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A few months after starting at NRDC, I was asked to give a major presentation on communications at an NRDC Board retreat in Sundance, Utah. As to be expected, I was nervous, but I had worked hard on the presentation and felt I had the situation under control.
Until Robert Redford arrived.
Words cannot adequately describe the shattered nerves, the spike of self-doubt, the absolute terror. I remember walking to a big picture window at the Sundance conference center to pull myself together. And, yes, I did spend some time staring into space wondering if I’d be able to get my old job back if I were to just walk away.
The terror turned out to be completely misplaced. Along with the rest of the NRDC Board, Bob listened politely as I worked through my presentation and then delivered his own impassioned and complementary speech to his fellow trustees about how NRDC needed to start relying less on words and more on video and pictures to tell its environmental stories.
He has followed up on his initial thoughts with great generosity over the last five years, helping us launch our NRDC films team and appearing in many of our video products.
His most recent contribution comes in the form of three videos, two short pieces that we’ve released in the last few weeks, and the most recent, “The Fix,” a “mini-doc” that we sent out on June 4th. In The Fix, Bob speaks movingly about the Gulf disaster and how we need to break our national addiction to oil. He also describes how his environmental views were shaped by working in the oil fields of Southern California as a teenager. (He also gave us a great photo from those days, which you can see in the video.)
I’m really proud of the NRDC team of Daniel Hinerfeld, Lisa Whiteman, Kashina Kessler and Sherry Goldberg that worked with Bob to realize his vision. Please help us spread Bob’s critical message by sharing this video with all of your friends on Facebook and other social networks.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.
Phil Gutis is Director of Communications for the Natural Resource Defense Council in New York City. NRDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment, people and animals. NRDC was founded in 1970 and is comprised of more than 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts, with more than one million members and e-activists.
