Tom,

Currently, I am serving as a county administrator. But my career has been pretty diverse having served as a county planning director, manager of state lands (about five million acres of forest, agricultural and aquatic lands), and manager of a state community and economic development agency.

I've helped forest-dependent communities retool to preserve old growth and spotted owls and rebuild their economies. I've also helped communities dependent upon military spending adjust to the post Soviet era reductions in defense contracting. I've gotten long-forgotten paper mills back up and running. And, I've had to tell dozens of families that they could no longer live in their landslide and flood threatened homes.

In all of this, I have learned that there is often room to find common ground among disparate views and interests. I have also learned that those who dwell in acrimony and rhetoric usually get exactly what they expect. I've seen this from both sides of the fence - from either side of the political spectrum.

The fact is that our environment is facing serious and potentially irrevocable challenges that demand something more of us as individuals and community members than at any time in human history. This is not just rhetoric but well-documented science.

We've got to find solutions that even the most stubborn and selfish of us fell motivated to support. ESA, when employed properly, can facilitate that conversation. It begins with first being able to recognize we have a problem.

Yes, there are those in the environmental movement who can't see the forest from the trees - literally and figuratively. But there are also those in the property rights movement who can't see the trees from the forest. We all have to figure out how to give a little if we expect to make serious progress on these matters.

Regards,
Donald