Kenyon’s Retirement Plan Gift to Support CCS’s Future

Jean Kenyon recently retired from her career as a coral reef ecologist in Hawaii. She named the Center for Coastal Studies as a beneficiary of her Thrift Savings Plan retirement account, funded with pre-tax money while she was a federal employee with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System. She made this gift to acknowledge her time at CCS (1978-88) that launched her scientific career.

Kenyon arrived in Provincetown in 1976, the year that CCS was founded, with a master’s degree in biology. “For a scientist like me,” she says, “the Center was the only outlet in town for my interests and abilities. I started out as a volunteer, helping with seawater monitoring including counting microscopic phytoplankton.”

Kenyon says this early work gave her important exposure to and firsthand experience with many aspects of coastal and marine ecology. She worked on a field project assessing revegetation of parts of the Provincetown dunes after replanting by the Cape Cod National Seashore and volunteered with the budding Humpback Whale research program (data collection onboard Dolphin fleet whale-watching trips, developing and printing whale fluke photos in the Center’s basement darkroom, etc.) This work led to her becoming a paid naturalist on board the Dolphin Fleet.

Kenyon’s legacy gift is in honor of the three people who founded the Center: Dr. Graham Giese, Dr. Charles “Stormy” Mayo, and Dr. Barbara Mayo. She credits the late Barbara Mayo as instrumental in getting her involved in a range of activities, including organizing national-level conferences on endangered species and barrier beaches.

“She wrote me letters of recommendation when I finally applied to various universities to work on a Ph.D.,” says Kenyon. “I dedicated my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Hawaii to Barbara.”

When asked what inspired Kenyon to make the Center part of her legacy giving, she stated, “I've come to recognize how the Center has grown and prospered since that time, playing a vital role in the research and stewardship of New England resources. It has also continued to be a venue for young people as I once was to gain experience, hone their skills, and pave a pathway forward as scientists and conservationists.”

She continued, “The Center founders took a chance when they founded the Center in the 1970s. There was no guarantee that it would survive, let alone grow and prosper as it has done. Not only does the Center conduct important research on the marine resources of Cape Cod, but it provides an avenue of experience for the development of professional scientists. Several of the people who were my colleagues at the Center when I became involved in the 1970s went on, like myself, to earn a Ph.D. and make important contributions in their chosen field of expertise. Others, who chose not to continue along an academic route, nonetheless went on to work in research, resource management, and even founded their own conservation nonprofit organization.”