PREFACE Great Blue Heron, LLC is both vocation and avocation for me, a soon-to-be-66-year-old forester, naturalist, and semi-retired university president. I write these blogs from the heart, especially this one. If you are averse to sentimentality, deep emotion, spirituality, and remarkable lessons from nature and family, stop now. If you have (or had) a mother […]
Nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge inspires living, learning, serving, and leading. Accustomed to living places where local birds spend winter far to our south, we are pleased now that some choose to join us for the cold months. The Wheeler Wildlife Refuge Association (http://www.friendsofwheelerrefuge.org/) April quarterly newsletter reported that Wheeler provided winter habitat for 19,000 […]
Observing nature clears my head and allows me to glean lessons for harnessing Nature’s wisdom and inspiration. Nature informs and inspires my consulting, stimulates my writing, and furnishes endless vignettes and anecdotes for motivational speaking. We moved permanently into our new home in Madison, AL end of June 2016. Christmas 2016, our then 8-year-old grandson […]
Verbatim from my guest blog at: https://www.earthshiftglobal.com/blog/natures-powerful-lessons-leaders-sustainable-enterprises March 27, 2017 One of the most engaging and fascinating aspects of the business world is the way in which diverse types of learning and experience can contribute to creating successful enterprises. Sound business practices, rooted in practical, empirical analysis, are certainly necessary, yet not sufficient. Passion-fueled, purpose-driven, […]
Daughter Katy, her two boys (Jack, 9 and Sam, 3), Judy, and I headed over to Rock City near Chattanooga about dawn March 17. Sure, I had seen the promotional barns, bird houses, and bumper stickers most of my life: See Rock City! This was my first visit. Katy and Jack had been a few […]
March 7, 2017 Along Alabama State Route 69, from Jasper south to near Northport, forests dominate the landscape. We navigated rolling hills, long-abandoned, worn out and eroded, former agricultural land. Frequent vistas afford great views of the mixed pine/hardwood forests across local relief of a couple hundred feet vertical. Some of the timberlands appear intensively […]
As CEO, Great Blue Heron, LLC (stevejonesgbh.com), I am a founding Advisory Council Member, Edu-Alliance North America. Edu-Alliance Co-Founder Dean Hoke posted that the “Council just completed our first Member Retreat in Orlando. Thanks to Kenneth Salomon, Judyth Wier, Jay Noren, Steve Jones, Roger Brown, Allen Meadors, and Nancy Kathryn Hoke. Outstanding ideas & participation […]
A moisture-rich SSW feed from the Gulf of Mexico and an embedded disturbance delivered 1.2 inches from late morning through early afternoon today. Tropical showers with rumbles of thunder entertained us from time to time. Our lake is now at full pool, a good three to four feet higher than the disturbingly low level that […]
I’m pleased that our local library, the Madison Branch of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library (https://hmcpl.org/branches/madison), will be hosting me for a book signing March 26, 2-3:00 PM. This will be my first book signing. I’ll speak for 15-20 minutes, allowing plenty of time for questions and discussion. Book Description Nature Based Leadership inspires, illuminates, […]
February 15, we returned to nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Some three weeks had passed since our last trip. From mid-December through late January, visits rewarded us with thousands of sandhill cranes — feeding, dancing, cavorting, rattling, and bugling across the flats near the observation center. The center’s external microphones captured their cacophonous joy; speakers […]