The headlining feature of the annual SNW Auction and Awards Gala is presentation of the Cecil D. Andrus Leadership Awards for Sustainability and Conservation.

The 2007 Andrus Awards honorees are Celilo Group Media of Portland, Oregon and Jefferson State Forest Products of Hayfork, California. The Andrus Awards recognize each company’s demonstrated success in sustainable entrepreneurship; their commitment to stewardship of the environment and service to the community; their ongoing ability to adapt and innovate while pursuing the highest standards of excellence; and their willingness to share insights with others pursuing a similar sustainable path.

Celilo Group Media, founded by Nik Blosser and partners, was a 2007 recipient of the Andrus Leadership Award.

Based in Portland, Oregon and founded in 1999, Celilo Group Media’s mission is to expand the marketplace for sustainable products. The company recognized early how quickly demand and supply for sustainable products could grow if the increasing array of choices were disseminated to consumers. Celilo Group publishes the Sustainable Industries Journal, the West Coast’s preeminent publication for businesses in the sustainable marketplace, and the Chinook Book, a sustainable consumer’s guide filled with coupons promoting high-standard sustainable and local products and services in Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and soon in the Bay Area. Celilo Group also organizes regular and well-attended Sustainable Industries Economic Forums in the communities it serves, and manages the Northwest’s clean energy news service: nwcurrent.com. The founders of Celilo Group, Nik Blosser, Tim Raphael and Tom Koehler, have been instrumental in promoting community-based economic development. Among their many accomplishments were spearheading the establishment of the Oregon Business Association and the growth of Oregon’s Individual Development Account Tax Credit program designed to help low-income Oregonians save for significant assets like buying their first home or starting their own business.

Jefferson State Forest Products, founded by Lynn and Jim Jungwirth, was a 2007 recipient of the Andrus Leadership Award.

Founded in 1996 by Jim Jungwirth and his wife Lynn, Executive Director of The Watershed Center, Jefferson State Forest Products is a small town company with a big heart and vision. The Jungwirths returned home to Hayfork, CA (pop. 1,800, two-hours from the nearest interstate) a few years earlier to see what they could do about reducing double-digit unemployment and restoring a forest and wood products industry that was more in tune with the environment’s restoration needs. A one-man show at first, today Jefferson State Forest Products (JSFP) has 40 employees with family wage jobs and full benefits. The company got a big break when Whole Foods Markets began ordering fixtures for their produce sections. Though its full line of products is much more diverse, today JSFP has outfitted the produce and café sections of over 200 Whole Foods stores nationwide and in Canada. Recently they received their first order for a store in the United Kingdom. The company’s wood sourcing and production practices are remarkable; most of its wood comes from public and private forest restoration projects, and its manufacturing processes seek to minimize and eliminate waste and use of toxic substances. JSFP is a founding member of the Healthy Forests Healthy Communities Partnership (a program of Sustainable Northwest) and often serves as the model and generous mentor for small, community-based wood products companies that are emerging from the timber wars of the 1990’s. As a result of its success, JSFP was the first company bought by Upstream 21, a venture capital fund started in Portland in 2004 that grows enterprises seeking to build social, economic and ecological capital for a sustainable future. Under the new ownership, JSFP will receive capital to grow even more. Jim Jungwirth will continue to serve as its CEO, and it will continue to help find and grow similar small town, sustainable companies.