Allison Mains

Allison is the perfect supervisor. She has the imagination and the organizational skills to create reality from those ideas. Allison is responsible for the ground work on all of our new lesson plans, as well as being an inspiration to all the guides! She can morph between office manager, scientist, wife, and mom with fluidity! Scariest moment for Allison is appearing knowledgeable to the mothers and fathers of the grade-schoolers during the introduction to Butternut. Who would have thought!!!

Calling the South her home, Allison grew up on the coastal plains of North Carolina. After earning her Bachelor's of Science in Zoology at North Carolina State University, she traveled across the US enjoying various internships and short-term jobs focusing on bird research. When her itch to move around finally subsided, she pursued a Master's of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee studying the bird diversity of the Gmelina arborea plantations in southwest Costa Rica. She has called East Tennessee her home ever since.

After completing an 18 month biotic inventory of the Butternut property, Allison began the ground work for the Butternut Valley Nature Center Program. In the fall of 2002, we hosted our first DeKalb County School field trip. Since then, the program has experienced continuous success and growth.