Robert Whitney Schoning was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1923. He attended the University of Washington, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fisheries in 1944. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was deployed to China after the end of the war. In 1947, he began working as a biologist for the Oregon Fish Commission. During the Korean War, he was recalled to active duty and was deployed to Korea. In 1971, he moved to Washington, D.C., and began working for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). He served as director of NMFS from 1973 until 1978. He then returned to Oregon, where he joined the Oregon State University Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. He became a private consultant in 1982, and retired in 1986. Schoning married twice and had four children. He died in 2020.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Schoning in his interview; Bob Schoning Oral History Interview, by Mike Dicianna, November 5, 2014 (accessed February, 2026), https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/oh150/schoning/index.html; Schoning’s obituary in the Albany Democrat-Herald, February 25, 2020, Page A5.

In 1990, the Washington State Historical Society, Portland State University, and Washington State University Vancouver formed the Center for Columbia River History (CCRH) to promote research, education, and public programs about the Columbia River Basin. The center operated for more than 20 years. Among its work was the Columbia River Basin Project (CRBP), an umbrella project supported by a 1997 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The CRBP included online exhibits, oral histories, and high school curricula about the history of the region's land, wildlife, and people.

As part of the project, CCRH partnered with the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program, headed by Jim Strassmaier, to gather interviews. Oral Historian Michael O’Rourke spearheaded the Northwest Power Planning Council Oral History Series, while Oral Historian Clark Hansen oversaw the Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series, with aid from two Portland State University research assistants, Dannette Rowe and Tania Hyatt. In addition, CCRH conducted oral history interviews for a third project, Columbia Communities, and later donated the interview recordings and transcripts to the OHS Research Library, where they are designated SRC 1.

The Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series culminated in 59 interviews (approximately 184 recorded hours) conducted between 1998 and 2001. Interviewees included Native people, activists, farmers, conservationists, fishers, and others who contributed to the shaping of policies that have had, and continue to have, significant impacts on the Columbia River Basin in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. The interviewees opposed policies by agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and advocated for alternative visions of management and use of the Columbia River.

Sources: “Voices of the Columbia,” by Bryan White, PSU Magazine, Fall 1998, Page 17; Center for Columbia River History brochure, undated (circa 2000); Center for Columbia River History website (accessed July 10, 2025, partially archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250215175329/https://columbiariverhistory.org/; email correspondence with Donna Sinclair, 2025; email correspondence with Tania Hyatt, 2025; Oregon Historical Society Research Library internal documentation.