Jeff Hickman, owner of business member Fish the Swing, is a volunteer for nonprofit partner Native Fish Society, working as a river steward on Oregon’s Nehalem River for more than 11 years. In that time, the NFS has ended harmful dredge mining in over 20,000 miles of essential salmon habitats in Oregon, helped secure protections for 101,000 acres of public lands from strip mining in southwest Oregon and secured Scenic Waterway protections for the Nehalem River. Aside from showing up for meetings, hearings and planning sessions and marshalling volunteers for surveys and restoration projects, Hickman’s success as a wild fish activist is simple: combine the gift of gab with an insistently positive attitude. “The secret,” he explains, “is talking to your neighbor and getting to know people in your community—that’s grassroots activism.”
