Who Are The Northwest Steelheaders?
The Northwest Steelheaders are a group of anglers unified in their desire to conserve the resource which they love. Founded in 1960, the mission of this nonprofit 501(c)3 organization is carried out by a team of two paid staff in Portland, Oregon, a dedicated board of directors, 14 chapters and over 1,500 dues paying members located in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Two bodies of leadership guide the organization. The Executive Committee is comprised of Board Officers, Regional Directors and Directors of special subject areas such as River Rights, Natural Resources, Education and Communications. This committee’s charge is to develop policy recommendations for the Board of Directors to consider who are comprised of the Executive Committee and Chapter presidents. All the participants are grassroots anglers with a passion for sport fishing and natural resources conservation.
The entire team is unified and guided by four principal directional themes:
- Advocating for fish and habitats.
- Protecting River Rights
- Reducing global climate change.
- Educating anglers and youth.
These themes offer strength and substance to all the organization’s policy efforts so that competing pursuits can be assigned a secondary role to these higher priorities.
Merging the four themes results in a template that succinctly captures the essence for goal development and yields this bright beacon for our organization to follow:
Seeking to achieve responsible and enjoyable sport angling with good access to healthy, abundant and sustainable fisheries in Oregon’s healthy watersheds.
From this overall goal, the following become directional mileposts for our journey:
- Advocate healthy watersheds with good fish habitat and clean water for fish and Oregon’s citizens.
- Help provide abundant, healthy and sustainable sport fisheries.
- Grow the Association of Northwest Steelheaders to allow us to be more effective toward our mission.
- Insure the public right to use of the beds and banks of navigable rivers.
- Grow the funding for our activities and the administration of these activities.
- Provide educational programs and materials to connect the public to fish, fish habitat and fishing, and the issues these subjects are facing.
- Give Oregonians an understanding of who the Association of Northwest Steelheaders are and what we are about to gain their general support.
- Cultivate the strengths of our organization and pursue areas of improvement to optimize our utilization of resources and maximize efficiency.
Please join us in our journey towards a sustainable future for the next generation…
Become a Northwest Steelheader Today