Staff Spotlight: Dan Whelan
As our Director of Government Affairs, Dan helps advance legislation in Oregon, Washington, and D.C. to address the wildfire crisis, advance clean energy, protect drinking water, and much more.
“Good people make good culture, and that leads to good jobs.”
How did your childhood influence your decision to work in sustainability?
I grew up broke in a wealthy Connecticut suburb of New York, slugging golf bags for the rich and powerful. Hearing Midnight Oil live and on the radio in the 80s and 90s stirred an interest in environmentalism, Indigenous rights, and liberal politics. The Oils sang about the importance of people and the environment, and it stuck.
How did your educational and career path lead you to Sustainable Northwest?
My family were western Irish immigrant farmers that came to Chicago and Boston for work. They landed public sector jobs in transit, law enforcement, and the public schools. So public service is a path I understand. I got a BA in English at the University of Connecticut and spent less than one year in corporate New York before leaving for Teach For America in Houston. Graduate School at University of Texas in Austin, Molly Ivins columns, and then two years at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C. tripped an old interest in politics and government. After meeting a girl from Oregon and moving West, I found work in the Oregon congressional delegation for 20 years. Politics in Oregon means the environment, and that landed me at Sustainable Northwest.
What do you like most about working at Sustainable Northwest? The people. I worked with the people of Sustainable Northwest for years through my work with the Oregon congressional delegation. Folks at Sustainable Northwest always cared about their work. And now that I’m here, I see that even more. Good people make good culture, and that leads to good jobs.
Passions outside of work: First and foremost, my kids. Beyond that… not much since politics seems to suck the life out of anything else. For a while, pick-up basketball helped, but bad knees and worse pandemic set that aside.
One thing you think is overrated: Oregon breweries and IPAs. (KIDDING…I love them both. I just stopped drinking this year and miss them dearly.)
Favorite thing to do on a day off: Float the Willamette River from behind my house in Springfield to Alton Baker Park in Eugene with kids and friends.
Favorite place in the PNW: Waldo Lake, Shadow Bay
Book recommendation: Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Cats or dogs? Both!
