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Photo Sally Rose
Ian Bowles and Peter Borrelli talk coastal matters, with Keith Bergman nearby showing off the pink bowtie that Borrelli put on to acknowledge Bergman’s help in brokering the purchase of the school annex.
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A whale of a lab opening
Banner Daily Update posted Sat. June 23
By Sally Rose
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — It was an event marked with good will, great pride and heartfelt thank-yous to the many, both present and passed, who helped bring the new Ruth Hiebert Marine Lab to reality.
The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies celebrated the dedication of the new lab, at 5 Holway Ave., the former site of the school annex, with speeches and dignitaries aplenty, including keynote speaker Ian Bowles, Massachusetts’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, Sen. Rob O’Leary and Rep. Sarah Peake, also a member of the center’s board of trustees. O’Leary, in a proclamation, called the center “a jewel in the Commonwealth’s crown.”
A host of people, many too numerous to include here, were acknowledged for their contributions. Notable among them were Coastal Studies founders Graham Giese, Charles “Stormy” Mayo and his late wife, Barbara Mayo.
Outgoing executive director Peter Borrelli cited the organization’s devotion to keeping the new building environmentally friendly. “Every effort was made to make the building as ‘green’ as possible,” he said. “The carpet’s made from recycled materials — I’m told it’s even edible.”
Borrelli, who shortly will be retiring from the organization (with Rich Delaney hired as incoming director), apparently had given a strict directive for no retirement party and no acknowledgement of his long and productive PCCS tenure at this event. Fortunately, in this directive at least, he was ignored by all.
Borrelli was honored with several proclamations from the state of Massachusetts tendered by Peake and O’Leary as well as with a silver plate from Barbara Birdsey, founder of the Pegasus Foundation, which supports the disentanglement program, and from the board of directors an original painting showing the view from his former office when the headquarters were on Commercial Street in the West End.
In turn, Borrelli noted the contributions of the namesake of the new lab.
“It saddens many of us that one who did so much is not here to see this,” said Borrelli. Ruth Hiebert, who he affectionately called “a practical philanthropist” because Hiebert, a longtime PCCS board member, would often provide funding for things such as a new furnace when the old one fizzled out, a new truck and, “on more than one occasion a quiet check to make payroll.” He added, “Her generosity knew no bounds.”
See the June 28 Provincetown Banner for more on this story.
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Jun 21st, 2007