Lisa Brush and Jim Frey

Lisa Brush and Jim Frey. | Courtesy of Lisa Brush

The red brick building at 416 Longshore Dr. sits quietly along the Huron River, shaded by trees. Once a publishing house, it now serves as home to a small cluster of environmental organizations whose work reaches far beyond Ann Arbor. Two of those organizations are led under the same roof by Lisa Brush and Jim Frey—partners in life and longtime leaders in environmental stewardship.

Brush and Frey fell in love nearly twenty years ago. They first met less than a mile from the Longshore building, while collaborating on Leslie Science & Nature Center’s shift to an independent nonprofit.

So who asked out who first? Both blush slightly at the question. “Well, after a board meeting, I said, ‘I’m going to go downtown and sit outside and have a gin and tonic,’” Frey recalls. “And Lisa said, ‘That sounds fun.’ That was our first informal, relaxed, ‘let’s get to know each other’ at the Grizzly Peak patio.”

Brush adds, with a playful smile, “We were each attracted to the other’s strategic thinking and creative, straightforward solution-seeking approach to community issues, as well as our collective good looks!”

In 2007, the couple moved into the ideal home for nature lovers—an idyllic 1940s stone house in the woods near Bird Hills Nature Area—where they blended their families and raised four children. Brush and Frey married in 2018. Both light up when talking about the daily joy provided by Minouche, their chubby ginger cat.

Brush grew up in a politically and socially active family in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father served in the city council and later as mayor. She attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, majoring in Science in Society, and founded the women’s Ultimate Frisbee team, Vicious Circles.

“My three brothers all went to the University of Michigan, so I knew Ann Arbor from visiting them,” says Brush. “I loved the Great Lakes and Ann Arbor had a great women’s Ultimate Frisbee team, so I decided to move here in 1991 to see if I liked it, and play one season of Ultimate.”

Before long, she was hooked. “I got a job at Fraleighs Nursery and absolutely loved my life—working outside all day, playing Ultimate Frisbee every night and weekend, and country swing dancing at the Blind Pig on Friday nights.”

Eager to spread roots, Brush began taking steps toward her dream of connecting people to their environment. She worked at the Huron River Watershed Council on drinking water protection and with the Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center in Oxford. Her initiative, the Upper Huron Valley Watershed Volunteer Stewardship Network, became the foundation for what is now The Stewardship Network (TSN)—she’s its founder and executive director.

“The Stewardship Network’s mission is to connect, equip, and mobilize nature’s caretakers, and we do that through so many cool initiatives across the U.S. and Canada,” says Brush. “One of the super-fun ones here locally is the twenty-five-year-old monthly discussion group called the Stewards’ Circle that meets on the second Tuesday of every month.”

TSN also hosts a monthly webcast, now in its twentieth year, connecting as many as 500 of nature’s caretakers across the country to learn from each other every second Wednesday of the month. The annual conference held in East Lansing, which draws speakers and attendees from across the nation, was sold out this year.

Related: Sheila Schueller

Frey was born in Detroit and raised in its suburbs. “My five siblings and I camped with my parents on long adventures across the U.S.,” he says. “We spent year after year camping on the shores of Lake Michigan—all of which planted a seed of deep appreciation of the wonders, beauty, and ecological systems of our natural world.”

After completing a degree in environmental psychology at Grand Valley State University, Frey moved to Ann Arbor in 1979, where two of his sisters lived. “I remember moving with the intent of exploring my interests in neighborhoods, strong and resilient communities, and lifelong learning,” he says. “Ann Arbor seemed like the right place.”

Frey launched his career in environmental protection with an entry-level role at the Ecology Center, a community-based organization with roots in the original Earth Day celebration on the U-M campus. “I worked on recycling, urban growth issues, state environmental legislation, community housing, transportation challenges, and more,” he says. “All with a great group of like-minded individuals.”

During this time, Frey also earned his evening MBA at U-M, and cofounded the consulting firm Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) in 1986. For the next forty years, he led the organization as CEO and a trailblazer in recycling to present solutions for working toward a waste-free future—including conducting a campus-wide waste audit for the U-M Office of Campus Sustainability, and partnering with Washtenaw County to develop its climate action plan.

Frey retired last month. “I’ve spent the last five years letting go so our next generation of leadership can move forward with the company’s mission,” he says of his period of transition and the unwritten next chapter. “Now it’s going to take a few years for me to let go of decades of work stress. I call it peeling away the layers of the onion.”

He looks forward to working on projects at home and at their cottage up north, and maybe learning to play the cello. He plans to hike, bike, and sail—appreciating the nature he’s dedicated his life to protect.

Frey will also continue to serve on RRS’s board as its chair, and remains involved with SnowBuddy, a small winter sidewalk maintenance nonprofit to serve the Water Hill neighborhood. Brush serves as president, Frey, as treasurer—he’s internally known as the “Snow Bank.”

After decades of shaping Ann Arbor’s environmental landscape, Brush and Frey remain focused on what comes next. For both, the work has never been about individual legacy, but about creating space for others to lead. As Brush continues to expand stewardship nationwide, Frey is shifting into a role of support and mentorship.

“We feel lucky and privileged to be operating in this space and offering opportunities for people and organizations to be engaged in solutions for our environmental challenges,” Brush says. “We’ve been at it for decades, and there is so much more to do—and we are working to encourage and nurture the next generations.”