Welcome Tyler, Audubon certification

As we slowly progress towards another golf season, the Grounds Department staff is ready to get back outside. While we are never short on things to accomplish, it is hard not to feel a little cabin fever. As we prepare for another season, we have added another member to our team. We would like to welcome Tyler Brunk to the department as Assistant Superintendent.

Tyler started the third week of January and has been quickly learning the ropes. Tyler went to school at the University of Maryland, spent some time working at Cattail Creek Country Club, and most recently worked at Hermitage Country Club in Richmond, VA. Tyler is young, energetic, and has a great willingness to learn. These attributes are what made him the top candidate to fill our assistant position. He will bring an added dimension of agronomic knowledge and hard work that will fit right in with our current staff.

One of Tyler’s early projects has been starting Audubon certification for Bretton Woods. The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses certification is a distinguished honor that shows a facility’s commitment to the environment. The program is a detailed process that involves a self-evaluation, improvements, and documentation of progress in several areas. These areas are environmental planning, wildlife and habitat management, chemical use reduction and safety, water conservation, water quality management, and outreach and education. Each of these topics takes an in-depth view of our particular property and operation and provides guidance for achieving the parameters set by Audubon International. Each step to attaining certification is its own process in which new standards must be implemented, progress monitored, and then results documented. This is not a quick procedure; instead it is a methodical progression towards the goal of certification. However, with Tyler on board to shoulder some of the workload, we have completed the initial phase, a site evaluation, which sets our current baseline. From this we can analyze what to implement and begin monitoring progress.

As we move forward with the Audubon certification, more updates and information will be available. Be on the lookout for opportunities for member and community involvement in our programs as part of the outreach and education portion of the program. We plan to meticulously work through the different aspects of certification. Some changes will be noticeable as we implement new features on the course and some other changes will be made in the background but the end result will be full certification for Bretton Woods.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org