"Out to save the world"

William J. Mitsch remembers the first Earth Day well: He had just finished college and was working as an engineer for "the biggest polluter in Chicago." Under pressure to clean up its act, the company created an environmental planning department. After a year or two in that department, Mitsch decided to devote his career to environmental issues.

"And the rest," he says, "is history."

Mitsch is now a Distinguished University Professor in Ohio State's School of Environment and Natural Resources and director of the The Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park.

The 50-acre park, located on the Olentangy River just north of Dodridge Road, has been designated Ohio's only Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.

"People come out here and they say, 'What other universities have this resource?'" Mitsch says. "Well, nobody does."

"Around the world, people now come here. Scientists like to come here and do sabbaticals."

Mitsch says the park demonstrates the balance between teaching, research, and service.

"We get research projects going on all the time and we get countless theses and dissertations going here, but it's a marvelous teaching resource," he says. (The site offers tours to the public, too.)

The park is also an employer of undergraduates in environmental science.

"It's a great thing for a student to have on their resume," he says. "They get real-life experience."

Each year, Mitsch oversees an annual spring clean-up effort run by volunteers who remove invasive plants from the riverbanks and pick up trash. This year, so many people volunteered that the park was able to complete another project: planting an herbarium that will serve as a teaching resource for Mitsch.

"The students who came out on Earth Day, they're really dedicated. They really want to do something good," Mitsch says. "I think they just get it. They really want to save the planet."

"We are out to save the world."