Hidden Valley's David Moskovitz targets business model for Maine woods recreation

Sitting at a picnic table in a clearing on a late winter morning surrounded by 1,000 acres of forest, David Moskovitz talks about his latest business venture, Hidden Valley Nature Center — though it's not the one he's best known for.

Moskovitz came to Maine during the “back to the land” boom of the 1970s that also attracted many young professionals. With his wife, Bambi Jones, he settled in Whitefield, a rural town 15 miles east of Augusta, on the improbably named Hollywood Blvd. (The name for the three-mile-long dirt road was picked in 1942 by a townswoman who liked the sound of it.)

From there, Jones started Hidden Valley Farm, which became a pioneer in the community-supported agriculture movement that's shown increasing success in Maine, with neighbors and townspeople buying shares in the annual crops.

Moskovitz went to work in Augusta for six years as a staff attorney with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, and was then appointed by Gov. Joseph Brennan to the three-member commission, serving from 1984-1989.

The PUC was in the middle of some intense controversies at the time, including renewable sources of electricity such as the first large-scale biomass plants, a possible transmission line to connect with Hydro Quebec and the future of the Maine Yankee nuclear plant, which later shut down in 1998.

By his own account, Moskovitz was never interested in the politics of these subjects. What interested him — and still does — is finding the right balance between regulation in the public interest and the entrepreneurial spirit that help drive the energy sector.

His interest continued after his PUC service was over, and in 1992 he co-founded, with another former PUC commissioner, Cheryl Harrington, the Regulatory Assistance Project, which has since grown to become a 30-employee company with revenue of $10 million and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Berlin and New Delhi. It is now headquartered in Montpelier, Vt., where most of the principals reside.

RAP works with utilities across the country in the complex business of matching generating output, efficiency, transmission and rate of return. While that's the business of the utilities themselves, Moskovitz finds that they often needed contracted help, particularly with the new wave of renewables that's beginning to transform energy markets.

Harrington, whose PUC service ran from 1982-91, continues to serve on the board of directors, but is no longer a principal in the company.

“That's been the moneymaker in the family,” Moskovitz says of RAP. “It's been consistently profitable from the early days.”

The two businesses probably wouldn't seem connected if they didn't have a common owner, and Moskovitz has another way of keeping them separate. He uses the name “David” for RAP, but calls himself “Tracy” for Hidden Valley. While disparate, RAP and Hidden Valley both represent Moskovitz's and Jones' ideas about sustainable living and responsible business practices. Whether practiced locally or globally, the principles are similar.

International expansion

In 1999, RAP launched what became one of its most important ventures. Moskovitz traveled to China to meet with the head of provincial governments, utility executives and corporate leaders. RAP later expanded to India, and has long had a presence in Europe, where utilities have been far more efficiency-conscious than American companies.

The European experience was helpful. “The question was whether we could help bring sound and sustainable regulation to a high carbon-emitting economy like China,” he says. So far, the answer appears to be “yes.”

Part of the reason is that contemporary China is largely a technocratic society, where individual advancement is determined by problem-solving methods. “If you create problems and trouble, you don't get ahead,” he says. Business managers, in his experience, “are much more open, honest and easy to read” than their counterparts elsewhere.

China, where Moskovitz sometimes spends up to six months a year, is clearly a source of fascination for him. He leaves the politics of China's authoritarian government aside. “My partners in Vermont are active in the political debate there, but it's not for me.” Instead, he focuses on the business planning of the utility sector.

There are definite advantages to central planning, he says. “The Chinese are able to shift their priorities a lot faster than we are here. They were basically last in the world in their production of solar energy, and now they're the world leader,” he adds.

Chinese cities have notoriously polluted air because of coal-fire generating plants and factories, but even here China has shown ingenuity. “They've worked to retrofit many coal plants to burn a lot cleaner,” he says. “Yes, it's still coal burning, but they've paid attention to the efficiency of what they're doing.”

By contrast, U.S. utilities facing state regulation often keep using the same technology until a plant is decommissioned. New rules on mercury emissions from the Environmental Protection Agency, which recently survived a challenge at the federal District of Columbia Court of Appeals, could end up shutting down hundreds of coal plants, but more could have been done earlier, Moskovitz says.

The challenge for China in cleaning up its environment is that growth is continuing at such a rapid pace. “They're trying to clean up production while also expanding output,” he says. Unlike the United States or Europe, though, China is able to take more drastic steps, If a city's air becomes too polluted, factories are shut down until their owners are able to meet higher standards, or another business that can takes its place. “China represents the largest transformation in world history of any subsistence agricultural economy into an urban, industrial economy,” he says. “A lot of equipment there is brand new and often state of the art.”

In India, an entirely different market, most of the country lacks reliable access to electricity. Where a grid does exist, power is sometimes available only a few hours a day. Industrialization, in the contemporary sense, can hardly begin in these regions.

But India is learning. “The regulated utility model does have promise for them,” Moskovitz says. “They're learning about the advantages of having business models that have some independence from the state, and the size of potential markets is amazing.”

Incentives for sustainability

Back in the United States, Moskovitz hasn't given up hope for progress, despite a currently gridlocked Congress. He thinks regulations that call for carbon credit trading or a carbon tax ultimately will be implemented.

The private sector can handle it, he says. “In a way, it's very simple. You provide incentives that make the good things [renewable energy] profitable, and make the bad things unprofitable.”

It was after he began spending more time back in Maine that he and Jones began talking about an idea for another non-profit business. Over the years, they'd been accumulating acreage in Whitefield, Alna, and then in neighboring Jefferson.

Moskovitz had no particular plan at the time, except that it seemed a good idea to reassemble some of the parcels others had sold off since farming began vanishing from the landscape in the late 19th century.

Harvesting trees became a hobby, and the 1,000 acres around their home on Hollywood Blvd. became a tree farm, managed to encourage growth and increase value on what had been largely cut-over land. “I don't think I've cut a good tree in 30 years,” he observes. “I'm not sure I know how.”

Instead, cutting low-value trees, for firewood, pulpwood and some low-grade lumber has improved the stands in the way careful woodland owners have been doing for the past half century. Maine may not yet have the “mast trees,” the 150-foot white pines that were the exclusive preserve of the British Royal Navy in colonial times, but it's getting there.

In fact, in central and southern Maine there is often too much growth. Without naturally occurring fires, trees are packed in to the point where they stop growing. Moskovitz has made sure forest conditions on his acreage are optimal for growth.

More recently, the couple has added another 1,000 acres in Jefferson, where conditions are quite different than the original Whitefield-Alna parcels.

“This is land was never farmed because it didn't have the soil for it,” he says. A prominent ridge runs north and south, and the land was known as the “cliff lot” for its steep slopes and irregular topography.

“Unlike the Whitefield land, there are no stone walls here, no cellar holes,” he said. The land had been cut over, repeatedly, but it was wilder, more scenic. There are some remains of logging camps, and a few horseshoes have been uncovered.

Back to the land

Gradually, the idea that became Hidden Valley Nature Center, now with $100,000 in revenue, was born. “We weren't sure how much we wanted to share it with strangers,” Moskovitz says. “We weren't sure just what to expect.”

People from the area began to visit, even though there were no maps and no signs along the trail. They became so enthusiastic about the possibilities for classes and events that Moskovitz and Jones were won over, and the nature center opened in 2007.

There are now 15 miles of trails on the nature center land, and another 10 miles that are informal and not groomed for cross-country skiing in the winter.

A kettle hole sphagnum moss bog that features four kinds of carnivorous plants — and, unusually, a pond in the center — now has a boardwalk for close-up, year-round viewing. It's proved a magnet for bird photographers, among others. A renowned academic researcher known as the “bog man” gives classes and seminars on-site annually.

One particularly successful venture has been timber framing workshops employing the old mortise-and-tenon construction used in early barns. Participants visit the sites where trees are logged, see posts being made, and then construct and deconstruct a small frame building over four days.

There are now three classes a year, including one for high school students, and the structures are used on site or, in some cases, sold and reconstructed on other sites, helping to pay for operating costs. Cutting of stunted trees also provides the kind of “weird wood” that is of little value for timber, but is good for producing benches and picnic tables, and is prized by hobbyists. Nothing is wasted. Skiers and walkers can rent one of several yurts, which provide an inspiring, if rustic, getaway for a few nights.

Jones helps lead the vernal pool workshops in spring — a natural feature of the landscape many towns are trying to preserve — and can often be found counting egg masses using chest-high waders.

There's now a full-time manager, Andy McEvoy, a recent transplant from Maryland, and two part-time employees. McEvoy spends a lot of time interacting with visitors, and conducts the timber harvests as well.

“It's a lot more gratifying than the seasonal work most loggers have to put up with,” McEvoy says. “There's always something going on here.”

Some of the larger annual events are a half marathon, which last fall included more than 100 runners, sponsored by the Liberal Cup in Hallowell, a popular microbrewery.

A biathlon last winter attracted 162 racers and 40 volunteers to this Nordic tradition — best known from the Winter Olympics — that combines skiing and target shooting. And a fall music festival is now in its fourth year. Hidden Valley was recently named the Outstanding Maine Tree Farm for 2014, is competing for regional honors and will host a field day in September.

Hidden Valley Nature Center has a budget of $100,000, and is now self-supporting. That's important to Moskovitz, who was looking for a business model that could sustain recreational uses in the Maine woods, ordinarily the province of schools and ski areas.

“I think we've shown that this can work,” he says. “We attract visitors from up to an hour away, but most come from about half that distance. I can see one of these centers being located an hour or so apart all the way up the interstate.”

The returns from owning timberland aren't spectacular, but they are steady. Woodland continued appreciating even after the worst of the financial meltdown of 2008. “I compare it to zero coupon bonds,” Moskovitz says. “It should be part of a balanced portfolio.”

Though his two businesses differ, for Moskovitz, the debate is essentially over about whether the world can run on renewable energy, avoiding both excessive greenhouse gases and expedients such as a revival of nuclear power plants.

The cost of solar installations has plunged recently, and wind turbines are efficient enough to be competitive soon even with natural gas, he says.

“The technology is there,” he says. “The question is whether we are going to harness it and use it.”