Return to The Green Elephant Index

Profile of a REP leader: Aurie Kryzuda

Aurie Kryzuda will forever be credited as the one who first came up with the idea. As far back as the spring of 1995, she was already pondering the need for a Republican environmental organization. As luck would have it, not only was she eager to put her idea into action, but she was also about to meet a few key allies who would help her take it from the mad-as-hell conceptual stage to reality.

In March, 1995, Aurie—a long-time environmental activist in San Diego—flew to Maryland to attend a workshop on the Endangered Species Act. It was a lucky trip, because there she met a handful of other Republican activists, including Illinoisan Martha Marks and Floridian Kim O’Keefe. By mid-summer, Aurie, Kim and Martha had begun taking the steps that ultimately would lead them and many other conservation-minded Republicans into a fascinating adventure.

Aurie has been actively engaged in every phase of REP's progress ever since. Not only was she a “Founding Mother,” but she has served three terms as Vice President of the Board of Directors... wrestling all the while with a multitude of issues and problems inherent in the process of building a national organization from scratch. Never at any stage of the game did she lose her enthusiasm, sense of humor or vision for what Republicans for Environmental Protection could become.



Most recently, Aurie led the effort to ensure that our San Diego reception in honor of Congressman Sherwood Boehlert and the Annual Meeting and Conference Awards Dinner at which he spoke the following evening were successful. Both were, in fact, great successes, and much of the credit for that goes to Aurie, who drew on her personal contacts and put her professional reputation on the line.

REP isn’t the first conservation organization that Aurie has helped to lead. She is known in San Diego as the co-founder of KNOAH’s ARC (Knowledge, Need, Opportunity, and Hope: Advocates for Responsible Conservation) which was created to educate the public about the Endangered Species Act. That effort inspired her to co-organize the San Diego County Endangered Species Coalition, which was comprised of many well-known environmental groups. Prior to these efforts, she co-founded and chaired the Regional Open Space Expansion Citizens Advisory Committee, which worked with the City of San Diego and the U. S. Navy to consider setting aside military land as a conservation area. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for Project Wildlife, an organization dedicate to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of native wildlife.

A native of Western New York, Aurie works as a political and non-profit fundraiser and event planner. She is also a registered cytotechnologist and is currently studying for her real estate license.

During this year’s Board of Directors meeting, Aurie announced her intention to step down in 2004, at the end of her current term. We will miss her mightily!