Barbara Lawlor, Nederland. Jay Mann takes cello lessons because, he says, he likes the instrument's voice. Being able to take cello lessons as well as ski, hike, and be involved with his first passion, reading, is what makes Mann pleased with his new job as Nederland Community Library's executive director.

He has relocated to the best of all possible worlds, with access to both nature and cultural activities. Now all he needs is a place to call home in the area and he can set down roots.

At the age of 38, Mann has combined the facets of his education and his individual priorities and finds himself right at home in Nederland, a long way from his beginnings.

He was born and raised in El Paso, Texas and describes himself as a quiet child, a reader. He was inspired by his first-grade teacher who taught him that he could satisfy his insatiable curiosity through books.

"I was curious about stuff in general, always asking questions, being annoying. I loved fantasy and C.S. Lewis and had a deep interest in scientific books. I wanted to understand why things were the way they were and how the world works."

Mann remembers that at the beginning of each summer, he would return home from the local library carrying stacks of books.

He lived in El Paso until he was 18 and then enrolled in a pre-med program at Rice University, mostly because it was a family tradition to be a doctor and he didn't really have any other goals at the time. “Houston didn't agree with me and I realized that my interests were tending towards biology, ecology and evolution."

Mann then had the opportunity to spend a summer in Lake City, Colorado, near Gunnison, to study butterflies and sleep in aspen groves. And he fell in love: with Colorado, with nature, and with learning why butterflies could be found in one place and not in others. He transferred to CSU and changed his major to ecology.

In 1999 he graduated and began field work for non-profits, working for professors and USGS, studying birds, trees, insects and small animals. He studied why a fungus was killing oak leaves. He did seasonal work in New York, Peru, and Hawaii, and studied beetles in Crested Butte.

In Peru, in the rain forest, Mann had up-close and personal experience with insects that want to live inside you. He worked at lakes with crocodiles and piranhas, camping most of the time. "But I grew tired of the humidity and the experience made me realize how much I value the interaction of small groups, how wonderful that could be."

Desiring more stability after the ever-changing world of seasonal work, Mann moved to California, where he worked as an environmental consultant on invasive insects, keeping the bugs out of the vineyards and orchards. He also helped interpret environmental laws.

But after several years in southern California, he decided he was not satisfied; at the end of the day he needed to find more meaningful work. At that time, one of his old family friends, a librarian who had always encouraged Mann to read, suggested he volunteer at the local library.

Inspired, he enrolled at the Seattle Library School. Now, in his late 20s, he had decided that conversations with butterflies were one-sided and he wanted to serve people, knowing he could always love and enjoy nature. After settling into a two-year master's program, becoming socially busy and working at three-part time jobs, Mann found employment in public schools and then academic libraries.

"I found satisfaction in helping people at the Seattle Student Library, where 1,000 people visited in five hours." He fell in love with the library, a public institution that strives to provide equal service to whoever walks through the doors, and it is free." While in school he learned the collection development catalog and community analysis, to look at the demographics and age group change to determine what people want, what their library needs are.

Mann's first public job was in Dixon, New Mexico, where he was the director of a non-profit library, writing grants and supervising people. It was located between Santa Fe and Taos and served a community of 4,000 people, many descended from Spanish settlers. It was a creative, artistic community with two restaurants and a grocery store and many goat heads to plague him on his hikes.

In 2011, they had funding issues, and Mann left for Dolores, Colorado, to become assistant director of a larger library in a dry land farming community.

"They wanted to jump start the adult programs, have movie nights, emergency preparedness classes and on-line dating workshops." There were discussions on industrial hemp and whether to use GMO seeds from Europe.

At the end of the year, when tax levies were $30,000 less, as painful as it was, Mann needed to move on. It was hard to leave the people he had become close to. He tried to stick around and make it by substitute teaching, and gained a healthy respect for teachers.

When his father retired to Salt Lake City, Mann joined him, taking some time to regroup, and in early December began interviewing for a job. He remembers that when he was 30, he had come to Nederland and bought a pink flamingo t-shirt for a friend of his, thinking that Nederland had the best of both worlds.

In mid-December he was informed that he was hired, to begin January 5. Most of Mann's belongings, books, were packed in apple crates and he brought his skis and bikes and moved to Boulder. He can't wait to find a place in or near town and run into neighbors and patrons in the grocery store.

He believes that libraries serve as community hubs. He also realizes that at the NCL many great programs are in place; that he does not have to initiate them, but has to keep the ball rolling, continue the programs. Mann says he will spend time listening to the patrons, learning what they want and choosing books accordingly.

Realizing there are many residents who have environmental interests, he anticipates meeting them and discussing their library needs as well as finding people to share his love for nature and ecology.

He also looks forward to his cello lessons and getting out on his cross country skis in his new home town.