High Cliff is in Cindy Mueller's DNA

Two women who have been leaders in environmental causes in the Fox Valley have announced their retirements. Today I look at the career of Cindy Mueller, who served as a naturalist at four area nature centers. The next column will look at Donna VanBuecken's quest to encourage native landscaping as executive director of Wild Ones.

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

SHERWOOD — Working as a pharmacy technician at a drug store 30 years ago, Cindy Mueller had this recurring dream about teaching in a classroom, a dream so vivid that she experienced the smells of the school building. Then the dream would change to her fishing.

Cindy Mueller

It wasn't until she took a job in 1987 as a naturalist at Fallen Timbers Environmental Center near Black Creek that the dream’s meaning became clear. Bringing the outdoors into the classroom and the students into the outdoors as an environmental educator took her to nearly every Fox Cities nature center. And it won't end with her retirement Oct. 31 as High Cliff State Park’s naturalist.

High Cliff has always been in her blood. Her great grandparents had a place near what is now the park entrance. Her parents lived up on the ridge that gives the park its name.

“I kind of grew up here,” she said. “As a child, High Cliff was the place to go.”


Her family went to the park to picnic, swim and enjoy the rides and dance hall in the amusement park where the observation tower now stands.

She worked at Fallen Timbers for more than nine years, and loved being an outdoor educator.

“I could stand out there on a spring day and look up at the sky and I could say, ‘This is my office.’”

The year-round position eventually was cut back to just the school year, a recurring story in her career. Cindy spent that summer as the naturalist at High Cliff.

“I came here to work for a summer and I just loved it. I felt such a strong connection.”

She had to carve out her own job. She formed High Cliff Interpretive Services and led group tours on a contract basis. Eventually, she became a state employee with her salary paid by the nonprofit group Friends of High Cliff. A second job at the High Cliff Visitor Center gave her benefits. She also worked at Heckrodt Wetland Reserve in Menasha for a time.

My own strongest memory involving Mueller concerns her side interest in wolves. I joined a group she took wolf howling in central Wisconsin in the middle of the night. After several failed attempts to raise a response, Cindy reared back and belted out her wolf call. A whole pack responded — distinctive voices of the alpha male, females and young wolves. It was spine-tingling.

Studying wolves is among the interests she hopes to become more involved in with her retirement.

While at High Cliff in 2006, Cindy accepted an offer to become program coordinator at Bubolz Nature Preserve in Grand Chute. A year later, Executive Director Mike Brandel retired and Mueller succeeded him. After a sometimes uncomfortable four years, Mueller was dismissed. Reflecting on the experience, she said she realizes she was always meant to be a naturalist and wasn’t as suited to being an administrator.

She went from there to work with BEAMING and then CHAPS, both programs using horses to do therapy with children. Fund-raising challenges caused setbacks at both programs.

“I absolutely loved both of those places,” she said. “My eye was still on High Cliff. My heart was here. It always has been.”

She returned to High Cliff but now the latest state funding cuts to the Department of Natural Resources eliminated her Visitor Center job and took with it her health insurance. Her naturalist position is likely to become seasonal. She and her husband decided it made sense for her to retire.

After three decades of teaching kids about nature, she has some concerns about a future populated by young people who are growing up plugged into electronics. One of the most frequent comments she hears from the youth groups she leads is, “Why do we have to walk so far?”

“It’s a little bit disheartening to see the kids spending so much time indoors now. I’m a little bit concerned about that.”

Her concern does not extend to the next generation of naturalists. She listed Luke Schiller at Heckrodt, Fran Meek at Fallen Timbers, Tim Ewing at Navarino Nature Center and Deb Nowak at Thousand Islands Environmental Center as examples of the talent and dedication among the new guard.

After announcing her retirement, Mueller received invitations to volunteer from several nature centers. She will continue to work with the history museum and some tours at High Cliff. She said she also wants to spend more time at home, work on her own fitness and “Pinterest my house.”

If you hear a mournful cry on a dark road in the north woods, it may just be Cindy enjoying her retirement.