Deanna Kavanaugh-Jones is an eco-champion. From an early age she developed a passion for the outdoors. Her strong focus on conservation and preservation is the direct result of early exposure to beautiful and wild places. During her youngest years Deanna spent her time on the heals of her father, a National Geographic photographer, in places like Yosemite, Zion National Park, Point Reyes, and Sequoia National Forest. It was her first trip down the Grand Canyon when she was 18 that truly invoked her concern for   environmental issues. It was not only the shear beauty of the river and its landscape, but the stories she learned about the leadership and courage of environmentalists such as David Brower and Martin Litton. Learning of their work, to save the Colorado River from more dams, truly inspired her and had a profound impact on her life.

After that river trip Deanna went on to train and work as a whitewater raft guide and has worked on rivers in California, Utah, and Arizona. Deanna and I currently live on the South Fork American River where we work as caretakers for Environmental Traveling Companions. ETC is a non-profit rafting organization whose purpose is to make the outdoors accessible to all individuals. Their mission is to take people with disabilities and inner city youth on the river. We work on the property and live in a small cabin built with recycled wood and powered by a solar system. The setting in which we live is one that, I know, inspires Deanna to help protect beautiful and wild places.

For the past three years Deanna has been working with The Forest Group, a small executive recruiting firm that serves the outdoor industry. From her first day on the job she was introduced to The Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to engage outdoor businesses to protect threatened wild-lands for their habitat and recreational values. The Alliance is a coalition of outdoor industry companies that disburses its collective annual membership dues to grassroots environmental organizations. Adam Forest, the Partner at The Forest Group sits as the board chair of the Alliance. While attending her first Outdoor Retailer, Deanna along with four other individuals where inspired by the words of writer and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams, who was the keynote speaker at that years Conservation Alliance membership meeting. Terry told all the individuals under 40 to stand up in the audience. She asked this group, as the next generation of environmental stewards, what they planned to do for conservation and what they envision environmentalist to look like. Deanna, Berne Broudy, Liz Ferrin, Brook Shinsky and Jen Barker, individuals coming from different outdoor industry companies, came together and decided to answer Terry’s question.

These five women along with Krissy Moehl, from The Conservaiton Alliance, created ConservationNEXT. ConservationNEXT is the outreach arm of the Alliance and is working to engage individuals from the outdoor industry in the efforts of conservation groups and non-profits around the country. ConservationNEXT focuses on conservation both online and on the ground. The website www.conservationnext.com is a social networking site which engages individuals in the outdoor industry, and beyond, in the conservation efforts of their choice. Each grantee of Conservation Alliance has a profile on the site, and can post action alerts and updates to that profile. At the same time, individuals (or NEXTers) build personal profiles and choose grantees about whom they would like to learn more. Each time a grantee posts an update or action alert, it goes directly to any person who has endorsed that organization.

On the ground, ConservationNEXT has started their Backyard Collectives, a roaming volunteer event that brings together outdoor industry employees and environmental conservation organizations for a day of hands on conservation work. Deanna was one of the key organizers for their first event in the Bay Area. This groundbreaking event brought together 7 outdoor companies for a day of environmental service work. Employees from The North Face, Camelbak, Clifbar, REI, Mountain Hardwear, Ahnu Footwear, and Wilderness Press joined together at Martin Luther King Shoreline Park, in Oakland California. This group of volunteers planted hundreds of native plants and cleaned up over one hundred pounds of garbage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S03vPX5RYw

Beyond Deanna’s volunteer work for ConservationNEXT she also serves as a Board member for Wilderness Institute for Leadership Development (WILD), a startup nonprofit focused on getting youth into the outdoors and building future environmental stewards.

ConservationNEXT and WILD both follow the mantra “act locally think globally”. This has always been a theme for Deanna’s life. Beyond her volunteer efforts with these two organizations Deanna is currently working with a group of individuals in her hometown to generate solutions for a sustainable community.  

Deanna spends a great deal of her time volunteering for a variety of environmental efforts as well as trying to practice what she believes in by living an environmentally conscious lifestyle. Overall Deanna spends on average 25 hours a week (see time chart below for more details) as an eco champion-

Deanna’s Enviro Weekly Average of Hours:

ConservationNEXT  10

ETC Caretake             7

WILD                         3

GoLocal                      3

Misc. Enviro Acts       2

TOTAL                      25 Hours