Ensuring a Future
An NWTF New York member helps solidify wild turkey conservation and more through the Full Strut Society.
Rick Vertucci knows the impact the NWTF can have on wild turkeys. He’s seen it firsthand in New York’s Montgomery County, where birds were once scarce on the landscape in the 1980s when he first began to see them.
Vertucci saw the NWTF and state agency work to trap and transfer birds across the state, boosting populations, which prompted him to start the Mohawk Valley Sharp Spurs Chapter in Amsterdam, New York, in 1996. For the last 30 years, he’s been a key part of the NWTF flock, and at 62, decided he wanted to make sure he left something to continue vital conservation and hunting heritage work.
Vertucci recently joined the NWTF’s Full Strut Society, meeting with Sean Langevin, director of development in the Northeast, and Kenny Turpen, director of planned giving, at the 50th NWTF Convention and Sport Show. Vertucci, who runs two businesses and is the former vice president and currently on the board of directors of the St. Mary’s Healthcare Foundation, included the NWTF in his will to help protect the future of wild turkey conservation and more.
“One of the greatest things about the organization is the genuine people you’ll meet,” he said. “I just fell in love with the organization and its people. I was blown away by the national convention and saw what an impact it makes.
Hearing about the wild turkey DNA testing and research that is transpiring, I wanted to be a part of that now and in the future.
“It’s something I want my kids and their kids to be able to do, and it was important that nearly 90% of revenue generated goes back to the wild turkey and the NWTF mission.”
By including the NWTF in your will or naming NWTF as a beneficiary, anyone can leave a legacy like Vertucci has for future generations. No minimum gift is required, and many planned gifts can be updated over time.
Over the past three decades, Vertucci knows the impact wild turkey conservation can make, in good times and bad, and he’s experienced it through his chapter’s youth hunts, banquets and more – particularly those early mornings in the spring woods hearing the wild turkey’s gobble. He wanted to ensure that continues into perpetuity for others to enjoy.