l to r: Bill Plouffe, Horace A. "Hoddy" Hildreth Jr., Mary Evans, Maine Audubon Executive Director Kevin Carley, John Tatko.

2008 Maine Audubon Distinguished Contribution Award, Horace “Hoddy” Hildreth

At the discretion of Maine Audubon’s executive director and board chairman, this award is given to an individual, business, or organization that has supported Maine Audubon’s mission, to conserve wildlife and wildlife habitat, through significant personal or creative leadership, financial generosity, or outstanding commitment and effort over a long period of time.

Wednesday June 18, 2008 -Horace A. “Hoddy” Hildreth, Jr. of Falmouth is this year’s recipient of Maine Audubon’s Distinguished Contribution Award.

A longtime and generous supporter of Maine Audubon’s work, Hoddy is recognized across the state for the breadth of his conservation leadership.

As the son of a sportsman father from a family with deep roots in Maine, Hoddy Hildreth learned early in his life to enjoy and respect the Maine outdoors. When he graduated from Bowdoin College and Columbia Law School, he began a 20-year law practice.

Eventually he would become an expert in policies affecting Maine’s environment. But Hoddy points out that when he started at Pierce Atwood in Portland, the practice area recognized today as “environmental law” didn’t really exist.

Hoddy’s clients included some of the largest and most powerful paper companies then operating in Maine. Over the years, he saw how the paper industry benefited from weak policies

that allowed industry practices to degrade Maine’s natural resources at an alarming pace.

That recognition was partially what motivated him to join the Maine Legislature, where he served in the Maine Senate.

In is role as chairman of the Natural Resources and Legislative Research Committees, Senator Hildreth made a decisive, long-lasting impact for conservation in Maine.

He drafted and sponsored what we now have as the location of development law and the first wet wetlands control law, which applied to coastal waters.

The significance is great: these policies mean developers have to prove projects will not cause undue adverse harm to Maine wildlife and other natural resources before they can be granted a permit.

With House Majority Leader Harrison Richardson and other key legislators,
Hoddy also led a hard-fought campaign to create an independent board to provide for orderly development and protection in the unorganized townships.

Even though teams of paper-company lobbyists flooded into the Maine State House to fight their proposal, Hoddy and his allies prevailed, and in 1971 the Legislature approved what we know today as “LURC,” Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission.

With LURC’s founding, these legislators introduced a key standard: Maine’s land and water resources are first and foremost for the benefit of the public.

That standard is one Maine Audubon works hard to help Maine uphold, in places such as the Moosehead region. We are deeply grateful for Hoddy’s generous and dependable support for that work.

Following his time in the Legislature, Hoddy Hildreth has continued to add to his outstanding resume of service on behalf of the Maine outdoors.

He is a trustee of the Conservation Law Foundation, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Davis Conservation Foundation, and the Maine Community Foundation. He also is a longtime member of the board of the Maine League of Conservation Voters.

Hoddy has been chairman of the boards of the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund and the Island Institute. He also has served on the boards of the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and the College of the Atlantic.

Under Hoddy’s leadership as chairman of the board of Portland-based Diversified Communications, the company is a frequent sponsor of environment-related community projects.

Maine Audubon also snagged Hoddy, of course. He has served us as a board president and trustee, and continues to influence Maine Audubon’s direction today as an advisory trustee.

He credits former Maine Audubon executive director Dick Anderson for changing Maine Audubon in the late 1970s, when Hoddy served as our board president. Dick launched Maine Audubon’s evolution from “the place people thought of for taking care of hurt birds” to a science-based organization that discovered how to make the case to Maine people for protecting their great natural heritage.

“Science is Maine Audubon’s strongest asset,” Hoddy said recently. “Maine Audubon is able to use science-based work to advise individuals, towns, and legislators on environmental realities—and to do that better than any other organization I’m aware of.”

While it isn’t possible to measure the statewide extent of the results of Hoddy’s leadership for conservation, we can try to summarize it simply by saying this:

Hoddy Hildreth is a great Mainer, a visionary conservationist, and a
generous man.

Maine Audubon is honored to present him with our 2008 Distinguished Contribution Award.

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