Mike Snead

Mike Snead

Mike Snead had spent a career supervising the Occupational Health and Environmental Policy departments for Constellation Energy when he retired in 2005, so he let his love for conservation and the environment inform his choices when he began to cast around for volunteer opportunities to occupy his time. Eventually, Mike settled on volunteer work for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Wildlife and Heritage Service. Its longtime volunteer coordinator, Paula Becker, steered Mike in the direction of Soldiers Delight Natural Environment in northwest Baltimore County, comprising 2200 acres of serpentine barrens and oak savanna, which plays host to almost 40 species of rare and endangered flora and fauna, some unique to this rocky, shallow-soiled terrain which has proven harsh to all but the most hardy specimens down through the centuries. Until recently.

For the past several decades, non-native, invasive species of several vines, grasses, ornamental shrubs and even trees, have taken hold across the once-pristine barrens, threatening to choke out some of the native grasses and beautiful wildflowers which once thrived in this otherwise hostile environment. Enter Paula Becker and her crew of volunteers, whose mission is to eradicate as many imposter plant species as possible, through cutting, yanking, poisoning and burning.

For almost a decade, Mike has volunteered countless hours every winter, dressed in multiple layers against wind and cold and briars and other hazards, to work with fellow members of the Serpentine Ecosystem Restoration Project, or SERP. This all-volunteer group, led by biologist Becker, has been instrumental in holding back the onslaught of invasive vegetation which would move in across the once prairie-like terrain and smother the native plants and their attendant butterflies and other wildlife if left undeterred.

In 2013, Mike got to know Laura Van Scoyoc, a longtime SERP volunteer, committed conservationist and president of Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc., the Friends group for the habitat. Laura invited Mike to attend an SDCI board meeting to see if he would like to join our ensemble. Finding that the group’s conservation mission was very much in line with his own, Mike expressed a desire to join the board of directors and was subsequently voted in.

These days Mike supports SDCI functions, goals and decision making by serving as board treasurer, while keeping his heart firmly planted out on the prairie. During winter SERP day events, you will still find Mike shoulder to shoulder with his fellow SERPers, cutting down invasive Virginia pine saplings, dragging eradicated invasive brush and logs into giant piles for burning, identifying and marking Japanese barberry, miscanthus and other invasive plants for future eradication, and enjoying the slow comeback of some of the unique and beautiful natives which call the barrens home.