Wyoming Outdoor Council has a long history as a conservationist, having co-founded the Student Environmental Coalition at the University of Iowa as an undergraduate. Laurie has 17 years of experience working in the nonprofit and education sectors, including a stint at Westview Press, then a scholarly subsidiary of HarperCollins.

She was development director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council when she was tapped for the top job. To enhance her skills, she signed up for ICL’s Executive Director Leadership Program. 

"Wyoming ranks second in gas reserves nationally, and first in coal and uranium," Laurie says.  "Half of the state is public land, and more than half of that is already leased for energy exploration." In spite of providing so much of the nation's energy, the Wyoming Outdoor Council has been able to lead successful conservation efforts in Wyoming because it honors the traditions of Wyoming, recognizing that energy development is a core part of the economy but also that residents want to achieve balance in the state." 

Laurie says ICL helped her become a better listener and better able to understand deeply all constituencies involved in addressing an issue.  "We are careful to talk about conservation as a universally held value and as a bipartisan issue.  People in Wyoming share this value because they have a land ethic; they grew up spending a lot of time in the outdoors," says Laurie.

Laurie and her staff helped lead a broad coalition to advocate for land preservation-hundreds of people including local citizens who use the forest, hunters and anglers, ranchers, the tourism industry, elected officials, and regional and national conservationists.  The effort culminated in 2009 when President Obama signed the historic Wyoming Range Legacy Act into law, which set aside 1.2 million acres of the Bridger-Teton National Forest from future oil and gas drilling.

"ICL is a great resource for conservation leaders.  The program helped me become a stronger leader, it gave me the framework I needed to be an effective chief executive."