Staff

W. Bennett Tucker – Woods Superintendent

Bennett Tucker grew up in Aiken and spent much of his youth exploring and enjoying the Hitchcock Woods. He volunteered with the Axe Club and enjoyed riding and showing horses at the Fulmer International Stables (now The Stable on the Woods). He worked with the Foundation’s former forester as a summer intern for three years while in high school and college, and volunteered to help with prescribed burns and the Aiken Horse Show. He joined the Foundation’s staff as Woods Superintendent in 2006. While in college, he became a volunteer firefighter with the Due West Fire Department and later joined Aiken Public Safety as a volunteer firefighter. Bennett has many first responder certifications, many structural and wildland firefighting certifications, and is a South Carolina certified prescribed fire manager. He has remained an active volunteer firefighter with Aiken Public Safety (winning Volunteer Firefighter of the Year in 2009) and serves on the board of directors of the Aiken Land Conservancy. Bennett graduated from Aiken Preparatory School and then from Christ School in Arden, North Carolina. He is a graduate of Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina, with a degree in business administration.

Mike Grabowski – Woods Technician

Mike joined the Hitchcock Woods Foundation staff in July 2017. He brings twenty years of public safety experience including Fire, Police and EMS. Mike currently works full-time for the Aiken Department of Public Safety where he is a Sergeant assigned as a shift supervisor in the fire division. Mike volunteered with the Hitchcock Woods Foundation Prescribed Fire Team for three seasons, prior to his hiring, and has since immersed himself in the stewardship of the Woods. Mike grew up in Buffalo, New York and moved to Aiken when he was twenty-one years old. Aiken has been his home for twenty-four years since. Mike is the proud father of daughter, Emma. In his free-time Mike can be seen hiking Hitchcock Woods with his dog Cooper, watching live music, or Buffalo Sabres hockey. Go Sabres!

Karen Peters – Administrative Assistant

The oldest of three sisters, Karen Peters grew up in North Augusta. She attended Georgia Southern College and later transferred to the University of South Carolina, Columbia, where she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha women’s fraternity.

Karen is married since 1982 to Aikenite Albert Henry Peters, III (Pete), who is known for his expertise on South Carolina history, in particular the Civil War. Together they are business owners for over thirty years of Oreck Vacuum Stores in Augusta, Columbia, Memphis and formerly Tampa. As Manager of the Augusta store her duties included managing employees, sales inventory, orders and various routine reports and deposits. They are the proud parents of two sons and a daughter who for many years participated in the Aiken Horse Show.

Karen is a charter member and past president of Winterbrooke Women’s Club in Matthews, NC, past president of the Aiken Debutante Society, and former vice president of the Aiken Cotillion Club. She was a former advisor to ZTA at UNC-Charlotte and a charter Alumnae advisor to ZTA at USCA. She is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Aiken Prep School where all three of her and Pete’s children graduated.

She is currently a twenty-year member of Pine Needle Garden Club and a twenty year member and committee chair of the Aiken Women’s Heart Board, which to date has raised over $2,000,000 for the American Heart Association.

Karen and Pete enjoy attending Clemson football games (where Pete and one of their sons graduated) and vacationing at Pawleys Island with family and friends.