David E. Pines, co-founder of Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center, dies

David E. Pines, whose interests ranged from education to endurance bicycling and collecting single-malt scotches, died May 19 at his Galena, Kent County, home. He was 73.

David E. Pines, whose interests ranged from education to endurance bicycling and collecting single-malt scotches, died of a glioblastoma May 19 at his Galena, Kent County, home. He was 73.

“David was an infectiously joyous person and the best listener you’re likely ever to meet when it came to people’s possibilities,” said Chris Murray, a friend and colleague since 1979.

“He was a warm, friendly source of support. He was a change-maker who saw the world as it should be and wanted all to live in a better world,” said. “He was a truly unique individual who was transformational, a dreamer and was the perfect example of a person who wanted to create change.”

James Szarko was both a friend and client.

“People became friends with David very quickly because he was such a good listener and an inspirational force,” Mr. Szarko said. “He helped you get huge outcomes out of your life.”

David Eric Pines, the son of Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Joseph I. Pines, and Marcia Gann Pines, an administrator at what is now the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was born in Baltimore and raised in Mount Washington.

A 1969 graduate of Gilman School, he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1973 from Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, where he “fell in love with Native American culture,” said his son, Justin E. Pines, of Philadelphia.

In 1974, he obtained a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.

He began teaching middle school history and social studies at Friends School of Baltimore in 1974. There he met and fell in love with his future wife, Arlene Rachel Bolotin, who taught music and art at Friends. They married in 1978.

He left Friends in 1981 to become a co-founder and director of Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center in Parkton, Baltimore County, “which ignited his passion for deeper youth community development,” his son said.

Middle school students spent five days camping on a 137-acre farm in what was termed “experimental education.”

Mr. Pines told The Baltimore Sun in 1983 that the experience was an alternative, but not a replacement for, classroom learning or experiences, “It’s an enhancement,” he said.

“Applying the skills you have learned doing a task is much more beneficial,” than a purely academic experience, he said.

After leaving Genesee, he became a contract employee for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where his work was to help end violence and enable sustainability among youth in underserved communities in Los Angeles, Point Barrow, Alaska, and a Native American reservation in Kame Deer, Montana.

One of his most memorable achievements, his son said, was being named “Tatanka Ska,” or “Sacred White Buffalo,” by a Northern Cheyenne chief.

From 1990 to 2000, after heading The Foundation for the Future of Youth, he became a business consultant at Gap International, a Philadelphia management consulting firm, whose mission was to “transform the world and how businesses operate and to help them bring about more purpose, alignment and breakthrough goals,” his son said.

“At Gap, he was one of my coaches and a dear mentor. He was an absolute gentleman and a guy who was truly inspiring,” Mr. Szarko said.

“He gave great advice, had great skill sets, and his explanation was that he was trying to help people live their lives,” he said.

For 21 years until retiring in 2021, he was an adviser to the CEO of CanopyLab, a learning management company, based in Denmark.

“He helped create change but never bragged about it. He didn’t like taking credit,” Mr. Murray said. “He just lived his possibilities.”

“He liked mental challenges and long-distance endurance biking,” said Steve Pines, a cousin. “Just after he had completed a 500 mile ride he was diagnosed with a brain tumor that ended his life.”

Next to his work, his passion was cycling, and Mr. Pines rode on journeys that took him across the U.S. and through Jamaica, Canada and Scotland, where he indulged his appreciation of scotch whiskies.
“He was a family-oriented, relaxed and fun-loving person who loved to sip single-malt scotch whisky as I do, and he even introduced me to Japanese whiskey,” his cousin said.

Ms. Pines, who died in 2013, was an accomplished pianist, and with her husband, who played electric guitar and the harmonica, spent many hours playing together.

In addition to collecting instruments, Mr. Pines enjoyed cooking and was an accomplished carpenter.

In 2020, he moved to Galena to a house along the Sassafras River.

“It was a lovely piece of land and he worked on the restoration of the house which he added to,” his cousin said.

“He was a Renaissance man who was interested in everything life had to offer,” his son said.

Services are private.

In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Ellen W. Pines, of Baltimore; two grandchildren; and his partner, Henni Hahn, a luthier, of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.