Judie Hansen

Judie Hansen walked into Oregon Environmental Council in 1970 and promptly got to work as one of our first regular volunteer coordinators.

As she shares in this memoir, in those early days, she was busy creating newsletters, clipping newspaper articles and more or less keeping the organization moving forward.

In her own words: Judie Hansen (March, 2008):

I moved to Portland, Oregon on Thursday, February 26, 1970. Some time in March I attended a neighborhood gathering at Beth Weiting’s home and mentioned I was interested in volunteer work. Betty Merten suggested I give Larry Williams a call at the Oregon Environmental Council. I soon followed up and made arrangements to talk to him at his office at 1238 NW Glisan Street.

As I recall, I had to ride a freight elevator to get to the office on the second or third floor. Down a dark hall, I found Larry sitting at a two sided desk in a small room with tall windows facing north. After a short discussion he put me to work cutting out newspaper articles on environmental issues that were to be pasted onto sheets and filed by subject. I spent a few hours at the office and told him I would be willing to help him on a regular basis and would see him on Monday of the following week.

Judie and Larry at OEC’s early offices.

My husband moved to Oregon several months before me and was a member of the Kiwanis Club. He told a Kiwanian attorney I was a legal secretary. When I got home from visiting Larry there was a message from the attorney asking if I could work for him for two weeks while his regular secretary had surgery. I said yes. I called Larry to say I couldn’t come in the next week. He told me later he figured I was just another volunteer who he would never see again.

Big surprise. At the end of two weeks, I showed up in Larry’s office and was there between 5-8 hours a day for the next five years. Our personalities clicked and we worked well together. Larry was good about delegating work to others. He dictated letters and testimony on an ancient machine and I converted them to print on a used IBM Selectric typewriter with one of those little spinning balls. We had no copying equipment so I made multiple carbon copies on green onion skin paper. Larry burned incense to mask the smell of the pesticides stored just down the hall!

The OEC’s first printed membership brochure stated: 

TREES CAN’T TALK 

Not to politicians. Only people can do that. We do it.

The Oregon Environmental Council.

We talk for trees, for beaches, for wildlife.

And for environmental planning. And for environmental education.

And for population stabilization. And for pollution control.

And for all of Oregon’s unmatched natural environment.

For you.

Only the citizens of Oregon have the power to stop the polluters and the despoilers of our beautiful state.

That’s where we come in. The power of the Oregon Environmental Council is our large coalition of conservation, planning, and sportsmen’s organizations and individual citizens.

The Oregon Environmental Council lobbies for livability. We confront political decisions at all levels: city, county, state and federal.

My main responsibility was to find work for the numerous and assorted volunteers who showed up at our doorstep. Everyone got baptized by being asked to cut out those dreaded newspaper clippings and pasting them onto sheets for filing. Over the years file drawers bulged with clippings. Anyone who could master this job was then asked desk Larry and I shared. I have a photo of the office with walls covered with environmental posters, now laminated and stored for safekeeping. Facts blur these years later, but it seems we had a cadre of about 15 regular volunteers. Among them were Catherine Williams, Alice Butler, Rich Chambers, Don Waggoner, Bill Bree, and Vern Rifer. Maradel Gale was the first president of the Board, but because she lived in Eugene, I wasn’t ever able to work closely with her. We had recruited 45 member organizations by then. 

Next we moved to SW Corbett Street near John’s Landing to share space donated by Bill Nordstrom at Wy’east Color. We had more room and parking was free. Our volunteer staff continued to increase.

When Wy-east Color expanded and needed our space, we moved to a rented, early 20th century, bungalow at 2637 SW Water Street near the west end of the Ross Island Bridge. Larry and I loved the address – we were both born on the 26th day of a month in 1937. The other notable thing about that house was the perfect set of false teeth imbedded in the concrete sidewalk!

We were lucky to have Martin Davis involved. His advanced degree in landscape design was reflected in a complete redesign of the entrance, with steps, deck, planters, and an assortment of trees and flowers to enhance the appearance. Jim Navarro was our landlord.

With all this extra space, we soon provided offices for several other groups. Larry and I no longer shared the double desk. He had an office of his own in one of the bedrooms downstairs. I was in the dining room and there were tables and chairs out in the living room. The upstairs provided an extra office. The full kitchen was an added bonus. I frequently made lunch for the assembled volunteers since there was only one restaurant anywhere close to the office. The only drawback was that you took your life in your hands pulling out of Water Street because of the fast moving traffic coming off of the Ross Island Bridge. There were frequent accidents on this corner, but I don’t think any of them were OEC volunteers.

In 1973 the annual budget was $30,000 and we had 80 member organizations and more than 2,000 individual members. Alice Butler, Ann Gardner, Bill Hutchinson, Gay Graham, Jeff Foote, Maggie Collins, Judith Hvam, John Neilson, and John Frewing were actively involved. Ann Gardner, Vern Rifer, and John Frewing put together the Oregon Environmental Foundation. All OEC Board meetings were held at a restaurant in Salem and we had a board retreat at the home of Al and Louisa Bateman in Klamath Falls. 

Most of the people I mention were active in the Portland area, but we had activists from around the State – Pendleton, LaGrande, Burns, Klamath Falls, Eugene, Salem, Corvallis, Medford, and along the Coast. That’s why the organization was so strong. There is no substitute for grass roots efforts. OEC in those early days showed what you could do with no money if you had broad citizen support. We had the ability to find out early where hot spots might erupt, and work on position papers with input from local residents who had standing in the community. Additionally, having the backing of 80 member organizations was a tremendous asset. Every board member worked on at least one important issue.

One special event I remember was when President Gerald Ford visited Portland on November 1, 1974 to deliver remarks at the White House Conference on Domestic and Economic Affairs. Larry was photographed with the President, Governor Tom McCall and the directors of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Treasury. I was snagged at the last minute to sit in the front row, with all other front row seats occupied by the Secret Service, while other OEC activists were staging a protest outside.

The first three years I worked for no pay. In year four, I was paid $100 a month and year five I was paid $200 a month. I knew the OEC couldn’t actually afford to pay me even that small amount, so in 1975 I resigned and found a job as a legal secretary.

Judie Hansen and Governor Tom McCall, ca. 1970s.

OEC was an exciting place to be, where young, enthusiastic citizens cut their activist teeth on every conceivable environmental issue. We had John Neilson as a full time lobbyist in the legislature. Jane Lyle, Gay Graham, and Bill Bree created the Recycling Switchboard which was eventually run by the state Department of Environmental Quality and METRO. Thanks to Don Waggoner and Rich Chambers, the first bottle bill in the nation was adopted by the Legislature in 1971. We attended city, county, state, and federal meetings to testify on water, air and land use issues. The dozens of federal environmental impact statements that came through were reviewed and comments prepared. Groups and individuals worked on forestry, population control, bike path, field burning, billboard, mass transit, beach, wilderness, wildlife, and energy concerns.

OEC was extremely lucky to have Larry Williams. He provided leadership and inspiration for volunteer efforts and put the OEC soundly on the map as a force to be reckoned with. It was there I learned how to write testimony, lobby, and form a citizen alliance. 

My mother lived in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, so every time I went to visit her, Larry had me lobby on something. He hooked me up with Doug Scott of the Sierra Club. Doug led me around Capitol Hill visiting Congressmen Al Ullman and John Dellenback, and Senator Bob Packwood. On May 7, 1974, I testified before the House and Senate Appropriations Committee on public works projects. I arrived at 9 AM but wasn’t called on until 4:45 PM. I have a copy of the testimony I originally prepared, and by the end of the day I had redlined 90% of it because I knew their eyes had glassed over about noon.

Everyone at OEC teased me about my “Little Red Book.” It was a small address book with vital information on everyone who passed through our doors. Larry would try to remember the name of someone and I would haul out my little red book and there it would be. That book had a long life, despite having its corners chewed by my dog Rufus. I used it 9 years after I left the OEC as a basis for finding environmental leaders to help me organize the first statewide beach cleanup in 1984. It was all that excellent training gained volunteering at the OEC that helped make the cleanup such a success. Networking was the name of the game.

I always tell young people trying to figure out what to do with their life that one of the most valuable things they can do is volunteer for a nonprofit organization. The experience I gained during those five years laid the groundwork for all the positions I held since 1975, and gave me a jump start on knowing how to work with a variety of people to get a job done.

After retiring the little red book, many of those names and addresses were saved for my annual holiday letter and I was able to stay in contact with many of the original people involved in the 1970’s. Working in the trenches together created lifelong friendships. We now have the advantage of e-mail to stay in touch. It is amazing to see how many of those young, spunky activists are still out there, informed and involved in environmental campaigns at the local and national level. I was lucky to be a part of those early years. 

My thanks to the visionaries who hatched the idea for this citizen coalition (fifty) years ago.