working the network

Button Gwinnett was a revolutionary war era cotton and peanut farmer who owned a plantation north west of Atlanta. This noted land owner, farmer and merchant was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence. What he could have never imagined is the amazing amount of suburban sprawl that raced from Atlanta to the north, primarily following World War II and swallowed up every inch of ground for 40 miles out from the city center. The successful real estate developer and former bank client of ours, Buddy Drake who had offered to let us explore the economic impact of conserving Gwinnett county land that he had planned to develop and where I had seen the huge deer a week earlier, seemed eager to get started. While that was refreshing I knew in my heart of hearts that we didn't have a land trust in our consort that would take only 23 acres nor had we successfully opened a communications line with his bank, the mortgage owner. And as truth is often stranger than fiction, the bank was my former, 20 year long employer who I knew had the capacity to be capricious and unresponsive. But I remembered my mantra, you eat an elephant one bite at a time and I set out to find a land trust in Gwinnett willing to work with us.

From the directory of Land Trusts approved by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources I found Carol Hasslin and the Gwinnet Range Land Trust, a name I found ironic as there certainly isn't any range land in the midst of that suburban sprawl. The refugee from the 60's who was in her 60's and the part time director of this pitifully small trust delighted in that ironic fact as well and over coffee one morning told me her story and that of her employer. I could have guessed that she'd been an activist her entire life and 11 years earlier, when the developers of the Mall of Georgia, certainly one of the most grotesque examples of the power the consumer was being planned, she helped form the trust to do battle with the developers. She lost that battle and the war also as in over a decade the Gwinnett Range Land Trust had only managed to conserved 750 acres. We had that much property in play already in only 7 months. Even though she seemed to be a caricature of a conservationist right down to her Walla bee shoes and tie dyed shirt (worn smartly under a leather jacket trimmed in fur, of which I wondered what the animal rights people thought) I admired her conservation spirit and determined to show her how to conserve Buddy's land, if I had to do it myself. Her board was scheduled to meet in 3 weeks so I gave her the survey so that she could find the real estate, I promised to attend her meeting and I left wondering how best to tease the bank into conversation.

From that meeting, Matt and I headed for Wilkes County, a little over an hour east of Gwinnett. The week before, in a moment of real inspiration, Matt had seen a newspaper advertisement offering 250 acres of timber land for sale. He had cut out the ad and gotten me to compose an e-mail to the seller suggesting that he explore the economics of conservation, as opposed to an out right sale. Well, the land owner took the bait, called us up and invited us out for a look. It was a long way to go but as we had so few prospects off we went. With only a little struggle we found the country store where we'd agreed to meet and introduced ourselves to this country fellow about our age who had been a timber broker in better times and was now just a buyer and seller of land. We climbed into his 2 ton pick up truck and drove all over his large land holding which proved to be wholly unexceptional but majestic in the quiet of that clear, winter afternoon. While Matt extended himself to impress Mr. Pollock in how much he knew about timber land management - which is nothing except a series of buzz words like "chip and saw" and " saw timber" I sat in the back and wondered if this was a good use of our time. In the hour we were together though I got Pollock to tell us that he had graduated from UGa in Forestry and knew everybody in Georgia in the timberland business, something that I filed away for future reference. I knew I'd made a friend when we got talking Georgia football and we stopped at yet another country store for a wedge of hoop cheese, crackers and a cold beer. Matt sat in the truck and talked on his cell phone to God knows who. We all agreed to keep in touch as Matt unnecessarily gunned his Mercedes out of the gravel driveway of the store and headed for Atlanta.