Today we’d like to introduce you to Brewster Rhoads
Hi Brewster, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was raised as a “free range kid” in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Those were the days when my parents said to come home when I heard the dinner bell ring. Playing “Army” in the woods, building forts and making dams in my local creek were my definition of fun.
As a child of the 60’s I became very involved in the antiwar and environmenal movements in high school and college. I attended the first Earth Day in Philadelphia in 1970 on the steps of the Art Museum made famous by Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky”. As a college student in Western Massachusetts, I hiked the mountains and fished the rivers while organizing demonstrations and lobbying elected officials to end the war, pass the Clean Water Act and impeach Nixon. That work took me to Capitol Hill where I continued my activism around peace and international human rights issues until I moved with my wife to Cincinnati in 1980 to work for Ohio Citizen Action, a grassroots citizen lobby organization. Since then I have managed over 150 candidate and issue campaigns in Ohio while serving on nonprofit boards for environmental and social justice organizations. I worked for two Ohio Governors and was the Executive Director of Green Umbrella, an environmental nonprofit working to make Greater Cincinnati one of the most environmentally sustainable regions in the country, Since officially retiring in 2015, I have been able to devote even more time to board service with Adventure Crew, the Ohio River Way, the Mill Creek Alliance and the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund.
I was introduced to kayaking by my brother-in-law who was the world’s top rated canoe racer during the 1980’s and on the U.S. Olympic whitewater team in 1992 in Barcelona and in 1996 in Atlanta. So I guess you could say I married into the sport. Over the past 45 years, I figure I kayaked over 30,000 miles, mostly on the Ohio River and its tributaries. One year I recorded 326 days of paddling – often times at night after work – trying to set a personal record. Talk about compulsive!
For me, kayaking is the ultimate stress reliever. It’s a great physical workout. And a wonderful way to connect to the natural world. Seeing birds soar, fish jump, beaver slapping their tails and even deer swimming 1/4 mile across the river are moments of joy.
Every day is a different experience as the wind, current, air & water temperature, clouds or sun all vary.
So over the years I have come to experience the Ohio River as a living and every changing entity. It seems alive to me. The idea that I could just keep paddling down stream to the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico (yes, that it what I will keep calling it) and potentially through the Panama Canal makes me feel connected to the rest of the country and the world.
I think of myself as a “cheerleader” for the Ohio and a protector of it. I get by back up when I hear people with no knowledge trashing the river as being dirty and dangerous when it is in fact much cleaner and safer that folks think.
In 2002, over a few beers with several paddling friends, we came up with the idea of organizing a 6 mile paddling event on the Ohio. The idea was to invite folks we knew who loved the sport to join us. We had 99 advance registrations on our primitive website and ended up with over 250 the day of the event. Since that first year, the Ohio River Paddlefest has grown into the largest paddling event in the country with 1,900-2,000 participants now paddling 9 miles on the Ohio on the first Saturday in August. Paddlefest is now run by and benefits Adventure Crew, a wonderful nonprofit that gets city teens out into nature year round to paddle, fish, hike, bike, climb, ski and more. It is one of the largest organizations of its kind in the country. While I continue to serve as the chair of the event, we have an amazing team of hard working volunteers who do the hard work that raises well over $100,000 each year for Adventure Crew.
One of my motivations to start Paddlefest was to provide an opportunity for people to have a personal and intimate experience with the Ohio. Nothing connects one to the beauty and majesty of one of the largest rivers in American than paddling it. If you want folks to care about and take action to protect a river, they need to experience it up close. Then their advocacy becomes personal. Paddlefest has provided that opportunity for over 35,000 people over the past 23 years.
In 2018 I helped to launch an organization called the Ohio River Way designed to create a water trail for paddlers along a 300 mile stretch of the Ohio from Ironton, OH to West Point, KY just downstream from Louisville. Over the past 7 years we have built an organization with 120 dues paying cities, villages, counties, tourism bureaus, park districts and state agencies to promote recreation, tourism and economic development along this historic stretch of the Ohio. I am now the Board Chair and thrilled that the Ohio River Way is engaging communities, elected officials, paddlers, boaters, anglers and cyclists alike to celebrate and promote the Ohio.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Time and resources. Always huge obstacles to be overcome.
Also the attitude by many that you cannot make change. That it is too hard to influence public policy, build an organization with clout, get elected in a conservative district/community, etc. Motivating people to take action when they feel it is futile is a huge challenge in all the work I have been doing over the years. So the only way i have found to deal with that is to 1) help people connect in a personal way to the vision of what could be and 2) engage folks in co-designing a strategy and accompanying action steps to bring that vision to fruition.
So with Paddlefest, it is always a challenge to recruit and engage new volunteers each year to help pull the event off. Growing the volunteer leadership team requires a lot of personal recruitment (often over cold beers or coffee), social activities that develop a feeling of “community”, recognition of folks who go the extra mile and a shared feeling of collective success.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I have spent most of my professional life as a political and community organizer. That ranged from spending 12 years working for two Ohio Governors as their Southwest Ohio regional director to managing over 150 candidate and ballot issue campaigns. Managing and consulting on campaigns is a facinating way to get to know what makes a community tick. You have to understand what voters care about. What makes them mad. What they love about their community and what they want changed. Who they trust and who they think is “full of it”.
The hardest thing is developing a message that resonates with the voters, at least those you need on your side come election day. The second hardest thing is getting the candidate or ballot issue leader to follow the plan and totally buy into the strategy. The third challenge is figuring out how to deliver that message in engaging and compellling ways so that the voters you target spit back that message as they enter the polling booth.
It has become clear to me that there is a huge benefit in digging in deeply over time in one place. You get to know the key players in the political, business, nonprofit and activist communities. You learn about the history and local dynamics of dozens of communities ranging in size from small villages to sprawling townships to major cities. You develop relationships with key players whose insight and advice is invaluable. And you know what pollsters, printers, designers, media creators, digital consultants and field organizers deliver top flight service.
I have found that those relationships in the politcal world can be very beneficial to my service on nonprofit boards. Access to key elected officials, political party leadership, civic activists and business leaders helps when it comes to lobbying for funding, recruiting sponsors for events, getting endorsements for community initiatives, and raising money.
So in summary, with 45 years of experience over time in the same community I have learned how to get things done, who to engage, who to avoid, how to fly under the radar when necessary and most importantly who to give the credit to.
What matters most to you? Why?
Knowing that I have done my best to make the world a little more just, peaceful, healthy, equitable and sustainable. I know this sounds a bit idealistic. But it is what drives me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ohioriverpaddlefest.org and www.OhioRiverWay.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OHRiverPaddlefest/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brewster-rhoads-8b2637/
- Other: https://www.ohioriverway.org/
