Below is a list of the Greater Baltimore chapter directors, who serve a 1-year term. Our chapter holds elections once a year, typically in November. We invite members to vote for directors at the annual meeting when elections are held. All of our directors volunteer in the hopes of helping others learn more about native plants.
Chapter Directors
Amanda Wray, President & Web Chair
Vinaya Frank, Vice President & Programming Chair
Anne Gneo, Secretary & Marketing Chair
April Kerns, Treasurer
Martha Ruffin, Membership Chair
President
AMANDA “NAN” WRAY founded the Greater Baltimore Wild Ones Chapter in 2021. She is passionate about helping others learn more about native plants. She and fellow board members continue to build the group through outreach and educational activities.
Amanda assisted with and testified for the bill which became adopted into law as the Maryland Native Plants Program. This program codifies an official list of Maryland Native Plants. It also encourages nurseries and growers to identify official Maryland Native Plants through signage. The bill supports the public by providing funding for a position at the Maryland Extension Office for a native plants educator. She also helped with strategy and communication for a bill about invasive plants, the Biodiversity and Agricultural Protection Act. Prior to this, she founded the Towson Native Garden Contest, now in its third year, as a way to provide prestige and support for native gardeners.
She assisted in development (initial design and illustration) of the 2022 edition of Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas Field Guide. She re-designed elements of the Mid-Atlantic Invaders Tool, an online database of invasive plants. Amanda runs three Facebook groups focused on native plants. She also created art for garden signs for home gardeners to educate passers-by on the importance of fallen leaves and dried stalks as habitat.
Amanda has added more than 50 native trees and a variety of native herbaceous plants to her landscape since moving to the area in 2017. She got her start in garden design in California, working with drought tolerant native plants to shrink lawns. Her career also includes work as a reporter, editor and graphic designer, and has degrees in communication and graphic design.
She is forging community connections to broaden awareness of the critical importance of native plants to the health of our vital ecosystems.
Vice-President
VINAYA FRANK is the Vice President and Program Chair for the Wild Ones Greater Baltimore. She is a Master Gardener with the University of Maryland Extension (UME). Her passion for native plants is the primary driver for the outreach and educational events she has organized for the chapter. Along with healthy biodiversity in our landscapes, she also believes in racial and ethnic biodiversity in all aspects of human lives. Toward that goal, she also serves as Co-Chair on the Diversity Committee of the UME program.
Vinaya lives in Ellicott City on a 0.5 acre lawn-free, wooded yard. Her oasis, sustains not only the local wildlife, but also its human occupants as they grow their own food. She has gardened for more than 15 years. Vinaya started in the tropical climate of India and to now the temperate deciduous region of eastern United States. She truly believes that a yard should be fully functional and a part of a healthy ecosystem. Her entire family, including their 3-year-old son, contributes toward adding more native plants. They also work on removal of invasive species to provide native species a chance to survive. In just a few years, Vinaya has added more than 200 different species of native plants to her property. She has successfully removed several invasive species from her yard and is helping others learn more about native plants through her advocacy.
Prior to serving in several volunteer positions, Vinaya worked as an Affirmative Action and Compliance Consultant. In this role she assisted several US based federal contractors on their affirmative action requirements. She also led several compensation and pay equity projects, diversity analytics as well as compliance audits for clients across the globe. Vinaya is passionate about fostering racial diversity in the corporate world and providing several minority groups a chance to shine. She has also worked as a soft skills trainer. In this position she custom-designed and delivered training on topics including business communication, time management, negotiation skills, team skills, stress management, and problem solving.
Secretary
ANNE GNEO joined the board as the Secretary in 2022 shortly after the founding of the Greater Baltimore seedling chapter. She volunteered to take on the role of Marketing Chair a few months later. As the group has quickly grown, Anne has been inspired by the immense interest in environmentally sound landscaping and through meeting other amazing local native plant gardeners.
With the goal of making the world a little better, Anne has volunteered for many community organizations throughout the years. Currently, in addition to her roles at Wild Ones, she is a board member for the local PTA, a CASA (court appointed special advocate for foster children) and volunteers at Luna’s House, a local animal shelter.
Anne lives in Bel Air, Maryland on a .2 acre suburban lot and is a stay-at-home mom to 2 teenage children. She has been gardening for over 20 years, but only recently realized the importance of gardening with the entire ecosystem in mind. For the past 4 years, she has been prioritizing adding native plants and planting “green” mulch. Although established non-native plants remain, she has removed all invasive plants and added more than 100 native plants that are now spreading throughout the landscape.
Treasurer
APRIL KERNS is a founding member of Wild Ones Greater Baltimore. A Maryland native, April grew up delighting in the flora and fauna of the area. What started with filling her parents’ house with praying mantis hatchlings further developed while studying Biology at Goucher College.
She developed a love for research and complicated, unanswered questions, however after a semester of getting lost in the woods studying the effect on flora of BT treated or logged areas of Oregon Ridge, April decided to go to law school. She continued to feed her passion for the environment in her free time. April is Counsel at Franklin & Prokopik, representing employers and insurers in workers’ compensation matters before the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission, Circuit Courts, and appellate courts.
April is delighted to share the joy of native plants and their associations with all walks of life and all stages of interest. She hopes to encourage and support anyone planting native plants, whether they have one manicured cultivar or a whole ecosystem on their property. April lives in Owings Mills on over an acre where she experiments with whatever native plants speak to her. She has hosted the 2023 plant swaps.
Membership Chair
MARTHA RUFFIN joined the Wild Ones Board as Membership Chair in the spring of 2024, inspired by the groups’ focus on sustainable landscaping practices using native plants and their informative and well-run programs. Spreading the word and growing the membership seemed like a great fit. I love promoting the benefits of native plants!
Martha moved to Baltimore City in 2007 and fell in love with Cylburn Arboretum and was a regular garden volunteer for a few years before going through the master gardener and master composter training in 2010. It was during this time that she developed an appreciation for the role that native plants play in our environment. From 2011-2015, she had a gardening business that focused on conservation gardening practices. While raising her three sons, she co-led the middle school environmental club at Roland Park Elementary Middle School, where they installed a rain garden (the students participated in a design charrette and worked with Blue Water Baltimore on the installation, which included the participation of the entire 6th grade class); and she co-led parent volunteers who installed raised beds for a vegetable garden and maintained the gardens around the school.
As a member of the Caring for Creation Committee at the Church of the Redeemer, Martha has helped with the application of several grants for conservation landscape projects, including the installation of a rain garden, the renovation of our north parking lot to address stormwater remediation, and a native plant garden near the entrance; they also host the annual Baltimore Native plant sale. She’s a member of the Guilford Garden Club, which has held many successful native plant sales, and recently published the Native Plant Garden Workbook: Selecting Plants for Mid-Atlantic Gardens, an extensive list of native plants, organized by growing condition.
If you are also dedicated to helping others learn more about native plants, please consider joining us as a member and volunteer!