Member Profiles

 
 
 Bart Koehler
 Capulin, CO
 Graduated 1970
  
 Positions held:
   V.P.               1969-70
   Pledgemaster  1968-69
   Song Leader   1967-68

 Sponsored by:
   Bill Kinney

 Sponsored:
   Al Nielson

Former WOC Director Bart Koehler's Colorful Career

by Mac Blewer

"God, amigo, I love this country."

Bart Koehler stood on the Oregon Trail in the shadow of Oregon Buttes and surveyed the vast expanse of sage and sand that lay before us. Storm clouds were massing along the Wind River Mountains . The muscular autumn winds were galloping up the Sweetwater River , a cauldron of rain, dust and lightning swirling in their wake, but judging by his big grin, Bart was enjoying the prospect of being stormed upon.

"You know," he said, "when I first came to Wyoming over thirty years ago to go to U.W., I got to Laramie and the wind was blowing around a hundred miles per hour. I told my brother, 'Either we're going to go crazy and leave in six months or we'll go crazy and stay.'" He laughed. "We stayed."

When he first saw the Red Desert years ago, he said, "I was thunderstruck. To me the wide-open nature of this place represents the very essence of Wyoming . We're going to have to fight to keep treasures like this wild and free."

I nodded in silent agreement.

Bart currently directs The Wilderness Society's Wilderness Support Center , based in Durango , Colorado . His job is helping grassroots groups like WOC with wildlands-protection campaigns.

Over his long and colorful career Bart has helped permanently protect more than five million acres of America 's wild places.

Evolution of an Activist

Bart grew up in New York 's Adirondacks and earned a bachelor's degree in geography at the State University in Albany . After a trip to Alaska and an epiphany involving a close shave with a grizzly bear in Glacier National Park , he decided that he wanted to dedicate his life to protecting wild places.

"I don't know," Bart shrugged. "It's in my blood. Maybe in the stars. I was not only born on John Muir's birthday but also on the day that Aldo Leopold died."

Bart earned his master's degree in natural resources management and planning from the University of Wyoming . His thesis focused on roadless-area protection in the Medicine Bow National Forest , a document that would help guide local activists in assessing the importance of wilderness designation in the area. Activists are still using his thesis today.

From WOC to Earth First!

Bart became WOC's third executive director in 1972, following in the footsteps of WOC founder Tom Bell and the well-respected Keith Becker. At the same time, he worked as The Wilderness Society's Northern Rockies organizer.

Over the next seven years, Bart helped craft state environmental legislation, including the Industrial Siting Act and the Land Use Planning Act, and national landmark laws protecting Wyoming wildlands, including the Fitzpatrick Wilderness, Savage Run Wilderness and High Lakes Wilderness Study Area. He also repeatedly defended the Dunoir Special Management Area against clear-cutting.

In 1979, The Wilderness Society hired a new executive director and moved away from grassroots organizing. Bart quit.

A year later, with a bunch of other "buckaroos" he helped form Earth First! Bart hit the road, resurrected as "Johnny Sagebrush," playing guitar, singing and rabble-rousing with his buddy and fellow wilderness advocate Dave Foreman.

In the early 80s, Bart left the Earth First! road shows behind, and went to work at South Pass State Park , overlooking the Red Desert . He would later play a key role in organizing statewide support for the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984, which led to the designation of more than a million acres of wilderness and wilderness study areas in Houston Park , on the west slope of the Tetons and in the Gros Ventre.

North to Alaska

In 1984, Bart left his beloved Wyoming to work for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, where he fought to protect the Tongass National Forest .

"They hired me because I was a desperado and they were desperate for someone to fight the good fight," he chuckled. Bart was in the vanguard of a team effort that convinced Congress to protect more than a million acres of old-growth rainforest habitat.

In 1991, Bart returned to his former home on the range to work for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition before returning again to Alaska during the dark days of the Gingrich revolution in Congress.

After legislative threats to the Tongass had been quelled, Bart came back to the Rockies in 1999, taking a job with The Wilderness Society 20 years to the day after he had left the organization.

Suffering from Hope

Today he was back in his old stomping grounds.

When I asked him about his favorite places in Wyoming , he laughed.

"Favorite places? I don't want them revealed and broadcast in Frontline or Outside and loved to death. All of Wyoming has a special beauty."

His heroes? There are too many to list here but they include Wyoming greats such as Tom Bell, Keith Becker, Jack Pugh, Lynn Dickey, Dick Randall and Mardy Murie; political masters such as Teddy Roosevelt, Wyoming Representative Teno Roncalio and California Representative George Miller; and such legendary figures as Butch Cassidy, Crazy Horse and Robin Hood.

"I am so fortunate to work at a job that I believe in," he said. "But I have never been able to figure out what I like more - working to protect these wild places or working with so many wild and wooly, strong-hearted and spirited people."

And what of the future of Wyoming 's wild places?

"I still believe in and have hope for the future," Bart said. "As my old friend Ed Abbey said, 'I am suffering from hope.' Anything is possible if you believe you can do it."

As we watched the storm clouds move in, Bart summed up his contagiously hopeful philosophy.

"Using the Wilderness Act is one of the greatest forms of democracy," he said. "When people fight for the freedom of wilderness, build support and shape the future of their home ground, there's always hope. We need to keep the dream alive. There is no place like Wyoming 's wild and wide-open spaces. But we need to stand strong to keep her that way."