Friend of the Lake Award
The Friend of the Lake Award is given to a person, organization, or business performing outstanding work in education, research and/or advocacy to benefit Great Salt Lake. There is a vibrant and active community of people working on behalf of the lake. Their efforts help increase our understanding and awareness of our big salty neighbor. Understanding can lead to positive action for preservation of Great Salt Lake. To recognize these talents and contributions, FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake established an award to be presented at our Biennial Great Salt Lake Issues Forum.
Friend of the Lake Award Recipients
In 2002, the first award was presented to the late Dr. Donald R. Currey, geomorphologist in the Geography Department at the University of Utah. Dr. Currey worked to raise awareness of the unique geomorphological features that surround Great Salt Lake and their tremendous value as archives to the past when Lake Bonneville covered this vast region of the west.
In 2004, Joy Emory received the award. Joy is an environmental engineer and member of FRIENDS. She represented FRIENDS as one of the conservation stakeholders on the Kennecott South End Technical Advisory Committee as part of the EPA CERCLA program. Her understanding of extremely complex surface and ground water dynamics as it pertains to the remediation of mining contamination helped FRIENDS participate more fully in this important process.
In 2006, Al Trout, retired manager of the USFWS Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Brigham City, Utah was honored. During the high water years of the 1980’s, Al worked tirelessly to resurrect the Refuge and return it to a state of important functionality as important wildlife habitat for native and migratory bird species. He was an arch advocate for Great Salt Lake preservation and protection and was always generous with his time in assisting FRIENDS with field trips, newsletter articles and presentations as needed.
2008 was the first time the award was given to two recipients; one a doctor, and the other an attorney. Dr. Maunsel Pearce, Chair of the GSL Alliance and Joro Walker, Senior Attorney at Western Resources Advocates. Dr. Pearce is the Chair of the Great Salt Lake Alliance and has always been there for the lake – advocating for better management, stronger protection and greater recognition of this hemispherically important ecosystem. Joro Walker – with her legal prowess and commitment to this important ecosystem has been extremely generous in providing the necessary legal insights and actions that have elevated the importance of a variety of issues directly effecting the future of the Lake.
In 2010, Don Paul received the award. Don is president of AvianWest, Inc, a bird and habitat conservation business. He is a career wildlife biologist having served 34 years in several positions for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and four years as the Great Basin Bird Conservation Region Coordinator. His career emphasis takes two directions, conservation biology with emphases in international community conservation linkages and avian conservation with experience in large-scale landscape bird monitoring.
