Member Spotlight Monday: Craig Springer

It’s “Member Spotlight Monday,” a weekly feature that celebrates our present—the gift of our talented current members and their ongoing excellence in outdoor communications. Today, we introduce Craig Springer:

Craig Springer and his daughter Willow backpacking in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in New Mexico last June.

1. Where were you born?
   Ohio. Six months later we were on the way back to New Mexico. Dad said we were on Rt. 66 somewhere on the plains the day Kennedy was killed. It was a trip we would make a few times for my dad’s work.
2. Where do you call home now?
   The piñon-juniper woods in Santa Fe County, New Mexico.
3. What’s your nickname?
   “Spaulding.”
4. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
   Heading to the New Mexico backcountry in September, fishing for Rio Grande cutthroat trout and hunting dusky grouse.
5. What is your profession/connection with outdoors communication?
   I am privileged to communicate the work of dedicated biologists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Southwest Region.
6. Why did you choose to become an outdoor communicator?
   I love words and love the outdoors; it’s a good marriage.
7. What are you most proud of in your career thus far?
   I discovered the native range of the White Sands pupfish and published a scientific journal paper as well as magazine articles about the rare desert fish.
8. What three words would your friends use to describe you?
   I’ve heard “frugal” because I drive a 21-year-old truck.
9. What is the best piece of advice you have received as an outdoor communicator?
   My rhetoric professor in grad school encouraged me to rub my nose in the prose. Learn from the masters. Read good writing. Emulate it.
10. When you head for the Great Outdoors, what is the one thing you do not leave home without?
    Indoors or out, I always have a pen. Never know a muse will visit.
11. What would you do if you won the lottery?
    The Hillsboro (NM) Historical Society’s Black Range Museum would get a huge chunk. I’d shore up our 125-year-old Hillsboro home, and then I’d give my kids enough to do something with, but not enough to do nothing.
12. Who do you most admire in your life and why?
    A Korean War veteran: Ernie Springer, United States Army, Second Infantry Division, 9th Reg., Baker Company. Purple Heart, Presidential Citation. Survived Bloody Ridge in Sept 1951—one of 20 men left in B Company. Shrapnel raked him pretty good on a steep hillside at Heartbreak Ridge a month later. No matter my station I will always look up to my late father who encouraged me to pursue a career in conservation. (Read more in Craig’s article, “Man of Iron”: http://www.sportingclassicsdaily.com/man-of-iron)
13. What was the last movie you saw?
    The Verdict.
14. What are your top three favorite books?
    Jerusalem Creek (Ted Leeson). We, the Living (Ayn Rand). In Time of Harvest (John Sinclair).
15. Can you juggle?
    Nope.
16. What is your favorite dessert?
    Milk’s favorite cookie, chocolate chip.
17. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
    I’d coat tyrants with scorpions and stinkbugs.
18. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
    Helping my daughter get through medical school or residency. She has her dreams and her mother’s intellect.
19. What is your favorite inspirational quote?
    “Longing is a treasury of the heart.” ~ St. Augustine
20. What do you like best about OWAA?
    It’s given me a chance to work with great writers and photographers such as my mentor and fellow New Mexican, the late Jack Samson, and others such as JR Absher, Jim Foster, Steve Wagner, Tonya, Ron and Gary Guidice and the Blue Heron folks, Chip Gross and Doug Stamm. I’m the richer for it all.

Thank you, Craig, for not only your answers to our questions, but also for being valued part of “The Voice of the Outdoors.”

If you are an OWAA member and wish to be featured in a future Member Spotlight Monday, send your answers to the above questions and a photograph of yourself enjoying the outdoors (in JPG format sized for the web) to Colleen Miniuk-Sperry at cms@owaa-oldsite.birchbarkmedia.com.

Not a member? Check us out at http://www.owaa-oldsite.birchbarkmedia.com.