Heroes of Conservation: 2008 Finalist

Andy Batcho, The Salmon Engineer
Retired Electrical Engineer, Seattle, Wa.

Andy Batcho joined Trout Unlimited in 1981 and helped establish the Des Moines salmon chapter in suburban Seattle in 1983. He soon made it his mission to restore coho and chum salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout to the Puget Sound area. Working within the urban communities, he has raised salmon numbers by 40 percent, preserved saltwater marshland, and reestablished local streams to sustain fish populations.

I was raised on the water. My grandfather built a wooden bassinet that balanced on the gunnels of my parents' boat, and my mother used to boil lake water to heat my bottle in. They never made a big deal about conservation, but they instilled that ethic in me from a young age. They were always working with their local rod and gun club to create rabbit and bird habitat and plant trees.

After I graduated from college, I got a job with Boeing as an electrical engineer and moved to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to work on the Apollo program. As it happened, the first launch I worked on was Apollo 11. President Kennedy said, "Go to the moon." And we did. We didn't have the technology at the time, but we developed it, and we accomplished what everyone thought was impossible.

I moved to Seattle four years later. When I joined Trout Unlimited, I started wondering how I could use my abilities in a conservation setting. As a manager at Boeing, I learned that even though you might not know everything, if you surround yourself with people who specialize in a certain area, anything can be done.

We studied the streams, got help from area wildlife biologists, and worked with the communities to develop plans that everyone-both people and fish-would benefit from. When you're trying to reestablish streams in populated areas, you need to get the community behind it. You can't just go in there and tear up the area to make the riffle-to-pool ratios needed to support spawning salmon. After years of work, drawings, and presentations, we were able to make the local streams into not only viable salmon habitat but also an asset to the community. I said we would save the salmon, and while we didn't have the technology, we developed it, and now we're accomplishing what everyone thought was impossible.

See Previous Heroes from:

Finalists Howard Kern William Edwards Derek Fong Billy Sandifer Mark Taylor Jon Hillmer Previous Months November September August July June May April March February

Finalists Hod Kosman Chad Pregracke Andy Batcho Jim Tripp and Sandra Millan-Tripp Dale Rollins Charles Lane Previous Months November September August July June May April March February

Finalists Brian Maguire Joan Vernon Philip Babe Harlan Kredit Chris Scalley Robert Miles Previous Months November September August July June May April March February

Finalists Paul Morrow Jim Cummins Jeff Olson Ronnie Luster Steve Simmons Chris Tompkins Previous Months September August July June May April March February January