In praise of Doug Still

By Ralph Cavanagh

July 2007

I have before me, from a battered file folder, the official roster of all in attendance at the inaugural meeting of the NW Energy Coalition on September 26-27, 1981, at Portland’s Northwest Service Center.  The list includes some four dozen people, including many future chairs and leaders of the Coalition, and prominent among them is Doug Still, PO Box 188, Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424.  The Coalition’s first meeting was in many ways its most difficult institutional moment, for reasons that need not be canvassed in detail here; it is enough to say that the outcome was in doubt and a successful launch taxed the collective reserves of commitment, diplomacy and goodwill.  Fortunately Doug was there to serve as the perfect role model, and after that we never had to find out whether we could manage without him.

The Coalition convenes officially twice every year, in venues throughout the Columbia River drainage.  In the fifty meetings that followed the first one, you could almost always count on finding Doug whenever you arrived.  It is fair to say that his was the presence that those in attendance anticipated most eagerly.  In his stunningly varied experience and achievements he was without peer at any gathering he graced, but he was also kind and self-effacing to a fault.  His record was by any measure intimidating, but those who encountered him for the first time were instantly comfortable and swiftly enchanted.  And his vision never wavered of an energy future that would nurture a healthy economy’s least fortunate households without degrading a magnificent regional environment.  

With a bit of very welcome prodding from our mutual friend Jason Eisdorfer, I called Doug on June 11.  It was a wholly joyful conversation, at least on his end (and Doug’s joy is gloriously infectious).  He wanted to talk about the Coalition and its history and leadership.  He remembered that Norma Jean Germond was the founding Chair, and that Pat Ford had been elected an officer at the first meeting in Portland (and had given a wonderful presentation on fish and wildlife issues at the most recent meeting in Boise).  He delighted in recalling the colorful tactics and language of Mark Reis, Marc Sullivan and Jim Blomquist, and noted how much he enjoyed the sustained theatrics and creativity of Jim Lazar.  He also greatly admired Michael Karp and Jim Morton, and others in the Coalition who served low-income communities so well.  And he was glad that the durable institution he helped create was in such good hands today under the leadership of people like Sara Patton and Nancy Hirsh. 

Doug was fiercely proud of the Coalition’s role in reshaping the Northwest’s energy future in ways that few had thought possible a quarter century earlier.  It did not, of course, occur to him to accept any of the credit.  The rest of us know better, and will never forget.