LEWISTON – A Greene woman retiring this summer after nearly 40 years of working for Bates College – where she managed a conservation program – was praised at a recent reception as a talented community-builder.

Judith Marden, 63, earlier this year received the Bates College 2007 Distinguished Service award and heralded as a champion of all Bates people. She began working for her alma mater in 1969, three years after graduation.

Her most recent job has been directing the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area and Coastal Center in Phippsburg, a complex of some 600 acres near Popham Beach. Previously, she was Bates’ had been personnel officer. Before that, she was the business manager and earlier had headed fundraising.

David Scobey, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates, said Marden would be a hard act to follow. “Her college citizenship and her larger citizenship were incredible.”

Marden said she was given opportunities to try new ways of doing things at Bates. One of the first presidents she worked under was Hedley Reynolds. “His philosophy was to hire people he thought were capable and intelligent, and turn them loose. Let them figure out what needs to be done and do it,” Marden said That made her years there more meaningful, she said.

While knowledgeable in finance and administration, Marden’s love is the outdoors, which fit well with her most recent job.

She switched from administration to environmental education and management 1999. Overseeing the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area involved hiring gatekeepers for the thousands of tourists who visit the site; managing woodlands, a mile-long beach and salt water marshes; and helping students with research.

Marden has been involved in numerous conservation organizations, including the Friends of Baxter State Park, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Androscoggin Land Trust, Stanton Bird Club, Clark Mountain Sanctuary and the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

She grew up in the Boston area, and her world changed when she came to Bates, she said. She joined the outing club and took her first hikes on Tumbledown and Little Jackson mountains in North of Weld.

“I just fell in love with the world above the treeline and going mountain climbing with all these wonderful people. It made a huge difference in my life,” she said. She’s been climbing ever since.

Praising the Bates College community, Marden said she would miss the people and her work there.

Her retirement plan is to take advantage of winter, her favorite time of year. She plans to do more skiing, snowshoeing, winter camping and mountain climbing. “I love the cold weather,” she said.