Biographical note

Wendy Louise Wilson was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1956, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She earned a degree in natural resources from the University of Michigan, then headed the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor for five years. In 1984, she became executive director of the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) in Boise, Idaho. In the late 1980s, she participated in the Friends of the Payette campaign, which prevented the construction of a dam on the Payette River. In 1990, she co-founded Idaho Rivers United and became its first executive director. Around 2000, she joined the River Network, a national environmental organization, then served as executive director of Idaho-based Advocates for the West from 2013 to 2015. From 2016 to 2019, she was executive director of the Snake River Alliance, which advocates for clean energy in Idaho.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Wilson in her interview; “Wendy Wilson named executive director of Snake River Alliance,” by IBR staff, Idaho Business Review, September 20, 016 (accessed November 2025) https://idahobusinessreview.com/2016/09/20/wendy-wilson-named-executive-director-of-snake-river-alliance/; Snake River Alliance newsletters, Winter 2018 and Summer 2019, (accessed November 2025) https://snakeriveralliance.org/newsletters/.

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