From left: Eric Rosewall, Depave; Robyn Thorson, USFWS; Rob Nathan, Northwest Earth Institute; Mel Huie, Metro; and Rose High Bear, Wisdom of the Elders
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2016 WINNERS:
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service -- Outstanding Organizational Achievement, Large Organization
- Depave -- Outstanding Organizational Achievement, Small Organization
- Wisdom of the Elders -- Equity & the Environment
- Rob Nathan, Northwest Earth Institute -- Young Professional
- Mel Huie, Metro -- Lifetime Achievement
WINNER BIOS
Some of the many USFWS staff and retirees involved with The Intertwine -- 25 years of history in the making. Photo Mike Houck
U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE
Outstanding Organizational Achievement and/or Special Project – Large organization (budget over $1M)
This award goes to an organization that has played a leading role in accomplishing a major collaborative project, maximizing strategic partnerships and resources. It can also focus on a specific project in which a number of key partners created a signature effort unique in the region.
Award Criteria:
- Execution/implementation of a major project or initiative in the preceding year, or
- An organization or project that has had major impact over a long period of time
- Organization that has played a leadership role in a specific project
- Project with significant collaborative elements
- Program/project that takes an innovative approach to solving a significant community challenge
- Organization or project that uses innovative approaches to achieve results
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has provided long-standing leadership of and has had significant impact on the creation, evolution, and shaping of our region’s efforts to protect, restore and manage fish and wildlife habitat and maintain biodiversity across the urban and rural landscapes of The Intertwine region. The Service’s decades of work bridging the two-state divide between Oregon and Washington and helping build and sustain partnerships has been fundamental to the success of our region’s habitat health, as well as to The Intertwine Alliance.
In 1990, Regional Director Marv Plennert readily accepted the challenge to partner with Metro in launching its greenspace protection program, with a special congressional appropriation from the late Sen. Mark O. Hatfield. This made it possible to fund Metro to become the regional convener for the creation of a bi-state system of parks, trails, and natural areas.
Subsequently, a succession of staff from the Oregon Field Office provided invaluable assistance to Metro in crafting a bi-state restoration grants program that, owing to the Service’s regional mandate, helped bridge the two-state divide and restore significant natural areas on both sides of the Columbia River. Field staff also participated in numerous technical advisory committees leading to enhanced protection of habitat.
The Service helped found the Urban Ecosystem Resource Consortium and annual Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium, which is now in its 15th year. The symposium has had enormous impact in advancing urban ecology and attracting young professionals to the field.
In 2012, The Intertwine Alliance completed the Portland-Vancouver region’s first Regional Conservation Strategy and Biodiversity Guide. The work was a collaborative effort of 116 contributors from 75 organizations. Again, U.S. Fish and Wildlife was central to the effort.
More recently we’ve come full circle with regard to the Service’s financial and staff support to our work via the Urban Challenge Program, which falls under the broader Urban Wildlife Conservation Program. As with our early work with Sen. Hatfield and the Regional and Oregon Field Office, the successful Urban Challenge proposal was co-developed by refuge staff from Tualatin River, Ridgefield, and Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuges and staff from The Intertwine Alliance. Our urban refuges were selected for the award because of our track record of innovation and collaboration which, in large measure, is a legacy of the Service’s engagement in the region over many years.
While there are too many Service staff engaged in these efforts to name them all, Jennifer Thompson deserves special recognition. Her quiet leadership and commitment has been central to the Service’s work in The Intertwine region for the past 26 years.
For these and many, many other reasons the Alliance is excited to award the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region I office, Oregon Field Office and Urban Refuges of the Portland-Vancouver region a Force of Nature Award.
DEPAVE
Outstanding Organizational Achievement and/or Special Project – Small/mid-size organization (budget under $1M)
This award goes to an organization that has played a leading role in accomplishing a major collaborative project, maximizing strategic partnerships and resources. It can also focus on a specific project in which a number of key partners have created a signature effort unique in the region.
Award Criteria:
- Execution/implementation of a major project or initiative in the preceding year, or
- An organization or project that has had major impact over a long period of time
- Organization that has played a leadership role in a particular project
- Project with significant collaborative elements
- Program/project that takes an innovative approach to solving a significant community challenge
- Organization or project that uses innovative approaches to achieve results
Depave promotes the transformation of over-paved places to overcome the social and environmental impacts of pavement. The organization engages communities and reconnects urban landscapes to nature through action-oriented projects, education, advocacy and stewardship. Its vision is to help create livable cities where people and wildlife coexist and prosper amidst clean air, clean water, robust urban forests, thriving local agriculture, and engaged communities.
Depave engages and connects diverse groups through the experience of transforming lifeless places into vibrant, livable neighborhood spaces. Its community projects integrate the built and natural environments and weave a social fabric that inspires civic engagement. Its also empowers community members to change their surroundings from pavement to thriving landscapes that bring people together, foster stewardship, increase safety, augment play and learning spaces, provide places to grow food, capture stormwater and add to the urban tree canopy.
Recent projects include depaving work at Vernon School, Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences, Human Solutions Family Center, Astor School, Childswork Learning Center, Village Plaza, Saint Peter and Paul Episcopal Church and Peninsula School -- to name just a few.
Depave has removed over 135,000 square feet of asphalt to create nearly 50 new greenspaces in Portland since 2008. Its projects have diverted 3,250,000 gallons of stormwater from storm drains annually. And it has engaged over 2,750 volunteers in depaving and re-greening activities as of 2015.
ROB NATHAN, Northwest Earth Institute
Outstanding Young Professional
This award goes to an individual under 35 years old who has demonstrated the qualities of leadership, working collaboratively and using innovative approaches to problem solving.
Award Criteria:
- Nominee must be 35 years old or younger
- Numerous accomplishments up to this point in career
- Shows clear leadership abilities
- Displays innovative and collaborative approaches to projects
Someone who is deeply ingrained into the fabric of our community, Rob Nathan is professionally and personally connected to so many critical issues in our society - sustainability, racial and social justice, LGTBQ, and the arts to name a few. In his role as director of digital engagement for the Northwest Earth Institute, his efforts in redesigning the EcoChallenge web-based platform have been remarkable and will have a tremendous impact for this program and for the organization for years to come. He has a strong commitment to leveraging technology to foster transformational learning and behavior change, and the EcoChallenge program is the perfect vehicle for that passion.
Before joining the NWEI team, Rob managed waste minimization projects across the Portland metro region with Community Environmental Services. He is currently vice president of the Emerging Leaders Board at the Oregon Environmental Council and Leadership Chair of EPOC PDX (Emerging Professionals of Color) a program of the Center for Diversity and the Environment. He has been a board member of The ReBuilding Center and Pride NW. He got his M.S. in Leadership for Sustainability as well as a graduate Certificate in Sustainability from PSU, both in 2010.
Rob is a leader and connector, who gracefully integrates passion with understanding, relentless concern with contagious hope, and skillfulness with playfulness.
WISDOM OF THE ELDERS
Equity and the Environment
New this year, this award goes to an organizational effort to incorporate equity and inclusion into ongoing work, building new bridges within the community and involving connections to underserved audiences. Programs/projects will demonstrate comprehensive internal organizational commitment to this effort and some level of organizational transformation/transition.
Award criteria:
- Organization must have equity as part of its institutional mission and/or goals
- Organizational effort must have been going on for at least one year, with some level of internal transformation occurring
Wisdom of the Elders records and preserves traditional cultural values, oral history, prophesy and other messages of guidance from indigenous elders with a goal to regenerate the greatness of culture among current and future generations of native peoples. It regards elders as rapidly vanishing, irreplaceable keepers of oral history, tradition and environment. The values it extols represent an ancient legacy of knowledge which has become as endangered as many disappearing species in our fragile ecosystem.
Wisdom of the Elders is being recognized not only for its overall inspirational work at connecting the Native American community to environmental issues and opportunities but also for its extraordinary commitment to youth engagement, leadership and workforce development.
Wisdom of the Elders formed Wisdom Workforce Development LLC as a social venture to provide a holistic approach to environmental habitat restoration utilizing Native American traditional ecological knowledge and conventional science. The program strengthens Native workers’ career engagement, cultural identity, positive health and wellness resiliency, as well as addressing Native American disparities. Through worker training it provides services to Metro and a range of environmental organizations and government agencies in the greater Portland area.
The Wisdom Work Force Development Internship Program creates a pathway for young Native people to enter into environmental professions while also promoting Native wisdom to be used in the environmental fields. It is an excellent program that helps individuals and the Native community thrive while enriching the professional world by bringing in smart, motivated, and diverse new professionals
And to touch on just one more program, Discovering Yidong Xinag, is a Native youth leadership initiative providing Native youth and families from the greater Portland area with hands-on outdoor conservation and restoration service learning activities. The Wisdom Project focuses on regional environmental and climate issues and includes Wisdom’s Native Saturday Science Academies, Summer Field Science Camps, Film Screenings, Native Peer Mentorships, and Wisdom Gardens.
MEL HUIE, Metro
Lifetime Achievement
This award honors an individual who has made significant contributions to the legacy of this movement in our region through leadership, vision and partnership building.
Award Criteria:
- More than 10 years involvement in completing major projects in The Intertwine region
- Has had a significant impact on communities within the region, helping to make them healthier and more sustainable
- Consistency of effort over time
- Impact on multiple organizations and people
- Displays an innovative, collaborative approach to achieving goals
Trails Coordinator Mel Hui is a founding member of the Parks and Trails Department at Metro. He has spent most of his career building connections, interagency relationships and support for trails throughout the region. Most of the regional trail network that has been planned and implemented in the last 30 years is due in some part to his enthusiasm, hard work, and commitment to the cause. He lives The Intertwine mission and embodies the notion that everything is ultimately connected.
Mel’s outstanding leadership and advocacy have increased cooperative efforts for trails, including the development of the first Parks and Trails Forum in 1988 (now the Quarterly Trails Forum), managing annual trail counts, and garnering an estimated total of more than $25 million for local trails. He has overseen the acquisition of more than 11,000 acres of land in the region, and in 2006 he brought in $4.3 million for the Three Bridges Project on the Springwater Corridor, one of the largest grants secured through Metro for a single trail.
Mel was also the project manager for the development of the Metropolitan Greenspaces Master Plan, adopted by the Metro Council in 1992, which still guides much of our region’s efforts today. This plan details the vision and framework of a regional system of natural areas, open spaces, trails, and greenways and is the foundational document that provided the framework to form The Intertwine Alliance. Throughout his career, Mel has developed an astounding network of trail supporters and advocates in the region, and has shown tireless commitment to making Portland a better place to walk, bike and live. He has volunteered with the Chinese Classical Garden and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, and is currently on the board of the Urban Greenspaces Institute.
To quote our good friend Jim Desmond, former head of Metro’s Sustainability Center and now executive director of the Nature Conservancy’s Oregon chapter, "There is likely not a trail in the greater Portland region that Mel Huie has not had a hand in, and a foot or wheel on. Metro has been lucky to have had Mel on their team during the development of one of the nation’s top systems of trails.”
Mel has been recognized by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance as one of its 2008 Alice Awards recipients, has received the 2015 Legacy Award given by Oregon Walks, and also in 2015, received the Lifetime Service Award by American Trails at its international conference.