Somebody asked me recently where I developed such a passion about protecting the environment.  It’s funny, but I’ve never really stopped to think about it; we all need to step up to the plate and do what we can to preserve the natural beauty of our surroundings.

I love the outdoors, and I love to ride motorcycles.  My husband, Ron, and I have two bikes—a little Honda 250 that we bought so my daughter and I could learn to drive on. The other is a Harley “Full Dresser”—a Road King.  It’s a big bike!  Ninety percent of the time, we’re on the Harley.  In fact, we’re out there every weekend when the weather’s agreeable.  I still don’t feel road worthy so I prefer being a passenger on the back of my husband’s bike, plus I get to sit back relax and sightsee.  And there’s a lot to see, not only in here in Vermont, but throughout New England—upstate and then into New Hampshire and all the way to the coast of Maine.  Even into Connecticut.  We mostly take back roads.  In Vermont, it’s often the old Route 5 that runs up north, and then onto Route 89 with all its twists and turns through the mountains.

Riding’s a family thing.  All our family members have their own bikes. And then there’s a whole network of our friends, and they all have bikes, too.  Sometimes there’s as many as seven or eight of us out there cruising on a weekend.   There’s nothing like it. We’ll do 300 miles in a single day.  Our nephew will track the weather on his phone and that will determine the course for the day.

I think my favorite rides are when we go to the coast.  There’s something about being at the ocean.   We’ll stop and walk the boardwalk enjoying the ocean breeze.  Then we’ll sit a bit and people-watch. It’s as simple as that. We do try to get back home before dark, but it doesn’t always happen.

But all of this brings me back to the environment.  The way I feel about it is that you take your values from home to your job.  We recycle at home—plastic bottles, newspapers and magazines and so on, and I do the same on the job.  I’m fortunate because my position at FiberMark is in purchasing, and that gives me the opportunity to make decisions about buying recycled fibers.  I shop for everything that would end up in a landfill that you can put back into our product, and that’s what I try to purchase.  I also buy what we call “pre-consumer” material, which is waste material generated by other manufacturing facilities. That might be box clippings, waste paper, and other things that we can process and put into our product.

It’s a conscious decision that I make on a daily basis.  And I believe everybody should take the initiative to try to reuse and recycle.  Not just for ourselves and our enjoyment, but for our grandkids and the generations beyond them.  I want to do what I can to keep that countryside clean and clear.

FiberMark is taking a great step in reusing recycled material.  It’s a big plus for the company, and one of the reasons I’m proud to work here.