help
yeah it looks like it's a big tent
you have to build a big tent
and lots of different expertise come together
absolutely to make progress
so maybe shifting gears a little bit
you are part of a town that is
it has the museum
and there are other people that live there
what's the what are the tensions between
having regular population and trying to do this work
it is probably the hardest part of my job
you are part of a community
you are part of a town and in the case of Portsmouth
they own the stormwater system and their
their ground their surface water flooding impacts us
and so we have to be partners
we're we're put together because we have to be partners
but it gets very frustrating
because they move at one pace
and we want to move at another pace
right
their priorities may not align with our priorities
they're all kind of intermixed
but they might they might be saying well
we need to work on this now instead of this
and so it takes a lot of sitting down
a lot of talking through
the exhibit that I mentioned was
a partnership with the city of Portsmouth
Department of Public Works
and that's so
that's just an idea of how we did come together
and help one another they too
need to share the work that they're doing
it's a requirement of the funding they get right
and so this is a great way for us to partner with them
because we do have these exhibits
these stages that we can let them explain what the the
what the priorities are that they're working on right
in the end we can only do so much
to protect ourselves from floodwaters
we will need the city's help to get that sort of
that final step
to really bring Protection to our historic site
so it is hard and
of course the other challenge is
the fact that we are a historic preservation site
and so over here we have
you know the
historic preservation is doing very little change to
the buildings that we are trusted
and entrusted to take care of
and then you have the resiliency piece over here
which says you really need to adapt these buildings
to protect them from water
and somewhere in between those two
there has to be a meeting where we agree
we're going to go and part of that is the city
the city has permitting and so the
you know permitting process
they also have historic District commission
and so that conversation
isn't just amongst the staff of Strawbery Bank
which is critical
but it's also with the city of Portsmouth
and the land use boards
on where that compromise is gonna be
and that's that
that definitely has been
the biggest challenge of my job
thus far yeah
it is complex isn't it
like because there's so many different stakeholders
there's so many different priorities
that need to be worked through
but what I'm hearing is it takes perseverance
it takes conversations it's not a silver bullet
but absolutely it can be done
but it takes time and
and lots of conversations and coalition building
I know you've mentioned the museum exhibit of
a few times I was just curious
like when the exhibit was on
what was the response from the visitors
from the community it was something that surprised you
or as you put the exhibition together
yeah I think it did surprise me
one it was very successful
there's no question that people who visit um
Strawbery Bank or any museum
they were not thinking
they were gonna see an exhibit on sea level rise
that just wasn't part of what they assumed we did
so they were surprised
but once they got over that initial shock
I think they found the exhibit to be very interesting
very engaging one of the things I'm most proud of
as we've gone through this process
is trying to find some connection between our goals
to be resilient and
and adapt and our historic preservation mission
so I'll give you an example
in the exhibit that we did with the city
it turns out that the original company that put
the water pipes under our streets
was a private company
it was called the Portsmouth Aqueduct Company
and it was founded way back in
I think 18 o 7
well in the 18 is the city said oh
you know what
if we're going to have people bringing water into homes
that probably needs to be regulated by the city
to make sure that the drinking water is safe
and the infrastructure is improved
and so they bought the Portsmouth Aqueduct Company
which then created department of Public Works
that we've had you know
for over 100 years and so
there's a really nice tie
between the department of Public Works
and the history that we want to teach
and so as part of that we have these old
wooden water pipes
that they keep finding underground in the city
that used to bring they're pine logs
that used to bring water to people's homes
and we had them on display in the exhibit
and so it was a nice tie there was a nice
uh huh nice tie to how the work that we're doing
the city's doing and how
there is a connection between resiliency
and our history I think that's a really important thing
that there is this connection
and we can use that to our advantage
mm hmm yeah
that's such a great point
talking talking
about history and preserving history
as you know
you've been with the museum for such a long time
that's your passion that's been your life's work
and when you think about climate change
and sea level rise and resilience
how do you how
what are the parallels between history and that
how do you think about both things
that's that's sort of
if it's been coming over time
um the Smithsonian is actually doing this now
and we've started to take that up too
it as you look at the
even the buildings on our site
so many of the buildings on our site
are made from the White Pine tree
because the white pines grew everywhere
and so over the years we celebrate that
we celebrate how we use the White Pine
to build our homes we celebrate the White Pine
and how it made our furniture
and really in this particular area
why the European settlers came
was because of the abundance of the White Pine
and in fact
the king of England used to harvest the White Pine
for his the mast made up the British Navy
so it's a very important object in our history
but then today when we think about how
good we got at harvesting the White Pine
and how we actually clear cut the White Pine
from the eastern Seaboard
all the way past the Great Lakes
you begin to wonder was there any long term impact
from taking away all of those trees
and there's actually a superbook
called the White Pine
which is a history of the United States
through the use of this tree and
you know
start to see these connections between what we've done
how we've harvested the resources of this earth
for our own personal gain
but we got so good at it
it might have actually in the end
be why we're where we are today
and you could you know
take you can
instead of looked at White Pine
you could talk about coal or you could talk about
you know any number of resources that we use a lot of
and may have an adverse effect
yeah yeah
it is overuse overuse
overconsumption and I
like you're saying you can go back to history
and you can see when it started happening
and we are only seeing the impacts later
so it's good to look back at history and say
there is an impact in future
how do we avoid this how do we
how do we change this by studying history absolutely
yeah that's
that's a great point I wanna ask you about like you
you know your advocacy
your public speaking is as you said
a major part of your role and what the museum is doing
what do you hope the audiences take away from the star
how can broader community and community engagement
help move resilience work forward
I think um
a lot of it is I do try to bring hope
I've been interviewed by the press over
the years quite a bit and this seems to be the
the one final
the question they ask me is do you have hope
and you know you have to have hope
you know we are charged
with the preservation of this incredible site
in Portsmouth New Hampshire
sea level rise is going to be
probably the greatest threat
this institution has ever faced and
but we will overcome it you know
we we have been around for almost 70 years
and 2028 is gonna be our 70th anniversary
and we will find a way to endure
and to adapt and be resilient
um so yes
I have hope when I look at Strawbery Bank Museum
we have hope um
I know it's harder to think about hope
when you think of a more global um
solution to climate change
and to the impacts from climate change
but you know
if we do it at the more community level
and that spreads then maybe
and we'll see the results that we desperately need
going forward so
I think that's
one of the things I try to put out in my uh
public speaking is that you know
I have a lot of hope and
and we're doing some really great work here
and that doesn't mean uh
that it means that you could do that in your community
as well yeah
hope hope is very important to keep keep going
um so talking about what's next
what's next for um or
what's the next stage of strawbery Banks
resilience work what's yeah
what's the next big project for you
yeah we've got some fabulous work going on right now
and like most projects
it's probably in three different pieces but uh huh
as of last fall
we actually installed our first landscape adaptation
in the form of some swales and rain gardens
to protect one area of the museum
and so that was really great to sort of say we did it
we achieved our first tangible solution
so coming off of that we're going to
we're doing a schematic design process
for what will be the largest
water storage area on our site
it's gonna be quite massive
it's gonna be also
part of the interpretation of the history of the site
as well again
trying to balance our resilience with the history
mission so
we're going to be wrapping up a schematic design phase
which will give us some idea of pricing
and a project schedule to actually implement that
in the next few years
uh huh we're also um
doing a a fun little project
there's an archaeological site at Strawbery Bank
called the Marshall Pottery site
and it's actually a 17th century pottery
and all that's left of it is the foundation
of the building
we're going to use that foundation
we're going to restore the foundation
so that we can bring some attention
to this important archaeological site
but instead of just having it as a foundation
we're going to use it as a water retention area
hmm so again combining history with resilience right
and this particular the the Marshall site
we know they had enslaved individuals
and so
we'll talk about that as part of the site history
and so if you can envision
the sign that we'll have at this archaeological site
it's gonna talk about what this site was used for
back in the 17th century
and then what this site is being used for today
which is water storage and storm water management
so I'm really excited about that
that again
is a partnership with yet another department
at the university of New Hampshire
we've also got a consultant who's volunteering for us
who has been part of the public works department for
so it's a really wonderful partnership for us
to get this one done so
those are the two things that we're working on
right now thank you for sharing that
and the one takeaway I'm taking from the talk today is
obviously hope
but also how you can thread both
achieving your mission and climate resilience
climate adaptation at the same time
and I love that you're using nature based solutions
with the growth
outgrowth and vegetation that you are building
one last question before we wrap up
that I like to ask everyone
and that is what's one word
you want the listeners to carry with them
after today's conversation
I've been thinking about that
I'm gonna go with awareness
um I think the threats from water
from storm water from ground water
uh are increasing
I think we're going to see that in the coming decades
and it's really
really important for everyone to be aware of that
to do some investigation to find those partnerships
that will help them see what's going on
and understand the impacts
so they begin a process of being resilient
and moving forward thank you for that awareness
such a such a good word
because everything starts with awareness
thank you so much Rodney
for being on um
our podcast today
thank you for the listeners for listening
um thank you thank you very much