COASTLINES VOLUME 19 // ISSUE 4 // Winter 2019
Our First $1M endowment Gift
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n the first gift of its kind, John and Nancy Bray of Pitt County have pledged $1 million to the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust. Their gift will create an endowment that will permanently support the Coastal Land Trust’s position of Stewardship Director. The Brays have been involved with the Land Trust since 2014, when they began working with the organization to place conservation easements on lands near them, along Little Contentnea Creek, to keep them from development. As John Bray put it, “a very productive partnership and a friendship ensued.”
Donors Nancy and John Bray with Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Camilla Herlevich
“You can teach all the environmental science that you want. But if kids aren’t out in it, they may know stuff, but they won’t love it. And to really get involved in environmental preservation, you have to love it.”
—Nancy Bray
A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, John Bray holds a Ph.D. in geochemistry from The Johns Hopkins University and is retired from the Brody Medical School at East Carolina University. Among many other enterprises, he helped found one of the nation’s first full-service environmental consulting services. He co-founded the pharmaceutical research and development company Metrics Inc. Nancy Bray said her kinship to nature developed while growing up near the Pacific Coast in Southern California. She taught science and math for more than Brays, continued on page 4
herlevich honored for conservation efforts
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n recognition of her passion and commitment to saving environmentally threatened land in the coastal plain, Camilla Herlevich, Executive Director of the Coastal Land Trust, was honored with the 2019 StarNews Media Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is presented annually to honor outstanding individuals who have given substantially of themselves for the improvement of the communities of Wilmington and Southeastern North Carolina, particularly in the areas of economic
development, education, charity, health, preservation, arts and the environment. Camilla started her environmental career as an attorney for the Nature Conservancy before she and her family returned to Wilmington. As Executive Director of the Coastal Land Trust, she’s continued to combine her passions for law and nature. With her growing staff, she has helped save nearly 80,000 acres of environmentally and culturally herlevich, continued on page 4
www.CoastalLandTrust.org
StarNews photo by Matt Born Camilla with fellow 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award honorees Tony Rivenbark and former New Hanover County Sheriff Joe McQueen.
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