From field sites to C-suites
Three conservation executives talk about their leadership journeys.
For Kirk Mantay ’96, ’97, an offhand comment from a political powerbroker has echoed throughout his journey toward leadership.
“When I was working as a field biologist, a lobbyist told me that if we manage to get a bill passed in Congress, that would save more wetlands than anything I could ever build in my career,” said Mantay, now the executive director and principal ecologist of Green Trust Alliance Inc. “It wasn’t a nice thing to say, but it really got me thinking about how to build impact for the causes I believe in.”
Mantay, who leads Green Trust’s mission to work with stakeholders, funders, and communities to improve polluted and degraded land in Maryland and New Jersey coastal communities, said the transition from boots-on-the-ground work to impact-focused leadership required a change in perspective.
“I realized that I could leverage my experience and knowledge by training and guiding other people and by generating funding and advocating for legislation that they can use to go out and make a difference on the landscape,” he said. “So that’s how I’ve gotten comfortable with a life that is less often in the field.”
Mantay is one of three conservation leaders from the College of Natural Resources and Environment who shared their journeys from aspiring conservationists to leaders in their fields.
Kate Fritz: Change agent
Most people enroll in master’s programs to gain new skill sets to further their careers. Kate Fritz, who earned a Master of Natural Resources in 2012 and is the chief executive officer at the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, came away with a badge.
“One of the things that I got while I was a graduate student is a sheriff’s badge that says ‘change agent,’” said Fritz, a graduate of the Executive Master of Natural Resources program offered through the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability. “I have it right in front of my computer because that’s my work. That’s why I’m in my current role. I was hired to be a changemaker.”
Fritz began her career as a field biologist with the Annapolis-based Environmental Systems Analysis Inc., pursuing a career that aligns her passion for science with a personal drive toward leadership opportunities.
“I’ve always naturally tended toward leadership,” said Fritz, who also holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a master's degree in environmental management from the University of Maryland. “I’ve benefited tremendously from getting a solid base of field experiences and an academic background that is rooted in science. I’ve always aspired to be in an executive position, and I wanted to make sure that the decisions I made for my organizations were based on science and data.”
Fritz, who was a member of the inaugural class of the Executive Master of Natural Resources (XMNR) program, said pursuing her master’s degree gave her practical skills and qualifications to move into leadership positions.
“I have a science background, and what I really appreciated was that the XMNR program gave me a greater perspective on the business side of natural resources management, which in turn gave me credibility when I stepped into my first leadership role as executive director of South River Federation.”
Fritz, who traveled to China with her cohort for the global study portion of the program, said that some of the lessons learned had immediate impact on her work.
“I loved that it was a master’s program designed for professionals who had already been working in their field because I was really seeking a peer network and executive-level experiences that would position me for the next step in my journey,” said Fritz. “It was also a very practical education: I loved that I could learn something on a Tuesday and apply it to my job the next day.”
Fritz said the same motivations that drove her to study environmental studies as an undergraduate are guiding her as a leader and mentor for the next generation of conservationists.
“I still show up with the same motivators and the same values and purpose that I had earlier in my career,” Fritz said. “What’s changed is my aspirations to do more and more. I find myself being deliberate about what I’m spending time on, but that’s so I can focus on what I truly value, which is mentoring staff and students to be the best that they can be.”
Robert Schmidt: A global Hokie sticks with wood
It took a push from a particularly determined guidance counselor to get Robert Schmidt, who earned his Ph.D. in 1998 and is the chief executive officer of WoodChem Australia Pty Ltd., to consider a career in wood sciences.
“My father was a high school guidance counselor and he made me take all these interest inventory tests, and I always ended up in science and business,” said Schmidt. “So he said, ‘Why don’t you take a look at forestry?’”
That prompt was the start of a career that would see Schmidt move from laboratory research to leadership positions, traversing the world in a career that has been stuck – very literally – on the resins and adhesive products that hold wood products together.
So how did a Canadian become a Hokie?
“As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, we’d go to Forest Products Society meetings every year, and there was always a huge contingent from Virginia Tech,” said Schmidt, who leads the chemical division of WoodChem, a resin manufacturing company near Sydney, Australia. “The program was recognized as one of the premier places to study wood products globally.”
As a doctoral student, Schmidt studied the adhesives used in the wood industry, a deep dive into the chemical science side of the field. Working with faculty that included Chip Frazier, Fred Kamke, Wolfgang Glasser, Tom Ward, Jim Wightman, and Geza Ifju in what is now the Department of Sustainable Biomaterials, Schmidt had the opportunity to leverage connections between the campus and industry to overcome more than a few sticky moments in his academic career.
“Every person who’s done a Ph.D. knows that you reach a point where you’re either going to make it or you’re not, and if you don’t solve a particular problem, you’re in trouble,” said Schmidt. “Mine happened to be a synthetic chemistry problem: I needed to make a certain molecule, and to do that, I needed a certain type of catalyst.”
What Schmidt needed exceeded the capacities of both the forestry and chemistry departments, but he remembered that he had a contact in the wood products industry who made a similar catalyst industrially. Schmidt was able to borrow a sample to complete his work, sharing his information along the way.
“The technical training that I received at Virginia Tech I couldn’t fault at all,” said Schmidt. “I think the ability to design experiments, to think outside the box and really look at big, multidimensional problems in different ways and to come up with a program or a path to a solution were experiences that really stuck with me.”
After finishing his doctorate at Virginia Tech, Schmidt worked at Dynea, a chemical manufacturing company based in Oregon.
“I started out in the lab, making resins and bouncing electrons around pages and designing experiments,” Schmidt said. “And eventually, I started having interactions with the technical services and the commercial sales groups and the research and development and technical service sides of these organizations. I became interested in the question of how you can leverage technology and product offerings to create competitive advantages.”
Having risen to the level of senior vice president, Schmidt earned an MBA at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He then took on new positions – and a new hemisphere – in Australia, with leadership roles at two global chemical manufacturing companies in Australia before joining WoodChem as CEO in 2023.
“Back then, a combination of a Ph.D. and an MBA was fairly unusual, but the flexibility of skill sets has served me well throughout my career,” said Schmidt, who admits that he is the rare individual who has stayed close to his area of expertise. “I don’t think I’ve met another person with an advanced degree who is still doing work that is related to their graduate research. I don’t know if it’s a good sign or a bad one, but it’s been a fun and fulfilling career.”
Kirk Mantay: Merging wildlife and geography
Mantay, who earned his degrees in 1996 and 1997, started his studies as a biology major before finding his way to the College of Natural Resources and Environment.
“I tell this story pretty regularly: I’m solidly from the generation where if you were interested in ecology and the environment, you wanted to become a marine biologist. So I came in as a biology major, and after a year, I realized that I had to make a change. I loved environmental science and biology, but this major just wasn’t clicking for me.”
At the time, Mantay was taking an introductory course in renewable natural resources in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation.
“I looked around that class and there were city and rural people, people who were really interested in timber harvesting and people who wanted to save every species that was possible,” he said. “And the oddness of that group of people – the strange dynamic where we all cared about the same resources, but we cared about them differently – I felt like I fit right into that.”
Mantay’s timing was good: The field of environmental conservation was transitioning from a niche consideration to an emerging industry, a change that accelerated the demand for young professionals to bring new technologies to bear on challenges that were just coming into focus. Pursuing dual degrees in what is now the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and the Department of Geography allowed Mantay to pursue a range of interests.
“This was very early into utilizing remote sensing and GIS technologies for anything other than military applications, and I quickly fell in love with that,” said Mantay. “I had missed enough prerequisites that I was on a five-year plan, but that actually opened up all these potential electives, and I decided to keep geography along with the wildlife major.”
Mantay said that a key component to his undergraduate experience was having the freedom to explore complex challenges from a range of perspectives.
“Bonham Richardson had me looking at the relationship between agricultural exports in the Caribbean and the loss of tree habitat in that region, just based on what was very basic satellite imagery,” he said. “It’s pretty elementary now, but to a 20-year-old, it’s mind blowing that there is this relationship between natural spaces and exported products, between forests and wardens and tariff laws.”
Mantay was learning practical lessons along the way too.
“Bob Giles did God’s work in really preparing us as we went out the door. He stressed the little things, like you should always have your boots and a shirt with your company’s name on it, and you should always have a suit coat in case you meet elected officials.”
Mantay has had plenty of cause to rely on that suitcoat: As the director of watershed restoration for the Arundel Rivers Federation — formerly the South River Federation, where he worked for a time with Fritz — Mantay implemented a 10-year, $26 million capital project portfolio to restore coastal plains impacted by human development and sea level rise.
In his current position as the executive director of Green Trust, he leads efforts to secure federal support for long-term conservation efforts that will benefit underserved communities and damaged natural spaces throughout Maryland, converting neglected waterfront sites into public waterfront parks.
Keep your feet on the ground while looking up at the stars
Despite the warning from years ago, Mantay has stayed connected to his roots as a field biologist.
“I still look forward to doing field work,” Mantay said. “I’ll still show up and plant trees. I’ll show up for construction inspections when we’re building wetlands or improving shorelines. Those experiences will always be a part of this work, and it’s a part of why I remain committed to this field.”
Fritz has kept her feet on the ground – and in streams and creeks – by taking up fly fishing, which has given her a new avenue to connect with a conservation-focused community.
“I’ve absolutely felt the absence of working in the field, and I’m very conscious about trying to make sure that I get outside and do things that help me remember why I started this career,” said Fritz, who usually carries a fly rod with her when she tours the Chesapeake watershed. “That’s my core; that’s why I do this work.”
And Schmidt has unglued himself from wood to pursue an interest that didn’t show up on any of the interest inventory tests he took all those years ago. The Canadian in Australia is currently pursuing a master’s degree in astronomy in his spare time.
“My parents were both teachers and instilled in me a lifelong love of learning,” said Schmidt. “This has been invaluable both to my professional career and personal life.”
