Ingrid Lyons

Interim Executive Director, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness

 

The Basics

Company Name: Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness aka Save the Boundary Waters
Location: Ely, MN
Founded:  1996
Full-Time Employees: 14
Products: Our mission is to protect and preserve wilderness and wild places, especially the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
Social: Instagram
Claim to Fame: Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness founded and leads the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, a national coalition of more than 350 businesses and organizations working to permanently protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the most popular Wilderness in the U.S., from copper mining


 

The Culture

The best thing about working at Save the Boundary Waters is:

Creative, energetic, and passionate coworkers + thinking about this beloved wild and beautiful place all day

When we’re not working, we’re:

Paddling, camping, cooking, fishing, skiing, volunteering, checking out a local brewery, basically anything outdoors unless we get mesmerized staring at our screens

What we’re reading:

Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Troop 6000 by Nikita Stewart, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, The Rise of the American Conservation Movement by Dorceta Taylor

What we’re listening to:

Podcasts like Dolly Parton’s America, Dope Labs or This Land , music like Glass Animals, Taylor Swift’s new album, or ABBA on repeat

If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:

Speak Loud for Wild Places

Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:

Protecting wilderness relies on public engagement which cannot be expected when people are disenfranchised, unwelcome, hurt, or tokenized due to their sexuality, race, age, ability, size, gender identity, gender expression, culture, religion, political affiliation, or anything else

Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:

Wilderness and the pursuit of its protection is welcoming and accessible to all: that the Boundary Waters has been permanently protected from copper mining and that everyone can be authentically themselves while safely enjoying and advocating for conservation of wild places