Couple works to preserve, promote Angel Island

When Brittany and Max Haning relocated to Tiburon from Wisconsin some 10 years ago, they were almost immediately enamored by the town’s proximity to Angel Island State Park, which sits within town limits and can be reached by a 15-minute ferry ride from downtown.

However, on their visits to the park, they noticed it didn’t seem as crowded as other high-profile destinations in the Bay Area. Brittany says she found herself looking around wondering, “Where is everyone?”

“This should be like an event every weekend, it should be a regular stop, and yet it’s kind of a hidden treasure, hiding in plain sight,” she says.

For the past several years, she and Max have been helping lead efforts to draw visitors to the island as board members for the Angel Island Conservancy, with Brittany currently serving as board secretary and Max as president. The nonprofit works to preserve, restore and develop programs for the 740-acre park, which is the largest natural island in San Francisco Bay. Its current initiatives range from maintenance and repair of things like benches, picnic sites and grills to arranging visits for school groups to refurbishing the officers’ quarters at Camp Reynolds.

“We love the island,” Brittany says. “It just needs kind of a lift in terms of bringing it back into the former spotlight it has been in.”

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