I grew up along the shores of Saginaw Bay in Bay City, Michigan. The Great Lakes shaped how I see the world — the scale of them, the way the light changes across the water, the slow rhythm of seasons that anyone who gardens in Zone 6a learns to respect. So when I was asked to join the board of Save Our Shoreline, I didn't hesitate.
Save Our Shoreline is a conservation organization focused on protecting the rights of shoreline property owners and preserving the ecological health of Michigan's Great Lakes coast. It's the kind of organization that doesn't make national headlines but does the work that actually matters — the unglamorous, persistent, local work of showing up at meetings, educating property owners, and advocating for policies that balance human use with environmental stewardship.
Saginaw Bay is one of the most ecologically significant bodies of water in the Great Lakes system. It's a critical habitat for fish, birds, and plant species that depend on the shallow, nutrient-rich waters where Lake Huron meets the Saginaw River watershed. It's also where tens of thousands of people live, work, fish, and recreate.
That intersection — between human communities and natural systems — is where conservation gets complicated and where it matters most. You can't protect Saginaw Bay by pretending people don't live there. And you can't serve the people who live there by pretending the bay doesn't need protection.
Save Our Shoreline operates in that space. The organization works with property owners, municipalities, and state agencies to find approaches that work for both people and the environment. It's not always easy. It's rarely simple. But it's necessary.
People sometimes ask me how conservation fits with my other work in emergency services technology and writing about AI. The connection is more direct than it seems.
In emergency management — a role I held as Bay County Emergency Manager — you learn that community resilience depends on the health of the systems people rely on. That includes infrastructure like 911 centers and dispatch systems, but it also includes natural infrastructure: the wetlands that absorb floodwaters, the shorelines that buffer storms, the water quality that sustains both ecosystems and economies.
When I write about the difference between intelligence and insight, I'm often thinking about problems like this. We have enormous amounts of data about Great Lakes water levels, erosion patterns, and ecological health. Intelligence — raw information — is getting cheap. But the insight to translate that data into good local decisions? That requires people who know the place, understand the stakeholders, and are willing to do the long, slow work of building consensus.
That's what Save Our Shoreline does. And it's why board service matters.
Board work is not glamorous. It's reviewing budgets, discussing strategy, attending public meetings, and helping connect the organization with resources and people who can advance its mission. My background in public administration — from years running 911 centers and emergency management operations in Bay County and Saginaw County — is useful here. Running a nonprofit board isn't that different from running a public safety agency: you're balancing limited resources against important goals, and you're accountable to the community you serve.
I also try to bring what I've learned about technology to the conservation space. Not AI specifically, but the general principle that technology should serve people, not the other way around. Save Our Shoreline's work could benefit from better data visualization, more accessible public communication tools, and smarter ways to organize volunteer efforts. These aren't flashy applications, but they're the kind of small, boring practices that compound over time.
The Great Lakes are facing a convergence of challenges: changing water levels, invasive species, development pressure, and climate variability. Saginaw Bay, as one of the most accessible and ecologically productive parts of the system, feels these pressures acutely.
Organizations like Save Our Shoreline are part of the answer. Not the whole answer — no single organization is. But they represent something I believe in deeply: local people doing sustained work to protect the place they live. I write about this kind of sustained commitment in my gardening blog at Freighter View Farms — the idea that the most meaningful work happens season after season, year after year, through steady attention rather than dramatic gestures.
If you live along Michigan's shoreline or care about the Great Lakes, I'd encourage you to learn more about Save Our Shoreline. The work is important. The coast is worth protecting.