- Date Of Birth: January 1, 1977
- Date Of Death: September 16, 2017
- State: Idaho
William ‘Bill’ McLaughlin
Bill McLaughlin, 68, passed away Saturday, September 16, 2017, at his home in Moscow, from multiple myeloma. He was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1949, to Robert N. and Doris M. McLaughlin, the second of six children. In 1967, after graduating from high school, he headed west to the mountains to attend the University of Colorado, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1972. He then pursued a Ph.D. at Colorado State University and finished in January, 1977, just before jumping into a U-Haul and driving up to Moscow to begin his position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Idaho in the Department of Wildland Recreation Management. In 1974 he married Debbie Myers in a Boulder county park with a view to the Rocky Mountains, and in 1985, the couple welcomed a son, Julien. Bill served in multiple leadership roles while at the University of Idaho. He chaired his department in the 1980’s (now the Department of Natural Resources and Society) and served as Dean of the College of Natural Resources from June 2008 to August 2010, after which he accepted a special assignment in the Provost’s Office and Office of Research and Economic Development. He also served on many college and university committees, including president of the Faculty Senate, as well as in various professional organizations. His research, teaching and outreach were recognized with numerous college, university and state awards. He retired from the University of Idaho in 2014 with the rank of professor emeritus. As a professor, Bill mentored generations of students and faculty. He was an innovative teacher, a demanding researcher, and always sought to subvert the dominant paradigm. He had a profound impact on the field of conservation, convinced that to be successful, conservation needed to be an interdisciplinary endeavor with social and human sciences at the core. As a result, he established the University of Idaho as a national leader in social science research methods. Leading teams of researchers, Bill helped establish the fields of land use and conservation planning, and protected area management, in the U.S. and internationally. He thoroughly enjoyed his time working internationally and nurturing future generations of conservation leaders. The world is a greener and better place to be and will continue to be so through the legacy he leaves behind in the conservation leaders he mentored and empowered across the globe. His work led him to the far corners of the globe, spanning six continents, and places in between, where his brand of participatory inquiry lives on.
