Pregracke, Chad 1974-

PERSONAL:

Born December 4, 1974, in Silvis, IL; son of Gary (an educator) and KeeKee (an educator) Pregracke. Education: Attended college. Hobbies and other interests: Skateboarding, snowboarding, snow skiing, water skiing.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Living Lands and Waters, 17624 Route 84 N., East Moline, IL 61244. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Environmentalist and writer. Living Lands and Waters, East Moline, IL, founder and president, 1998—. Has been profiled in periodicals and on television, including the biography, Chad Pregracke: River Rescuer, WQPT, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Jefferson Award for Public Service, 2002; Social Entrepreneurship Award, Manhattan Institute of Public Policy, 2003, for efforts in bringing together volunteers to clean up America's rivers; honorary doctorate, St. Ambrose University, 2003, for work in education and the environment; Quad-Cities Area Leaders under 40 award, Black Hawk College Foundation, 2004; "What's Right with the Region!" award, FOCUS St. Louis; Achievement in Conservation award, Hannah Caldwell Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, 2005; Environmental Stewardship Award, National Mississippi River Parkway Commission, 2005; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Award (NOAA); Governor Rod R. Blagojevich award; People Are Today's Heroes (PATH) Award; Quad Citizen of the Year, Best of the Quad Cities 2005 River Cities' Readers Poll, 2005.

WRITINGS:

(With Jeff Barrow) From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2007.

Also author of a weekly column for the Quad City Times in Iowa and Illinois.

SIDELIGHTS:

Chad Pregracke grew up literally a few feet from the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois. "If I wasn't fishing, I was diving for mussels, and if I wasn't doing either of those, I was just goofing off," Pregracke told Kathy Love in an interview on the Missouri Conservationist Web site. "But I was always at the river."

It was Pregracke's love of the Mississippi that led him in his early twenties to start cleaning up the river on his own. This small start eventually led him to recruit a few helpers as his crew and then establish the Living Lands and Waters foundation. Since then he has trained thousands of volunteers and also garnered corporate sponsorship to clean up more than 1,200 miles of shoreline and collect millions of pounds of garbage. The foundation has also furthered its scope to include the Ohio River. Pregracke's efforts have led to numerous television appearances, including a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) biography, and to receiving the Jefferson Award, the U.S. version of the Nobel Prize for Public Service.

Pregracke collaborated with Jeff Barrow to tell his story in From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers. Written in the first person, the book begins with Pregracke growing increasingly disgruntled with the amount of garbage that he sees accumulating in his area of the Mississippi River. When he is nineteen, he notices a yacht with people partying on it as they take in the beauty of the river. The only problem is that they are moored next to a pile of rusted-out barrels. Recalling the incident in an interview for the Grist Web site, the author noted: "I estimate the fifty or sixty barrels had been there for at least forty years. That's when I decided I was going to do something." Not intimidated by his lack of connections, his long-haired appearance, or his age, Pregracke begins to call government agencies but to no avail. Undaunted, he decides to seek corporate sponsorship. Going through the local phone book alphabetically, the author is able to recruit one corporate sponsor, the Alcoa Company. Although the support is relatively small, Pregracke is on his way. The book chronicles Pregracke's adventures as he encounters a host of colorful characters, has a near-death experience, and comes across what he thinks may be a haunted swamp. In ad- dition, a portrait of the Mississippi River is provided, from its natural history to Indian lore to the important role the river has played throughout American history.

In a review of From the Bottom Up, a contributor to the Saturday Evening Post noted: "In a cynical, grab-what-you-can-get age, … his simply told story of one man making a difference should be required reading for every student in America and for everybody else, too." Jodi Mitchell, wrote in the School Library Journal: "Educational and inspiring for budding environmentalists, it will also hold appeal for nature lovers, river rats, and the Huck Finn inside all of us."

In an interview with Elizabeth Janicek in Radish magazine, the author recounted why he decided to write a book about his environmental journey, noting that he was starting to forget all that happened. The author went on: "I thought, it's been ten years, it feels like the right time to do something like this. But the main reason is to let people know that anything is possible. When I started out it wasn't easy, and it's still not easy. But through persistence, dedication and focus, anything is possible. And if people see a problem—whatever it may be, whatever's dear to them—to know that they can do something about it, that people can make a difference."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2007, David Pitt, review of From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers, p. 9.

Chicago, April, 2007, Brendan Shea, "Chad Pregracke," p. 18.

Library Journal, March 15, 2007, S. Brazer, review of From the Bottom Up, p. 90.

Radish, July 25, 2007, Elizabeth Janicek, "Young Man River: One on One with Environmentalist Chad Pregracke."

Sail, August, 2007, Sarah Kurtz, "Trashy Novel?," review of From the Bottom Up, p. 73.

Saturday Evening Post, July-August, 2007, review of From the Bottom Up, p. 16.

School Library Journal, July 2007, Jodi Mitchell, review of From the Bottom Up, p. 132.

Town & Country, June 2007, Victoria P. Lowe, "Letting the River Run," review of From the Bottom Up, p. 72.

ONLINE

From the Bottom Up Web site, http://www.fromthebottomup.org (December 5, 2007), profile of author.

Grist,http://www.grist.org/ (September 13, 2004), "Barge and in Charge," (interview with author.

Growers and Grocers,http://growersandgrocers.net/ (December 5, 2007), Cate O'Malley, "Catching Up with Chad Pregracke."

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum Web site,http://www.hoover.nara.gov/ (December 5, 2007), "Man vs. Nature," profile of author.

Illinois Council for the Social Studies Web site,http://www.illinoiscss.org/ (Decemer 5, 2007), "The 2006 Conference Speaker, Chad Pregracke."

Iowa Source,http://www.iowasource.com/ (December 5, 2007), Nina Benjamin, "Big River Cleanup: Chad Pregracke Reclaims the Mississippi."

Living Lands and Waters Web site,http://www.livinglandsandwaters.org/ (December 5, 2007), profile of author.

Missouri Conversationist,http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/ Kathy Love, "Trashbuster."

MSNBC.com,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ (December 5, 2007), "Chad Pregracke: Garbage Man of the Mississippi."

National Geographic Web site,http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ (December 5, 2007), "Chad Pregracke, Environmentalist."

Sierra Club Web site,http://www.sierraclub.org/ (December 5, 2007), Timothy Lesle, "Take Back Our Rivers," profile of author.