After 15 years in the horticulture industry, Ruth’s career path changed course in 1998 when she attended the inaugural meeting of Pathways for Radford, a community group whose goals included a plan to protect Wildwood Park, a peaceful, wooded refuge in the middle of town. At that meeting the group’s president passed a VOF brochure around the room asking for someone to investigate a thing called “conservation easements.” Within a few months, Ruth was volunteering for VOF; by 2003, she was working for VOF full time. A few years later, she took the lead on the easement that now protects Wildwood Park. Before joining VOF, Ruth moonlighted for 10 years as a freelance photographer, covering Virginia Tech and Radford athletics and working for a small daily newspaper. When she isn’t dreaming up a new travel destination, she loves reading, porch-sitting, and watching movies.