Changing of Guard in County Humanitarian Community

The Howard County human services community this week honored an influential member who will soon be retiring, while also welcoming her replacement.

Anne Towne will be stepping down after a decade as executive director of the Association of Community Services of Howard County, an umbrella organization for human service agencies, including nonprofits, for profits, faith-based and government groups.

Duane St. Clair, the new executive director, is a former ACS committee member who worked for 26 years at the Howard County Office of Aging and has been involved with several other agencies. St. Clair, a Columbia resident, also blogs about community issues and needs on HoCo Connect (his blogs are also occasionally published on Columbia Patch).

St. Clair’s selection was announced Tuesday at the Audrey Robbins Humanitarian Awards, which ACS hands out each year "to honor the work of human services organizations and those volunteers and staff who go above and beyond all expectations in their service to the community," according to the organization's website.

His first day is July 5.

Working for ACS “allows me to reengage in Columbia and in Howard County,” St. Clair said in an interview with Patch. “The last seven years I’ve been working on a state and national basis. About a year and a half ago I thought I’d like to reengage. Doing the blog was one way.”

Among his goals, he said, are to look at the resources available in the community and what issues need to be addressed, and to increase the amount of collaboration among the various agencies.

This is a time when “revenues are down, and the resources for a lot of community services are less than they were at one time,” St. Clair said. “The need to look at how we can jointly address and solve problems is important to maintain the high quality of services we have here.”

As officials welcomed St. Clair, they also lauded Towne.

“You have been and continue to be a tireless advocate for those who are all too often voiceless and left out of our system,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman.

The audience also heard a statement from Andrea Ingram, the executive director of Grassroots, a Columbia-based agency that, among other services, provides crisis intervention and runs shelters and a daytime resource center. Ingram was a member of the search committee that selected Towne a decade ago. The statement was read by Harry Schwarz, president of the ACS board of directors.

“We hired her because of her experience with hospice, her way with people, her modesty, her intelligence and her congeniality,” Ingram wrote. “We found out that she is also skilled at diplomacy, bringing people together to address issues, tackling issues head on but with tactfulness, and networking and building relationships.

“Anne’s unique skills and leadership brought ACS to the next level of maturity, where we are truly a respected partner with other organizations in the county and with county government.”

Afterward, Towne quipped that she’d prepared a statement but had largely been rendered speechless by the praise.

“What I’m so proud of is together we have made the partnership of government, nonprofit, and for-profit community advocates stronger, better able to advocate for those in need in the county,” she said.

Towne said she plans to join ACS as a member and continue to work for those in need in the community.

With that in mind, Schwarz told Towne she’d have a sapling planted in her honor at the Monarch Mills low-income housing development in Columbia. He then presented her with a watering can and a trowel.

“Please go forth,” he said, “and continue to nurture.”

This year’s Audrey Robbins awards recipients can be seen in the photo gallery above.