As 2021 wound to its close, Colorado TU lost two committed long-time volunteer leaders, both recipients of the prestigious Silver Trout award. In December, Michael McGoldrick and John Trammell passed away - but both left important conservation legacies.
Michael McGoldrick first engaged with Trout Unlimited in the midwest near his then-home in Chicago, but once settled in Colorado he stepped up and served as Colorado TU’s treasurer for multiple terms including at a critical juncture - through the market crash and recession of 2008. Michael’s background in finance equipped him well to provide leadership, and having earlier in his career seen financial debates distract other nonprofits from their core mission, he worked hard to ensure that CTU’s finances were stable and not a source of disruption from the organization’s mission. His wise and thoughtful financial stewardship ensured that CTU did not see its assets undermined by the market crash of 2008.
Michael had diverse charitable interests from the arts to conservation, and his most lasting legacy with Colorado TU was in creating a stronger culture of philanthropy. With his encouragement, the annual auction was upgraded into a Gala with a greater emphasis on charitable support, sponsorships, and celebration of leaders in river conservation.
Michael was also a founder of CTU’s charitable donor society for those giving $1000 or more, the River Stewardship Council. From its humble beginning with Michael’s initial contribution, the River Stewardship Council has grown into a key sustaining funding source for trout conservation work in Colorado. Michael encouraged the RSC program to offer opportunities for donors to connect and engage, building a deeper connection with the work they supported through activities such as tours and fishing trips to experience waters benefiting from CTU’s work. He was a regular participant in RSC activities, and from his contribution as the first RSC donor through all of the years following, he remained a committed donor and conservationist.
Michael’s kindness and good spirits made him a well-loved presence through all of the many TU programs in which he took part. As his long-time partner Terry Galpin-Plattner said, he lived a life that was lively, loving, and curmudgeonly.
Michael McGoldrick - photo courtesy of Terry Galpin-Plattner.
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Over three decades, John Trammell provided volunteer leadership at all levels of the Trout Unlimited organization - from his local Grand Valley Anglers chapter to the National Resource Board providing the grassroots voice on TU’s national conservation agenda.
John’s professional background was as a geologist, and he brought a science-based approach to his efforts as a conservation volunteer and advocate. A prime example was the stream characterization study he conducted with his friend and colleague Dan Powell on West Creek in Unaweep Canyon – a highly detailed assessment that proved invaluable baseline data when a truck spill led to a fish kill in the creek some years later. His scientific knowledge and approach similarly helped inform a wide range of TU advocacy efforts.
John had a special passion for native trout. As an angler, he set out to catch all of the west’s native trout subspecies and add them to his ‘lifetime list’. As a volunteer, he worked tirelessly on projects to help restore Colorado River cutthroat trout in nearby home waters on the Grand Mesa and the Roan Plateau. From fencing and riparian planting projects along Trapper Creek to installing Whitlock-Vibert boxes in a converted refrigerator to jump-start cutthroat populations on the Grand Mesa, he brought commitment and creativity to native trout recovery.
In all that he did as a conservation leader, John worked with good humor and a kind spirit that earned the confidence and affection of all those who were fortunate enough to cross his path. He will be deeply missed, but his legacy lives on in the memory of those he helped inspire – including his daughter, native fish biologist Melissa Trammell – and in the home waters where his efforts helped secure native trout for future generations.
You can see some reflections on John’s involvement with TU native trout conservation in the short film Decades (available here) issued on Colorado TU’s 50th anniversary. The segment featuring John and Melissa begins at 6:30.
John Trammell with a greenback cutthroat trout from spawn-taking at Zimmerman Lake.
