Brian Creek started Wildside Associates in 1991 to help people who love nature create, preserve, and manage beautiful, enduring, parks, green spaces, and native landscapes. (That’s Brian on the right, on the left is our Director of Corporate Fitness, Brookie the Wonder Dog.)

Brian Creek’s 25+ years’ of professional practice in parks and recreation planning, design, construction, and management encompass community parks and recreation master plans; state-wide comprehensive recreation plans; local, state, regional and national parks; multiple use trails; rail trails; accessibility issues in outdoor recreation; community entryways enhancement; rural scenic corridors; natural and cultural history interpretation; natural area preservation, restoration, and management; green infrastructure plans; assessment of visitor needs and satisfaction; evaluation of visitor use impacts on wild and scenic rivers;  innovative funding mechanisms and philanthropy.  He has worked for local, regional, state and federal park and natural resource agencies, in the private sector, and for non-profit conservation organizations. Mr. Creek has been a presenter at several state and national conferences .

With a life-long passion for wild places, Brian has traveled from from central Mexico to Canada, Maine to California, and literally all over Michigan and Indiana. From the start he took a camera along (soon it was cameras and enough gear that he considered getting a llama to carry it all) in order to learn more about nature by photographing the plants, animals and natural features he encountered, and believes photography has definitely made him a better naturalist and designer, with a very intimate understanding of natural associations as a result of having looked at thousands of them through his lens. He is at home and happiest among the woods and waters of the upper Great Lakes.

Brian’s formal education includes a BS in Parks and Recreation from Indiana University.  After working as a naturalist for several years showing people small snippets of native landscapes that had been preserved while the ecosystems that surrounded the snippets were degraded until they were finally destroyed,  he enrolled at Michigan State University to study landscape architecture, geomorphology, horticulture, and ecology to learn how to integrate human use of the land with natural processes.   He has always been active in state and national professional associations and believes in life-long learning.  Brian’s continuing education includes graduating from The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University’s Principles and Techniques of Fundraising course, and several  National Recreation and Park Association’s (NRPA) schools including Revenue Sources Management School in Wheeling, West Virginia; Executive Development Program, Bloomington, Indiana; Great Lake Park Training Institute, Pokagon State Park, Auburn, Indiana; Park Planning and Maintenance School; and the Risk Management School – both in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Brian  has been a presenter at several state and national conferences including Indiana Parks and Recreation Association’s annual conferences, the Rail to Trails Conservancy’s National Conference in Concorde, California, and NRPA’s national conference, Models of Change in Parks and Recreation, in Indianapolis.

Brian Creek is a superb naturalist and was the person I relied on to analyze complex landscapes for protection by the conservancy.  I am continually amazed by his knowledge of native and invasive plants and animals. But more importantly, he cares about our natural world, is aware of and knowledgeable about the issues facing our environment, and knows the people in many organizations who are solving those problems.  He has an excellent network of colleagues and friends to call on for support and partnerships.

Dave Smethurst, Executive Director (Retired)
Headwaters Land Conservancy