NLT Names Penelope P. Watkins, of Willistown, to Board of Trustees
MEDIA, PA (March 14, 2012) – Natural Lands Trust today announced the appointment of Penelope P. Watkins, of Willistown, Chester County, to its Board of Trustees.
“Penny is highly regarded for the leadership she has provided to some of the region’s most prestigious charitable organizations,” said Molly Morrison, president of Natural Lands Trust. “We’ve enjoyed her support and friendship for more than a decade, and are thrilled to welcome her to our Board of Trustees.”
Mrs. Watkins grew up in the U.K. and attended university in Switzerland before working for the British Foreign Office in London and the Netherlands, and then for the United Nations in the office of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ).
Mrs. Watkins has long enjoyed exploring Natural Lands Trust’s nature preserves in the region. Her experiences on the preserves led her—with guidance from Natural Lands Trust’s Center for Conservation Landowners—to convert a portion of her property into an environmentally friendly meadow filled with native wildflowers and grasses.
“This meadow is my kingdom!” Penny Watkins remarked. “I just love walking waist-deep along the paths, seeing the birds and butterflies that flock here. It’s a daily reminder of what we all can do for the natural world. In joining the Natural Lands Trust Board, I have the pleasure of helping one of the country’s most admired land trusts to preserve and enhance the natural world in my community and throughout eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.”
An avid gardener, Mrs. Watkins holds a Certificate of Merit from the Garden Club of America and is a member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the Weeders Garden Club. Her gardens at Toad Hall, her former property in Berwyn, are archived at the Smithsonian Institute in the Department of American Gardens.
She is currently a Trustee of People’s Light & Theatre Company and the Curtis Institute of Music, a member of the Maestro’s Circle of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and on the Chairman’s Council of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is also a member of the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress and the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Library Committee.
Penny Watkins lives with her husband, Thomas, a retired judge, in Willistown Township.
Natural Lands Trust is the region’s largest land conservation organization and is dedicated to protecting the forests, fields, streams, and wetlands that are essential to the sustainability of life in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Since its founding, Natural Lands Trust has preserved more than 100,000 acres, including 40 nature preserves totaling nearly 21,000 acres and 19,000 acres on which it holds conservation easements. For more information, visit www.natlands.org.
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