American Alps Advisory Committee

Estella Leopold
Estella Leopold attributes her interest in botany and wild lands to her parents Aldo and Estella Leopold. Estella received her bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees in botany from the University of Wisconsin, the University of California at Berkeley, and Yale University. Her research has focused on how analysis of plant pollens in sediments can be used to understand plant evolution, biogeography, vegetation history, and climate change. Her first professional position was with the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Branch of the United States Geological Survey. She moved to the University of Washington in 1976 to serve as a professor of botany and forest sciences. Estella Leopold has been a strong advocate for protecting the environment. She has served on the Boards of the Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

"I support expansion of the North Cascades National Park to add areas that were part of the original vision for the park, to ensure adequate long-term protection of significant habitats for both plants and wildlife, and to include areas of stunning scenic value now outside park boundaries."

Jim Whittaker
Jim Whittaker is best known as the first American to stand on the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest point on earth. He was also the leader of the first American climb of K2, the world's second highest mountain. To top off his climbing career, he organized and led the 1990 Mt. Everest International Peace Climb. Jim's love of the outdoors extends to the oceans as well. Jim and his wife, Dianne Roberts, spent four years with their two sons sailing their 54-foot steel ketch (named Impossible) from their home in Port Townsend, Washington to Australia and back. Jim Whitaker is also a leader in the business world (former President and CEO of Recreational Equipment, Inc.). He is the author of the award-winning memoir A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond.

Dan Evans
Early experiences as a boy scout led Dan Evans to a life-long love of wilderness and wild places in Washington State. After achieving bachelors and masters degrees in engineering, Dan worked with the City of Seattle's structural engineering team. He served as an ensign and lieutenant in the US Navy. He is best known for a successful political career as a three term Washington State Governor and a US Senator. Dan Evans has been a champion for environmental protection, promoting legislation to preserve endangered species, protect Puget Sound from oil spills, and clean up air and water pollution. Dan's focus has been on building bridges between opposing viewpoints and overcoming the partisanship that has come to dominate politics today.

Polly Dyer
Polly Dyer has inspired conservationists in Washington State and beyond for the past 50 years. Born in Hawaii in 1920, her family lived in many places pursuing her father's Coast Guard career. Her passion for conservation was fired up in Alaska, but held strong when she moved to Washington State in 1950. Among her many accomplishments, Polly is credited with initiating the first Sierra Club chapter outside of California, co-founding the North Cascades Conservation Council, working with Wilderness Society to promote the 1964 Wilderness Act, organizing hikes with Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to save the pristine Olympic Coast from logging and development, and successfully lobbying for creation of the North Cascade National Park.

"Important old growth forests and wildlife habitats were left out of the North Cascades National Park when it was created. After more than 40 years, the American Alps Legacy Project is giving us another opportunity to complete our conservation vision for the North Cascades National Park. Now is the time to act."

John Reynolds
John Reynolds served 39 years in National Park Service including as Deputy Director, Regional Director, Director Denver Service Center, Superintendent North Cascades National Park, Assistant Superintendent Santa Monica Mountains NRA, and park planner/landscape architect. John is currently serving as the representative of the Secretary of the Interior to the Presidio Trust; member of the board of the Student Conservation Association; Commonwealth of Virginia Citizen Representative to the Chesapeake Bay Commission; member of North Cascades Institute and Chesapeake Conservancy Advisory Councils; Chair of the Flight 93 National Memorial Federal Advisory Commission and the Captain John Smith National Historic Trail Advisory Council; member of the Fort Hancock 21st Century Federal Advisory Commission. John served in the New Jersey National Guard and United States Army Reserve.

Brock Evans
Brock Evans is President of the Endangered Species Coalition. The Coalition represents nearly 400 scientific societies, environmental and sportsmen's associations, religious groups and others, all dedicated to protecting imperiled wildlife and the Endangered Species Act. Evans has served as Vice President of the National Audubon Society, head lobbyist of the Sierra Club's Washington DC Office, and the Club's Northwest Representative. His major focus in these positions was on forest, wilderness, and energy policies. Evans has also done scholarly work at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, as a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics, and as a Visiting Professor at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel. A prolific writer and public speaker, Evans has received numerous awards, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Council of America, and the John Muir Award (the Sierra Club's highest honor). Evans is a graduate (cum laude) of Princeton University and the University of Michigan Law School. He did his military service with the United States Marine Corps.

"Gaining protection for the wild and beautiful parts of our American Alps has always been a special passion for me. I joined the North Cascades Conservation Council long ago because they were the most effective organization which devoted its whole energies to this end. That task is not finished yet, so I am delighted to be a part of its effort to complete the job."

Gordon Orians
Gordon Orians is an ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle. He received his bachelors in zoology from the University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. His research has focused on the behavioral ecology of invertebrates, the structure of ecological communities, and the science-policy interface. Gordon was the Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Washington and serves on the Board of Directors of the World Wildlife Fund. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and Chair of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

"Expansion of the North Cascades National Park will provide much needed connections that will facilitate movement of animals on the landscape and will gain protection of important lower elevation habitats that are poorly represented in the current park."

Jim Wickwire
Jim Wickwire has led a double life as a mountain climber and lawyer. He was inspired to start climbing in the Cascades as a teenager after reading the classic Himalayan expedition accounts. In 1978, Jim realized his dream to climb K2 when he and his companion, Louis Reichardt, became the first two Americans to reach the summit. His memoir, Addicted to Danger, was co-authored with Dorothy Bullitt. After serving on the Washington, D.C. staff of Senator Henry M. Jackson in the late 1960s, Jim was a Seattle lawyer until his retirement in 2007. For most of his private legal career, he represented the Inupiat Eskimo people of Alaska's North Slope, first helping them secure passage of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, then as legal counsel to the Inupiat-owned Arctic Slope Regional Corporation established pursuant to the Act. Jim's primary focus was on land, energy and natural resource issues, including legislative advocacy for enactment of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

"Although I've climbed mountains around the world, it is the mountains close to home that mean the most to me. The American Alps Legacy Project will complete the task of optimal land designations in the North Cascades, including an expanded North Cascades National Park. This will address the most glaring omissions from the 1968 legislation that established the Park."

Mike McCloskey
Mike McCloskey spent his career (1961-1999) working in environmental advocacy, including the position of Executive Director with the Sierra Club. He holds degrees in law from the University of Oregon and American Government from Harvard College. Mike also served as chairman of the Natural Resources Council of America and president of the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs. He is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas and a member of the Commission on Environmental Law of the World Conservation Union. He has recently written a memoir: In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club, published by Island Press in 2005.

"Great things are achieved in conservation when three things happen: people can envision what should come about; they have the persistence to keep trying; and the skills to mobilize needed support. In the North Cascades, we are embarked again on exactly that process."

Art Kruckeberg
Art Kruckeberg fell in love with the plant world at an early age. After achieving his Bachelors Degree at Occidental College in 1939, he began graduate studies in botany at Stanford University and eventually earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. His thesis on serpentine ecology and evolution started him on years of devotion to the ecology of serpentines and other "kooky" habitats. Art served as a faculty member in the University of Washington botany department for 50 years. Public service has been an important part of his career: including adult education, published articles for the general public, and a commitment to regional conservation. He served on The Nature Conservancy board and was a cofounder of the Washington Native Plant Society.

"I applaud N3C's determination to expand the North Cascades National Park. It is superb landscape and its preservation is long overdue."

Peter Morrison
Peter Morrison is the Executive Director, of Pacific Biodiversity Institute. He is an ecologist and conservation biologist with over 30 years of experience in ecological assessment, conservation planning, landscape analysis, vegetation mapping, and studies of imperiled species. He has lived, worked, and played in the North Cascades ecosystem for more than 35 years and is intimately familiar with this rugged terrain. Peter has worked for Sierra Biodiversity Institute, The Wilderness Society, the USDA Forest Service, Oregon State University, and the Sierra Club. He has served as a consultant for numerous government agencies and conservation organizations. Peter has received numerous national and international awards for his conservation science work. His efforts have aided the protection of over 10 million acres of critical habitat in the USA, Canada, and Latin America. Peter is an author or co-author of more than 100 scientific reports, papers, published maps, and book chapters. Many of these publications relate to some portion of the North Cascades ecosystem.

John Roskelley
Author and photographer, John Roskelley, is a dabbler in everything outdoors. If he's not dodging rocks on some alpine face in Canada or scratching his way up a frozen WI6 waterfall, John can be found in late summer running solo 30 to 40 mile segments of the Pacific Crest Trail or paddling the Columbia River from source to mouth. John admits adventuring flows in his blood. In his first half century, John fought his way up four 8,000-meter peaks, including K2 and Everest, plus a plethora of devilishly hard, unclimbed shorter Himalayan faces and ridges. A graduate of WSU in geology, John's occupation changes as frequently as the weather. He only has one job criteria - independence. His next goal is to outlive his dad who is 94. "But the odds are against me," John admits. "He's just too damn tough."

"Lewis and Clark explored the Pacific Northwest just a little over 200 years ago. Since then people have spread throughout the west, farming, homesteading, commercializing and industrializing almost every square foot of flat valley and available riverbank. What areas we haven't protected have been tilled, drilled, grazed, excavated, and built upon. Fortunately, there were a few visionaries who recognized the benefits of setting aside pristine wilderness and protecting unique flora and fauna. With the American Alps Legacy Project, we have an opportunity to increase the size of the North Cascades National Park by adding vulnerable federal lands adjacent to the park. Let's do it now - because it's the right thing to do for our children and for generations to come."

Norm Winn
Norm Winn moved to Washington to climb mountains. For 25 years he led climbs in the Cascades, including Liberty Bell, Early Winter Spires, and Cutthroat in the Washington Pass area of the American Alps. He was President of The Mountaineers in 1976, when he lobbied in Washington DC for passage of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Bill. He was Conservation Chair of the Mountaineers in 1984, when he lobbied for passage of the 1984 Washington Wilderness Act. Norm has also been President of the Washington Wilderness Coalition and a board member of groups monitoring Mr. Rainier and Olympic National Parks. As a member of The Mountaineers Conservation Executive Committee for 30 years, he has worked on wilderness, park, Alaska, water, wildlife, and energy issues. Norm also served on the Washington SEPA Commission and Forest Practices Appeals Board.

Wyatt King
Wyatt King is a Director of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm based in Washington, DC. He has a particular focus on clean technologies, environmental sustainability, and corporate social governance. He has a strong background in energy and environmental policy issues and corporate sustainability, having spent four years as an energy and environmental policy advisor to members of the United States Congress, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) and Senator Maria Cantwell (WA). He also worked as Professional Staff for the House Committee on Science and Technology, where he drafted several renewable energy research and development provisions for the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Wyatt is a native of Western Washington and a passionate supporter of the Northwest's wild spaces.

John Miles
John Miles grew up in New Hampshire and migrated to the Pacific Northwest for graduate school, arriving in Bellingham in 1968. He found himself in paradise for an outdoorsman and student of nature, conservation, and environmental learning. A new college dedicated to the environment was forming, something he could not have imagined in his life before Western. This seemed the perfect setting for such an endeavor, as it has proven to be. He began on a grant, served as chair and dean in the College, created experiential programs both for undergraduates and graduates, wrote and edited six books (so far, more in the works), and has generally had a great time with great students and colleagues over 43 years. You can read his book "Impressions of the North Cascades" on the NCCC website at http://www.northcascades.org/impressions/index.htm.