JOHN L. ERNST NAMED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT THE HEARD
 
 
McKinney -- John L. Ernst has been appointed Executive Director of the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary of McKinney effective Aug. 30, 2004. 
 
With a 289-acre wildlife preserve, several hundred volunteers from all over North Texas, a museum and an educational center, the Heard operates on a mission “to bring nature and people together to discover, enjoy, experience, restore and preserve our priceless environment.”
 
“My primary responsibility as Executive Director,” Ernst said, “is to achieve the board of directors’ long-term mission, vision and goals, while ensuring the trust of the Heard’s founder, Miss Bessie Heard. With our professional staff, our dedicated board and passionate volunteers and the commitment from our community, we will succeed in making the Heard the premier nature connection in North Texas.”
 
Ernst added: “Preserving the natural environment for its own sake is a worthy goal. Providing ready access and quality environmental education for the public, especially our children, will achieve our goal of bringing nature and people together in a respectful and meaningful way.”
 
A fifteen-year-resident of Collin County, Ernst is on the board of directors of Practical Parent Education of Plano and the Rotary Club of Plano and on the advisory boards of the Holocaust Memorial and Jonathan's Place, both of Dallas. He is a volunteer strategic planning consultant to the Dallas Center for Non-Profit Management.
 
Ernst has over thirty years’ experience in not-for-profit work as an independent management consultant, as vice president of the Business Council for the United Nations, as marketing director for Up With People and most recently, as CEO of the Collin County Children’s Advocacy Center. He had also served as an agency representative to the board of directors of the United Way of Collin County.
 

Ernst received his Graduate Marketing Certificate from SMU in Dallas and his undergraduate education from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Ernst is married and has two children -- a freshman at Denison University in Ohio and a seventh-grader at St. Rita School.

                                                                

One Nature Place   McKinney, Texas 75069   (972) 562-5566   Fax: (972) 548-9119