Around the Office, Winter 2009-10

Winter’s a little late this year, so we’re all getting as much work done as possible in anticipation of the inevitable (at least we hope) snow. But organizationally, we have a lot to give thanks for as we enter the holiday season – read on:

Thanks and Farewell

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to outgoing board members Amy Atwood and William Geer. Both have served six years on the Wildlands CPR board and have bumped up against our term limits. We first started working with Amy when she represented us on Big Cypress National Preserve off-road vehicle issues (while she worked at the law firm Meyer and Glitzenstein in Washington DC). Though we
prevailed in that initial case (with many thanks to Amy’s excellent legal work), we are still involved in other legal proceedings against Big Cypress over motorized recreation.

Amy is now in Portland, OR, wrapped up in climate change issues for the Center for Biological Diversity. Amy’s insightful ideas not only helped us expand and develop our legal strategy, but all of our strategies at Wildlands CPR.

William Geer joined our board at the same time as Amy, and has also gone through several career changes since then, though his passion has always been hunting advocacy. He spent years working for state land management agencies, and we first began working with him while he was at the Outdoor Writer’s Association of America. His experience brought us much-appreciated insight for engaging different public land managers. William now works with the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Project, promoting roadless protection from a hunting perspective; his work there has provided us some excellent outreach and grassroots organizing models.

We look forward to continuing to work with William on roadless and motorized recreation issues, even though he won’t be on our board anymore. We’ll miss both Amy and William, and they both leave big holes to fill for new board members. We’ll be announcing our new board members after the new year,
in the next issue of The RIPorter.

Change of Venue

Our Legal Liaison, Sarah Peters, is moving to Eugene, OR, where she will continue to work for Wildlands CPR. Though she won’t be in our Missoula office anymore, she’ll still be working with ORV activists around the country to help them secure the most protective travel plans possible.

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who bought a raffle ticket for our “collector’s edition” book raffle this year. Sherry Munther of Missoula won the collection! In addition to the raffle, we’ve been in the midst of our annual gifts campaign, and we’d like to thank everyone who has already donated to that campaign. If you haven’t yet, don’t hesitate, send in a year-end donation now!

And finally, a huge thank you to the following for their generous support of our work: 444S Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, Lazar Foundation, Maki Foundation, National Forest Foundation, New-Land Foundation, and Page Foundation.