Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn President Bill Clendaniel Retires | Page 6

“I’d worked on environmental issues be-
fore I came to Mount Auburn, and I was
impressed that Bill was very interested in
the scientific aspects of environmentalism,
the real nitty-gritty issues.
“When Bill told the Board that he
wanted to retire, we wanted to get a feel
for what he had done here. One of the
staff told us how terrific Bill had been when a relative of
his had died,how solicitous he was, writing a letter to him
afterward. The staff member said he felt that he was really
cared for.
“I will miss Bill’s manner and intellectual acuity. He works
extremely well with the Board. He listens very carefully
and is a leader…he is also very good at external affairs,
giving speeches, raising money, and representing Mount
Auburn in the greater community. He’s good at being the
embodiment of Mount Auburn out in the culture.”
— Ann M. Roosevelt, of Cambridge
Vice Chair, Mount Auburn Cemetery Trustees;
First Female Mount Auburn Trustee
Under Bill’s watch, the dedicated and inspired work of
Vice President of Interpretive Programs Janet Heywood
grew the selection of Friends programs exponentially, until,
today 70 or more walks, tours, lectures, and workshops are
offered each year. And, beginning in 2005, Bill personally
conceived of the especially rich array of programs to cel-
ebrate the Cemetery’s 175th Anniversary in 2006-2007.
“It’s a great adage in fundraising that if
you don’t ask you don’t get,” Bill says. “It
became clearer and clearer to me as the
years went by that fundraising could be an
important part of the answer to our income
needs—if we found better ways of telling
people about Mount Auburn. So we’ve
gotten more and more sophisticated about
telling our story. The 175th Anniversary
Year was a great opportunity to tell it to a
lot of new audiences.”
New Ideas, New Departments
Bill had inherited a loyal, hardworking staff,
but he recognized that Mount Auburn had
gaps to fill and skills to update. Following the
Master Plan’s recommendation, he hired Mount Auburn’s
first Director of Horticulture, David Barnett, who came
aboard in 1993. Bill hired the fir