2025 Oberholtzer Award Winners Honored by Nahant Marsh

Saturday March 8, 2025 the 6th Annual Oberholzter Awards were hosted by the Nahant Marsh organization at The Bend event center in East Moline, Illinois. This year's award winners are listed below along with more information about why each was nominated and chosen for the award. 

Nahant Marsh’s Oberholtzer Awards were started to recognize local people who have dedicated their lives (or will dedicate their lives) to protecting our natural world. Often times these people go unnoticed, or have been largely forgotten for their contributions. The awards are a way to recognize their hard work and leadership in conservation, to bring awareness to the causes they believe in, and to inspire others to take action.

The awards are named for Ernest Carl “Ober” Oberholtzer, a Davenport, Iowa native, Harvard-educated explorer who was a founding member of the Wilderness Society. He was instrumental in protecting the wilderness and lakes of Northern Minnesota. Mr. Oberholtzer died on June 6, 1977, in International Falls, Minnesota, and is buried in Oakdale Cemetery in Davenport. To learn more about Oberholtzer’s life, click here.

FUTURE CONSERVATION LEADERSHIP

Name: Dillan Tholin

Organization/School: Illinois State University

Dillan Tholin became a Junior Zookeeper at Niabi Zoo in the summer of 2019. Dillan’s duties required him to spend most of his time speaking with Zoo guests about our animals and their conservation and became a certified interpreter in all areas of the Zoo, a high achievement for any volunteer. Our program requires our Junior Zookeepers to perform a minimum of forty hours of service during the summer season. Dillan quickly fulfilled his program requirement of forty hours of service and he finished the 2019 season with 252 hours, more than any other Junior Zookeeper in the history of the program.

During the pandemic of 2020, volunteer programs were suspended. In 2021, as volunteers were able to return, Dillan was one of the first to come back. He began to volunteer alongside our Zookeepers. Participating in animal care had never been offered to a high-school student before but his proven dedication set him apart. He also became a seasonal employee working as a building attendant regulating how many people could enter our indoor exhibits. In doing so, he provided guests with educational information about the animals and answered their questions.

Dillan continued to volunteer in 2022 in the animal care areas with the Zookeepers. The staff was so impressed with his work ethic, they appealed to the management staff to hire him. Thus, Dillan became the youngest person ever to be hired as a Zookeeper. Dillan worked to educate Zoo guests through keeper chats, guest interactions, speaking to Zoo Camps, and assisting with Junior Zookeeper training which proved to be very inspirational to the new volunteers. He was also trained in the most restricted areas for Zookeepers such as carnivores, primates, and where conservation breeding of our most endangered animals was occurring. Dillan is a sophomore at Iowa State University where he is majoring in Animal Ecology with an emphasis on Wildlife Care. On his school breaks, he returns to work at the Zoo.

Since 2019, Dillan has volunteered 690 hours and has worked 2707 hours for the Zoo. That total of 3397 hours shows the dedication Dillan has toward animals, their care, and conservation. Dillan is deserving of this award because his enthusiasm and eagerness for conservation education and animal welfare has led him to go the extra mile. He has been able to educate Zoo guests about environmental conservation and he has also learned the impact of exceptional animal welfare on breeding endangered species. Each department at Niabi Zoo from Conservation Education, Animal Care, Guest Services, Maintenance, and all of upper management know Dillan. We are all very impressed and thrilled to have watched him develop in to a caring, well-balance, experienced, driven person who will surely make a huge impact as a future conservation leader.

PRESENT CONSERVATION LEADERSHIP

Name: Tammy Becker

Organization/School: Living Lands & Waters

Tammy as she has done so much, in so many ways to move the environmental needle in our area and throughout the Midwest. She is an example of a person intensely involved in up-close operations and also from a far in acquiring funds and organizing incredibly successful programs (MillionTrees, Educational Workshops, River Cleanups).

To some extent, the Ober awards are given to highlight people whose efforts are both impactful and, to some extent, are under-recognized by our community. Tammy is a unique force, whose contributions deserve to be recognized.

Tammy is a farm girl from southern Illinois. She earned her college degree at WIU, and shortly afterwards was an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in Denver, Colorado, and then joined the Peace Corps in Kingston, Jamaica. In 2002, Tammy joined Living Lands & Waters (LL&W) as a barge crew member. She immediately showed herself as an exemplary contributor with her energy, ability to learn and to collaborate. Her performance on and off the barge led her to assume higher levels of responsibility in LL&W. During her eighteen years with LL&W, she:

· Conceptualized and developed LL&W’s first educational programming-Big River Educational Workshops that featured 92 days of innovative, on-the-river workshops with over 1,700 educators and interested citizens participating;

· Coordinated and managed LL&W’s MillionTrees Project from 2016-2020 resulting in over half a million trees being planted across 30 states. She also enlisted over 5,000 students, volunteers and AmeriCorps NCCC teams to assist in tree wrapping, harvest and preparation;

· Coordinated over 150 large and small scale river clean ups and tree planting events across the US — from the Twin Cities to New Orleans and as far east at New York City. To accomplish this, she recruited over 10,000 volunteers from community businesses, schools, churches, clubs, etc; and

· Authored and managed over $4,000,000 in funded grants and proposals through corporate sponsorship, corporate and private foundations and city and state agencies to fund these efforts.

It was not surprising that Tammy and Chad fell in love which led to marriage in 2011. She and Chad formed a dynamic duo that is as rare as it is inspiring. Chad would be the first to admit so much of the credit that goes to him is attributable to the continuous, conscientious, and creative work of Tammy.

Today, Tammy is CEO of Green Current Solutions, a local company Chad and she formed that will transform millions of pounds of plastics into useful and reusable products each year. This project is beyond a huge “challenge”, but the two of them have harnessed their unbounded enthusiasm, risk tolerance, and ability to learn to achieve an even higher level of service to our community and the earth.

PAST CONSERVATION LEADERSHIP

Name: Jerry Neff

Organization/School: Sierra Club Eagle View Group

Jerry Neff truly walked the talk with passion, exemplifying the mission of the Sierra Club, by exploring and enjoying nature, protecting the environment, and encouraging others to do the same. Jerry set an example in his daily life in ways such as always having a fuel efficient or hybrid car, adding a passive solar porch to his home, installing a permeable driveway, and mowing with a manual reel mower.

Jerry wrote the following in a Sierra Club blog: “The year was 1981. Ronald Reagan had just moved into the Oval Office. James Watt was the Secretary of the Interior and environmentalists were quite unhappy. One day, I found an invitation in my mailbox to join the Sierra Club and I signed up. I was home the day my young neighbor knocked on our door and told me there was an organizational meeting to start a Sierra Club group in the Quad Cities. The next week, we met in the Davenport library and the Eagle View Group was born.”

During the next 37 years Jerry served in many capacities including: Eagle View Group Executive Committee member, 1981-2018; Sierra Club Iowa Chapter Chair and Executive Committee member, 2008-2010. He led many hiking, climbing, biking, canoeing, and skiing outings, both locally and to destinations such as Wisconsin, Colorado, Wyoming, California, Montana, and New Hampshire.  Jerry believed if people enjoyed nature they would want to protect it.

Jerry served on The Sierra Club National Committee for National Forest Protection from 1999 to 2007. He loved the national forests where he hiked and camped for many years. The Committee was successful in getting bipartisan co-sponsorship of Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Jim Leach (R-IA) for a bill to end commercial logging in national forests.

Jerry also became involved with the Cool Cities campaign, which was an initiative after President George W Bush’s administration failed to support the Kyoto treaty on global warming in 2001. Cool Cities encouraged mayors to put into place energy conservation solutions in their cities. Jerry, along with other local environmentalists, was successful in signing on Davenport, Moline, and Rock Island to the Cool Cities initiative.

Kathy Wine from River Action reflected that Jerry “taught us how to care.” He assisted River Action with projects that helped residents appreciate our mighty Mississippi River. Jerry became involved with Ride the River very soon after its inception in 1984; for many years, he served on the planning committee and took on a variety of roles for the events. He also traveled to Washington to lobby for clean water. Jerry rode his bicycle whenever possible and advocated for the bike trail along the river near Riverdale, Iowa, working in conjunction with River Action and Alcoa staff for its completion.

Jerry was a role model in his devotion to protecting the environment in our local area and our country, and was enthusiastic about whatever environmental issue he championed. He would have been honored to be considered for this prestigious award.

NAHANT ACHIEVEMENT

Name: Kathy Wine

Organization/School: River Action

Kathy Wine is the Executive Director of River Action, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the environmental, economic, and cultural vitality of the Mississippi River and its riverfront in the Quad Cities region. She co-founded River Action in 1984 and assumed the role of Executive Director a decade later.

Kathy is force of nature! Under Kathy's leadership, River Action has initiated numerous projects, including the lighting of the Centennial Bridge, the development of the QC Waterfront Master Plan, "Ride the River", Taming of the Slough, Floatzilla, the Quad City Water Trail Map, the Upper Mississippi River Conference, and the QC Water Taxi, just to name a few.

Kathy was also the driving force behind saving Nahant Marsh. In the early 1990’s, Nahant Marsh’s future was in question. Kathy’s ability to bring people together for a common cause and her vision for Nahant Marsh led to the development of a Master Plan, an EPA superfund clean-up in 1998-1999, and the creation of Nahant Marsh Education Center on October 16, 2000. Kathy continues to serve on the Nahant Marsh Board of Directors and her guidance through the years has allowed Nahant Marsh to flourish.

Through her dedication and vision, Kathy has significantly contributed to fostering a deeper connection between the Quad Cities community and the Mississippi River, promoting environmental stewardship and sustainable practices.