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2025 year in review
2025 has been another great year for the MSRA!
Membership: Committee Chair – Karly Feight
Our membership continues to grow and in the past year we have welcomed 71 new members into the organization and currently have 473 active members and 2,110 interested contacts that have engaged with the MSRA but may not be active members. From our membership we are comprised of ~40% Regulatory/Municipal members, ~28% Corporate Sponsored members, ~8% Academic/Student members, and ~24% individual memberships. This speaks to the broad range of interests, backgrounds, and perspectives within the restoration community that the MSRA draws from, allowing us to truly fulfil our mission of bringing together consultants, regulators, state and local representatives, educators, students, and interested citizens to better understand the science of stream restoration and share our knowledge. But we can’t stop at just being a member, we ask anyone who would like to engage more with the MSRA and to bring your experience to bear on the broader restoration community to step forward and reach out. We
would welcome your participation and engagement on any of our ongoing
efforts or on one of our committees. Your engagement can help shape and
sustain the efforts of the MSRA into the future! |
Membership Renewal Here at the end of the year it is a great time to think about your membership renewal. If you are part of an organization and thinking about one of our Corporate Sponsorships, please reach out to a member of our Membership Committee who can help you. We are an organization that is reliant upon our members and member engagement…and I would be remiss if I didn’t include a plug that if you have enjoyed the offerings of the MSRA and would consider an additional monetary donation, that can be done through the MSRA website here: |
Program: Committee Co-Chairs – Sarah Norton & Madison Warfield
As always our Program Committee has planned and hosted an amazing slate of webinars and in-person events on behalf of the MSRA:
| In addition to these our Program team also assisted in the planning and implementation of the 2025 National Stream Restoration Conference that was held in Baltimore and provided support and execution assistance for our other MSRA committees in planning and executing their events. All these events resulted in over 2,300 registrations across all our events that we hosted this year!
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Scholarship: - Committee Chair – Shannon Lucas |
We successfully held another record-breaking scholarship fundraising event this year at the Greystone Golf Course in Baltimore County. This annual fundraising event has been instrumental in our ability to grow and expand our scholarship awards year over year. This year we awarded $15,000 in support for students seeking education and training towards a career within the restoration community.
| We are actively planning for the 2026 Scholarship cycle and the application is currently open…if you know of a student or individual seeking education or training to join the restoration community, please encourage them to apply here: https://forms.gle/JUucLyykCctJzTpg9 Applications are due before April 6, 2026, and our intention is to announce awards before the end of May 2026.
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Public Outreach: - Committee Co-Chairs – Elizabeth Kanner & Rebecca Oaks |
Our Public Outreach initiative continues to make headway in developing materials and collateral that could be used by those in the restoration community. This year the committee has presented to The City of Gaithersburg during Community engagement meetings, presented to the Frederick County MS4 Forum, presented to the Monocacy and Catoctin Watershed Alliance, presented during the National Stream Restoration Conference, held a field trip with The City of Gaithersburg, attended the Watershed Stewards Academy Conference, attended the Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference, and held and hands on engagement activity during the Rockville Science Day.
| We are looking to engage with the overall community and open avenues and discussions around healthy streams and waterways as well as the broader context of restoration within the Mid-Atlantic. We are currently engaged in developing additional material the can assist in the discussions that all restoration members are having around these topics and will make them available as soon as they are finalized.
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Education: - Committee Chair – Maddie Berg |
Our education initiatives and engagements to a step forward this year in our hosting of the TR-55/TR-20 training this January. We have heard from the membership that these training courses are helpful and valuable and are looking to expand on this and hope to be able to offer at least one training course per year moving forward. We kicked off and had our first mentor/mentee program this past year and were able to engage with 6 students; through our Student Ambassador we have worked to refine our program and have relaunched this effort for 2025/2026 and have already gotten over 10 students interested in connecting with a mentor in the restoration community. In March we hosted an annual Stream Restoration & Job Fair event at The University of Maryland that was well attended by our member organizations as well as our future restoration colleagues and students seeking internships. | Our committee has been working with faculty/staff/students from several Colleges and Universities to provide course recommendations or topics for students who are interested in restoration to build out their course work exposure and help prepare them in topics germane to the restoration work that we do. As we look at engagement with students at all levels of education we have reached out to similar organizations and schools to map out how and where the MSRA could attend and be present for job/career fairs, career interest/discovery sessions, and how we can maximize the restoration industry exposure for students from elementary through post college as well as trade school engagement. |
Research & Monitoring: Committee Co-Chairs – Greg Golden & Joe Berg | Communications: Committee Chair – Emily Kane |
The research and monitoring committee have been engaged with the Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT) Pooled Monitoring initiative and provided feedback and support for those ongoing efforts. This has helped to provide additional engagement and exposure for some of the research and topics being funded and undertaken by CBT awardees to bring to a broader audience. We have also been engaged with MDE on understanding some of the outreach and engagement needs from the State regulatory level to help better plan and support how the MSRA can better engage and curate information on restoration topics. | If you are reading this, you are actively engaged with our communications Committee. We have been working to provide updates and topics of interest through our social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram) as well as our regular email updates and communication. We strive to provide timely updates on the ongoing MSRA events, topics of interest, and supporter spotlights. If you haven’t engaged with us, please add/like/follow our accounts to help stay engaged! |
PLANNING FOR 2026 |
We are already making plans for upcoming events, and we hope that you will plan to meet and engage with the organization at our events. Currently in the works:
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Request for Volunteers |
As always, the MSRA remains an all-Volunteer organization and runs on the dedication and time that our Officers, Board, and Committees can contribute…but there is always room for more. If any of you would like to increase your participation, are interested in joining one of our committees or helping out in some other way; we welcome you to reach out to any of our Board Members and we would be happy to have you pitch in! |