Ecotone

ECOTONE sensitivity and ethical collaboration. Work practices that involve restoring ecosystem health naturally foster a culture of partnerships and a certain devotion to community ties. Another one of Ecotone’s secret ingredients has been the company’s ability to turn transactional relationships into solid alliances. “I bought my partner out a few years ago and we’ve been working with M&T Bank ever since,” McGill reveals. “They’ve been a great ally and taught me a lot about how to grow a business. Delmarva Surety, our bonding company, has been a shoulder to lean on and a close advisor for 15 years. One of our haulers, Chavis Enterprises in Bel Air, MD, is always at the ready to get us what we need on our sites. The quasi-government agencies and the soil conservation districts that we work with - we’ve been collaborating with them close to 20 years to solve water erosion issues on farming properties. Of course, there’s the farming community as well; private farmers, mostly. We’re always looking for ways that we can improve their business, their “When we do a river restoration design on a piece of property, we look at what’s available onsite and try to incorporate that into our design,” McGill notes. “A lot of typical restoration work uses rock. But, we like to minimize the use of rock by using wood that we can find onsite, instead - a material that we can balance, cut and fill, so that we can bring efficiencies as well as reduce our carbon footprint for the project itself. It’s part of an approach we’ve labeled Less is More.” Circling back to the topic of mutual sustainability, Ecotone makes every effort to respect the specialized and responsible components of the areas they restore. “We’ve noticed the North American beaver coming in and colonizing the restoration sites on some of our stream and wetland projects,” McGill says. “The North American beaver was sort of the dominant engineer in our waterways and estuaries 500 years ago. They’re making a comeback. We ask ourselves: ‘how can we utilize what they do in our projects to get better and higher ecological outcomes?’” It’s the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that reinforces Ecotone’s commitment to environmental