Where I grew up and the people in my life have both shaped how I view water and environmental issues and influenced how I operate as an academic and a scientist.
First, where I grew up has had significant influence on my life. I grew up in Omak, Washington – a small town in the eastern foothills of the Cascades in north central Washington. My parents were both educators. We lived outside of town on a five-acre alfalfa farm, with two horses and five to ten cows, and large orchards surrounding our property. Looking back, my childhood was great: growing up down the road from your friends, having plenty of sagebrush and apple orchards to run through, and a loving family. Many of my friends parents owned orchards, so I grew up hearing about their struggles with water issues and fruit commodity markets. Later I realized these formative experiences in a rural community were unique among many of my peers. One memory I have from college demonstrates this – when I was a freshman in college, I mentioned that the snowpack was low and that it would be difficult for orchardists and farmers due to less water for irrigation, and my friend from Seattle said that the impact of low snowpack on people hadn’t crossed his mind.
Another impact my upbringing has had is through my dad. He was a school district administrator. To say he had to deal with a wide variety of “characters” would be an understatement. But something I realized later, is no matter who they were, my dad always treated each person with dignity and respect. Environmental issues are often bitterly contentious. It is easy to see someone who has a different opinion as the “other” and vilify them. But I always strive to treat everyone with fairness and respect, and really understand where they are coming from – and I owe that to my dad!
Ryan Niemeyer, Ph.D. 