About the Author

Greg Walcher is one of the most recognized and respected national leaders in natural resources policy. In addition to his popular blog, “Resources and Reality,” he writes a weekly newspaper column on western resources issues, and is the author of “Smoking Them Out: the Theft of the Environment and How to Take it Back,” now in its second printing. He is a frequent and popular speaker at conferences in the State and around the country.

Walcher is President of the Natural Resources Group, and a member of several other firms.  He serves as a senior associate in a global public affairs firm, The Stillwell Group, and a senior advisor to the respected environmental permitting firm of Dawson and Associates. He is also a policy adviser to the Heartland Institute, and a fellow at both the American Spectator and the Centennial Institute. He brings to his clients a lifetime of experience, institutional knowledge, contacts, and advocacy on natural resources and environmental policy and issues.  He specializes in issues related to energy, water, endangered species and wildlife, forest management, public lands and private property rights.

Walcher served in the Governor’s Cabinet, leading the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, a department of 2500 employees, 8 divisions, 14 boards and commissions, and a $180 million budget. Its jurisdiction includes wildlife, parks, water, forestry, public lands, oil and gas, minerals and geology. His national colleagues elected him president of the national organization of natural resources and environment cabinet secretaries, and he has been a national leader in conservation policy debates. Leveraging a decade of Capitol Hill experience with Senator Bill Armstrong, Walcher spent ten years as President and CEO of Club 20, a non-partisan, non-profit association of 75 cities, 20 counties, and hundreds of businesses, and individuals serving the interests of Western Colorado – a region larger than most states. The group’s budget and membership tripled during Walcher’s tenure through activism on important regional issues: energy, water, forest health, tourism, transportation, telecommunications and public lands. He also served on the national policy committee for the American Society of Association Executives.

In 2004, Walcher was the Republican nominee for Congress in Colorado’s 3rdDistrict, a race that attracted national media attention as the top targeted House race in America (over $8 million). He won a hotly-contested five-way primary and shattered previous Colorado records for congressional fund raising and organization.

Natural resource issues are also personal to Walcher, who grew up in the peach orchards of Western Colorado. His own orchard, direct marketing and fresh fruit shipping business, with customers in over 40 states, was once featured in Gourmet magazine as a cutting-edge example of quality niche marketing and high-altitude fruit production.