Atlantic City Weekly

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Cutler: Jazz lover, camp director.

They call him “Nature Josh,” at the amazing Camp by the Sea summer camp operated in Margate by the Jewish Community Center of Atlantic County. Every summer, camp director Josh Cutler influences more than 500 young campers, helping create imprints that will last lifetimes. And the renaissance man is also devoted to jazz, travel, and his year-round work at the JCC.

Your career seems to combine a number of your passions.

True. Even as a child, I was a huge nature lover — always climbing trees, looking for bugs. In school, I studied biology and museum science. I knew I didn’t want to just hover over animals in a laboratory setting, so after college, I worked for a while in a museum’s education department, giving nature talks and learning everything possible about dinosaurs, an area that young kids really relate to. I found my niche — combining my passions for nature and critters, and sharing that with kids. In 1999, I got my foot in the door here at the JCC running the youth and teen program, as well as the camp’s nature program, moved up the ranks, and in 2004 became camp director.

Does being head honcho mire you in administrative details?

I do hire someone else as nature teacher now, but I stay true to my roots, making sure we keep up features like our nature room, with almost 30 different animals, including a hedgehog, snakes, chinchillas, tarantulas, and some cuddly stuff like guinea pigs and iguanas. They’re all handle-able and very friendly — even a hairless rat, which is pretty wild.

Er, not everyone’s into tarantulas ...

It’s not just a nature camp; it’s an adventure camp. “Nature-y” kids can spend time in the nature room and do art and other cool projects; “sporty” kids can climb the rock wall, play dodgeball and soccer, canoe, swim, or take surf or skateboard lessons. We have a music specialist, a drama specialist, and organizations like the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Walnut Street Theatre visit for lots of hands-on stuff. And our teen travel camp basically goes from Maine to South Carolina.

So kids have plenty of options. What are their parents looking for?

Program, organization and safety. And results — I love those moments when parents are saying, “my kid’s a great swimmer now!” or, you know, the last day when everyone’s in tears and hugging and saying, “I can’t believe it’s over!” Camp creates crisp and lasting memories. Even at 35, I can tell you stories from when I was 11 as though it was yesterday: the day I caught my first fish, or came home with a backpack full of frogs, or hit a home run. Parents also care about quality, and we’re very proud to be American Camp Association accredited. That’s a very rigorous inspection process.

I’m thinking of Allen Sherman’s “Camp Grenada” song, where a traumatized newcomer ends up loving camp.

Kids choose how many and which of our eight weeks they want to attend, so, every Monday, we minimize problems by making a big deal about our newest campers. We rely on every kid having a great experience here; it helps them individually, it brings them back year after year, and it even sells the camp to others by word of mouth. Kids get comfortable quickly, as these surroundings are shaping them, nurturing them, and feeding their love of nature.

Not to sound overly metaphorical, but what do you do when summer camp ends?

Describing all my JCC functions would fill both sides of a business card, but we all know this comes with the territory here. Camp director is a high JCC mission, but year-round I’m also senior adult director and family services director. So I basically do cradle to grave, everything from family holiday programs to mahjong projects for seniors.