Hard to believe, but Grand Canyon River Guides has reached its 10th birthday. Who'd have thought that such a wild bunch could not only hang together this long, but actually do some worthwhile projects.
In 1987, Kenton Grua managed to cajole a small nucleus of non-joiners into some kind of God-forbidden alliance. What would it be? A union? Some kind of environmental group? Or maybe just an excuse to get together to celebrate life in the off-season? Everybody had their own concept. But that didn't matter so much. What mattered is that boatmen got together to start gcrg.
The Glen Canyon Dam eis was about to fire up and river-runners needed a platform from which to say their piece. Founding President Grua got things off the ground during the first critical couple of years. Tom Moody forged positive relations with the nps and the outfitters and helped initiate cooperative resource management trips. Moody raised the organization to prominence by pushing the Glen Canyon Dam eis process and passage of the Grand Canyon Protection Act. Subsequent presidents took on many important tasks: Brad Dimock transformed the occasional newsletter into a handsome quarterly journal; Shane Murphy fended off the increasing bureaucratic onslaught on the river experience; Lew Steiger mended fences on the Constituency Panel, developed the Courtesy Flyer, and started oral history interviews; and Jeri Ledbetter–in addition to creating a large, smoothly running organization from a shoebox full of notes and receipts– raised critical awareness of outside impacts on the river experience with her work on overflight control and Canyon Forest Village gateway community issues.
These are just some of the many issues gcrg people volunteered countless days, weeks, months–even years–to work on. Other guides served on the board and along with various other volunteers, supported further improvement of the annual Guides Training Seminar, the Adopt-a-Beach program, the Whale Foundation, the Grand Canyon General Management Plan, air quality, river guide wages and benefits, gcrg archives, industry-wide recycling and more. All of these efforts, and the many contributions from our members, have created a fine organization with worthwhile goals and achievements that we can all be proud of.
What about the next ten years? Well, right off the bat there's the revision of the Colorado River Management Plan and participation in the Adaptive Management Program for the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. We've discovered a hotbed of passion for Grand Canyon in this community, lots of great energy. No one knows better what needs to be done, than we who live in Grand Canyon. No one cares more. Our job is to provide a voice and direction for all people out there who are committed to protecting Grand Canyon and enhancing the visitor experience.
We continue to be wide open for more involvement by guides or general members in the organization. Please come to a board meeting (generally the first Monday of each month), get involved in a project, or run for office.
Meanwhile, we owe a big cheer to those who kept this ball rolling the past 10 years. It's nice to feel like we're part of something bigger than ourselves. The pay stinks (there is none), but you just can't beat that warm and fuzzy feeling. Thanks to all of you for your continued support.

Andre Potochnik