Jan knows the exact moment she became a wildlife campaigner, one morning in June 2014 when she intervened to stop dozens of swifts being killed during the demolition of their nesting site. She can trace a love of them back to childhood, along with countless other species, particularly frogs, newts, skylarks and woodlice. A tawny owl made out of an old sock was one of her finest achievements as a Brownie.
Her first degree was in Geography and she joined a corporate communications firm straight out of university and has spent most of her business career in technology marketing communications. In 2012 she graduated with a first in Psychology and trained as a specialist in resilience. She still serves on the boards of two businesses she helped to found.
Her work with wildlife has been local and very practical. She founded a swift group which has the world record for the most swift boxes installed in under a year; she was a co-founder of Wild Maidenhead and leads the group's Wild About Gardens scheme, and she project managed the largest installation of amphibian rescue ladders in England. Nature is what makes her heart sing, she says.
