National Sierra Club awards going to numerous Bay Area leaders

Three of this year's Sierra Club awards are going to Bay Chapter residents.

The awards will be presented at the Club's Annual Awards Banquet, to be held on Sat., Sep. 11, at the Holiday Inn Select, 750 Kearney St. in San Francisco. The reception begins at 6 pm, and the dinner at 7. Ticket cost is $40. Tickets will be held at the door. Send checks payable to "Sierra Club Annual Banquet" to:
Banquet Tickets
Executive Office
Sierra Club
85 Second St., Second Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105-3441

Note if vegetarian entree desired. For more information contact John Ridener at (415) 977-5675 or email john.ridener -at- sierraclub.org

Vicky Hoover

The Sierra Club's highest award, the John Muir Award, goes to Bay Chapter activist Vicky Hoover. If anyone epitomizes the spirit of John Muir, it is Vicky Hoover. She is a legendary backpack leader, a tireless and extremely effective wilderness advocate, and a dedicated Sierra Club staff member.

For 30 years Vicky has been leading Sierra Club national trips, mostly in the Sierra Nevada but also in Alaska, Utah, and New Zealand. She conceived and executed the idea of adding a program of activist outings to the Club's national outing program, leading would-be activists to areas at risk. She has led several such outings in Nevada and Utah. (She had already been leading such outings for friends and for the Chapter Wilderness Committee for many years.) She has also found time to climb all 246 of the peaks on the Sierra Peaks List.

For 20 years Vicky has worked on wilderness campaigns in California, Nevada, Utah, and Alaska. She was a leader in the California Desert Protection Act campaign and is currently a leader in the California Wild Heritage campaign. She has led trips and done inventory work in many areas of Nevada, including areas that were included in the Black Rock-High Rock National Conservation Bill passed in 2000. She has also been a leading activist in the Utah Wilderness Campaign and on Alaska wilderness issues.

Finally, in her time off from volunteer activities, Vicky is a Sierra Club staff member working with Ed Wayburn and editing the Alaska Report.

Vicky's unique combination of leading trips into wilderness and leading campaigns to protect wilderness is in the highest tradition of John Muir.

Alan Carlton

Peter Douglas

Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission since 1985, will be honored with a Distinguished Service Award.

Douglas has been active in coastal protection for four decades and was co-author of Proposition 20, the citizens initiative that established the Coastal Commission. He was principal author of the 1976 Coastal Act that made permanent California's coastal-management program.

Douglas has written extensively about coastal management and environmental stewardship. A founding member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Science Advisory Board, he was reappointed to another three-year term in July 2001. He is the only non-scientist on that board.

As executive director of the California Coastal Commission since 1985, Douglas manages an agency with a staff of 165, mandated to balance use and conservation of resources along California's 1,100-mile coastline. Under his leadership the Coastal Commission has expanded public access to the coast for all.

Douglas successfully led a legal challenge to the federal government's automatic renewal of the 36 offshore oil and gas leases off the California Coast. He has worked to protect habitat from the Oregon border to Mexico. "Perhaps Peter's greatest accomplishment is the building of an agency staffed by professionals who independently apply the Coastal Act free from political pressure," observed Susan Jordan of the California Coastal Protection Network.

The coast of California would look very different were it not for the dedication and hard work of Douglas's lifetime of service influencing public policy and educating residents to protect the coast. His most enduring legacy is what you don't see: the hotels not built on sensitive coastal dunes, the golf courses not constructed on windswept bluffs, the scenic views not blocked.

reprinted from the Ventana (newsletter of the Sierra Club Ventana Chapter), Volume 43, Number 4

Roger Beers

Roger Beers will be receiving the William O. Douglas Award recognizing those who have made outstanding use of the legal/judicial process to achieve environmental goals, particularly those with national significance.

Beers has been a member of the Club's Litigation Committee for more than 10 years. He has litigated numerous clean-air, clean-water, land-use, forest-protection, and other suits on behalf of the Club and other conservation organizations. He also has been called upon to give general legal advice to the Club and handle major suits for it.

Katy and Brad Christie

Katy and Brad Christie will receive the Oliver Kehrlein Award for outings leadership. We will run a longer article about them in the coming Yodeler.