Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993 TAG: 9305060060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
There, edging his way through the crowd, came Rupert Cutler, a quiet man in a loud shirt with bold stripes and tropical colors, a camera dangling around his neck.
He looked for all the world like a tourist on vacation.
Which, in a way, he was - or, at least, was supposed to be.
For four decades, Cutler shuttled between Washington and New York in a career that had taken him to top posts in the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and the Defenders of Wildlife. He even pulled a stint as assistant secretary of agriculture, in charge of forest policy, under Jimmy Carter.
But 2 1/2 years ago, Cutler - tired, burned out, looking for a change as his 50s came to a close - abruptly walked off the national stage and moved to Roanoke. He came looking for a quiet place to live and a way to ease into retirement, lured by Bern Ewert, who promised him a chance to build his own environmental center at a new living-history park called Explore.
"I came down here to chill out," Cutler now says, his laugh booming thick and strong as a sequoia.
Obviously, it hasn't quite worked out that way.
Within a few months of Cutler's arrival, Ewert was booted out and Cutler found himself in charge of the project. And instead of spending his time building his beloved environmental center, the capstone of his career, it's been all Cutler can do just to keep Explore afloat financially.
He's taken this bait-and-switch career move better than most of us would.
I've never heard him utter a cross word, even when things were bleakest. Cutler epitomizes the "gentle" in gentleman . If he were a Southerner, he would be called "courtly." But he's from Michigan, so some other word will have to do.
It's Cutler's fate that in Roanoke his soothing public persona always will be contrasted with the prickly Ewert's. That's such an obvious contrast, though, it's easy to miss the real angle on Cutler. It's not his tone, it's his tenacity.
Ewert thought in grand, overarching visions. Cutler does, too. After all, anyone whose academic speciality is biodiversity - the concept that all life is connected, so instead of protecting individual species, we must protect entire ecosystems - can't be accused of thinking small.
But Cutler's secret may be that he's also an incrementalist, satisfied with eking out small victories that will create a big precedent for later.
As a bureaucrat, he must have been one heck of a turf fighter.
Not long after Cutler arrived in Roanoke, he started talking about ways to get people to use the park even before anything was built there. Boy Scout camping trips, Science Museum nature hikes, Astronomical Society stargazing, you name it.
His ulterior motive he made quite plain: The more people used the 1,300-acre tract of woods and hills along the Roanoke River, the more there'd be some sense that Explore wasn't just "the plaything of a few wealthy businessmen" - as one irate citizen put it last week - but a community project.
By Cutler's count, more than 7,000 people now have trouped through Explore - from schoolkids on field trips to scientists attending a conference of the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Foundation.
Cutler doesn't miss a chance to let anyone know this, either. He spent time as a newspaper reporter in his early days, and he can still write a pretty slick press release. He taps them out himself, sometimes.
With most public-relations flacks, it's easy to toss their tips straight into the round file. Cutler, though, doesn't take "no" so easily. Yet he's so darned nice about it, he makes you feel bad to turn him down.
Scarcely a week goes by that Cutler doesn't simply show up, unannounced, in the newspaper office. He shuffles in like a lost puppy, sad-eyed and apologetic. Or maybe it's just that bulldog tenacity showing itself again.
Once, he brought some scientist-friend from his Washington days who happened to be in town looking at Explore. Would you care to have a few words with Dr. So-and-So? Other times, Cutler will drop off his snapshots of the latest group to hike through Explore. He shows them off like some grandparents show off their family albums. Now here's the Society of American Foresters building a hiking trail . . . .
On still another occasion, Cutler showed up simply to contribute his insight on some environmental issue of the day. An editor didn't have the heart to send him so away, so he sat Cutler down at the computer and let him type in his own instant letter-to-the-editor.
Cutler's persistence makes him long-winded, but don't get the idea he's all talk.
Just before Ewert was ousted, the River Foundation - the nonprofit group that runs Explore for the state - scraped up enough money to reassemble an early 1800s farmhouse and accompanying barn. Under Cutler, Explore went one step further, hiring a couple to don costumes and re-enact pioneer life for the visiting schoolkids.
Now, a Richmond foundation has announced it's giving Explore $250,000 to reassemble another frontier barn, this one to serve as the park's educational center and exhibit hall.
This may not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, and Explore's original master plan for a $185 million development was certainly a grand scheme.
But much like the early Zionists settling Palestine, Cutler slowly is creating "facts on the ground" that can't easily be ignored by the politicians.
Without many noticing, Cutler has changed the question that the Roanoke County supervisors who will vote on Tuesday whether to fund Explore must confront. No longer is it: Should Explore be built? Instead, it's: Should Explore continue? And should it expand?
Given Explore's difficult birth, that's reason enough for Cutler to put on his holiday shirt and take a stroll.
by CNB