Guiding Greenways in New Ways

The Lincoln Institute provides a variety of early- and mid-career fellowship opportunities for researchers. In this series, we follow up with our fellows to learn more about their work.

Managing major municipal accounts for BellSouth telecommunications for two decades, Darryl Washington learned a lot about the inner workings of local government. So in 2012, he started his own consulting firm, and has since led economic and community development efforts for a number of Alabama cities, including Birmingham and Montgomery.

Now Washington is back in Birmingham as the chief executive of Jefferson County Greenways, a new public-private organization formed in 2024 by the merger of three public green spaces. These outdoor spaces, Washington says, “are really infrastructure for our city … they’re also connective tissue for our communities.”

In 2024, Washington was invited to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Lincoln Vibrant Communities fellowship, a joint initiative of the Lincoln Institute and Claremont Lincoln University. The six-month LVC program, which aims to equip fellows with the leadership, policy, and public sector practice skills needed to grapple with vexing local challenges, combines online graduate courses, peer networking, and individual and group coaching with immersive, in-person training sessions.

In this conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Washington shares his passion for the outdoors, explains why governments need nonprofit partners, and reveals his newfound fascination with England’s centuries-old canal system.

JON GOREY: After many years working in economic development, you’ve taken on a new role, leading an organization focused on public green spaces. Can you talk a bit about your career arc and how you got to where you are now?

After I left BellSouth, I started my own consulting firm, and my first big client was the city of Irondale, a small city right outside of Birmingham. My scope of work for that contract was to help the city adopt their very first comprehensive plan. I did consulting for about five years, and then went to work for a community development corporation called Urban Impact, to create a plan to get the Birmingham Civil Rights District ready to become a national monument. Instead of relying strictly on local resources, we sought after national programs. We became a national Main Street-designated community [the 4th Avenue Historic District], which opened up all kinds of avenues for us and for the businesses in that district. We also connected with the Co.Starters program, which is a national program that teaches entrepreneurship.

After leaving Urban Impact, I had an opportunity to work for the city of Montgomery, to create their first-ever department of economic and community development. One of the big wins we had was bringing a national Main Street-designated community to Montgomery to focus on downtown revitalization. We also started several entrepreneurship and small business programs, like the Small Business One Stop Shop to connect local businesses, no matter where they are in the business cycle, to about 15 different resource providers to help them get their questions answered—whether they need assistance with a business plan, are seeking funding, or are looking at strategies to scale.

I got a call to come back to Birmingham to interview for a newly formed public-private partnership, Jefferson County Greenways, which merged the county’s three largest public green spaces: Red Mountain Park, Ruffner Mountain, and Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. This was a great opportunity for me because it merged my love for economic and community development with outdoor recreation, hiking, and mountain biking.

The Lincoln Institute has been tremendous for me in this role; I really have to highlight my LVC advisor, Stephanie Varnon-Hughes. She’s served as a business coach and a leadership coach for me as we begin to do a five-year strategic plan.

JG: The Lincoln Vibrant Communities leadership cohort included fellows from all over the country—what has that experience been like?

DW: When you do the kind of work I do … it’s kind of hard to describe what I do when I come home at night. But when you’re around practitioners who do similar work throughout the United States, it really is an opportunity to learn best practices, to build friendships and partnerships. And now I have in my Rolodex an extra 30-plus people I can reach out to, from New Orleans, New Mexico, Hawaii, and other places, and that has been the real value.

Our in-person convenings have all been rewarding, going to a different city and touring some of the things that are working for them. I’m thinking back to our tour of Chicago, and most recently, Denver, to learn what some people are doing locally on the ground. And more than anything, we all face similar challenges—funding, especially, is always an issue in this current environment, for both nonprofits and local governments. But being able to talk to people who are doing the same or similar things that you are doing, or different things, has truly been one of the most beneficial aspects of the cohort.

The combination of the academic and the practical expertise that comes with this program has been just a tremendous opportunity for me. We’re leaning toward utilizing the Teams program in our strategic planning process. I think the beauty of that opportunity is that my staff can be very involved in the strategic planning process.

JG: What’s something that has surprised you in your long career?

DW: Sometimes, no matter what you propose, there are going to be people who are diametrically opposed to it—just because. Birmingham is building out what’s called the Red Rock Trail System. It’s an aspiration of about 700 miles of connected bike lanes and trails and pedestrian walkways. And one of the trails, I remember, just as I was leaving Birmingham, they were announcing the trail in the neighborhood, and you had a couple of people come out to say, ‘We don’t want that, it’s going to bring crime.’

There was one lady, in particular, who was very vocal. Three years later, they interviewed her, and she now has a walking group that walks on the trail. She marveled at how property values have gone up, how businesses in close proximity to the trail are vibrant. A lot of times people don’t know what they don’t know, but you’ve got to always anticipate opposition.

JG: What is something you’ve learned or encountered in your work that you wish more people understood?

DW: Having worked for and with local governments, the government can’t do everything. It is government combined with nonprofits—the nonprofits are the gap fillers. Oftentimes, especially in the South, people think the government is supposed to solve all the problems. The cities that get it right are the cities that have an innovative local government, but also a myriad of different public-private partnerships, corporate partnerships, and regional collaborations. It truly is a team approach.

JG: When it comes to your work, what keeps you up at night? And what gives you hope?

DW: In my current role, I have a team of about 27 highly mission-driven staff, and what keeps me up at night is retaining my talented staff. But what keeps me refreshed? I’m in my mid-50s, and most of my team is 25 to 35, my kids’ age. So what keeps me motivated? They keep me motivated, just how talented they are—they are sponges for wanting to learn—and just how innovative they are. It took me a while to acquiesce to being called “OG,” but I’m good in that role, because I like teaching, I like storytelling. And unlike my kids, they actually like to listen to my stories. So that keeps me refreshed.

JG: What’s a good book you’ve read recently, or a TV show you’ve streamed?

DW: I’m reading, for the third time, Joan Garry’s Nonprofits Are Messy. That’s a book about nonprofit leadership, and she also has a podcast that gives you practical tools that you can use if you’re in nonprofit leadership.

As far as streaming, I found myself recently enchanted with narrow boats in England, watching a lot of documentaries about people who live in narrow boats using the canal system. I think it’s called “Canal Boat Diaries,” and it chronicles different people who have adopted the narrow boat lifestyle. There’s a narrow boat hotel, there’s a narrow boat that sells art … there’s actually a narrow boat that does bicycle repair. I find it really intriguing. I guess from a historical perspective, those canals predated trains, that was the way industry and commerce took place throughout England, they built this elaborate canal system that is now being repurposed for tourism and lifestyle.

JG: What are some of your goals for Jefferson County Greenways in the coming years?

DW: There’s an opportunity for us to acquire more land for public use. There are also opportunities for us to expand our partnerships and programs. Our programs are unique in that we do a lot of educational programs with local schools, and we also do a lot of programs in the corporate community, where companies have volunteer work days. We connect with the Scouts, whether it’s building benches or bridges at our spaces. If we could expand our program staff, we could make even more impact.

And on a personal level, we have a hiking group that started organically, and we meet every Saturday at seven o’clock. And over 12 years, we’ve had over 800 different people join us, from all walks of life, all ages. Our youngest hiker is two years old, and she hikes on her dad’s back.

It’s amazing to see kids get introduced to nature for the first time. There are so many stories, like one of our board members, he and his wife, their first date was hiking on a trail. I’m on a mission to get as many people outdoors as possible, because for me, there’s a trilogy. When you’re outside, you connect spiritually, you definitely connect physically, to clean air and walking. But it’s also mental; I do some of my best journaling while I’m hiking. So I’m on a mission to share with others the euphoria I feel when I’m outside, because it’s free and it is so beneficial.

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Darryl Washington. Credit: Courtesy photo.