Janie Douglass, Kentucky
Janie Douglass served on ASFPM’s Board as an Associate Director from 1985-89 as one of the first non-state members of the Board. She also volunteered as co-chair of theTraining & Education Committee for several years. A member of “Volunteers for Flood Control” in her community of Harlan County, Kentucky, Janie was a big voice for local grassroots participation on the ground and a strong advocate in urging us to focus on local problems and solutions while raising awareness among federal agencies as to these local issues. Janie often traveled to Washington, DC for meetings with FEMA and other agencies. She would make sure the needs of local communities were being adequately considered so national policy actually worked on the ground. Her efforts on the ASFPM Board were instrumental in getting the association to ensure national policy and programs were implementable at the local level.
Upon her death in 2001, the Kentucky State Legislature passed a resolution recognizing her contributions to the commonwealth. The resolution read, in part:
WHEREAS, Janie Douglass has served the Commonwealth of Kentucky tirelessly as a public advocate and educator for natural resources and environmental issues for many decades; she first became involved with the Kentucky General Assembly as a citizen involved in floodplain issues when her Harlan County home was flooded, and she was instrumental in initiating a major flood control project there after a devastating flood in 1977; and she worked from the grass-roots level to develop state policies on water resources management in Kentucky.”