Patrick Moore was voted in unanimously as the Executive Director of CURE at the recent Board meeting held on Thursday, March 24^th, 2005 at the Montevideo Community Center. Marta Coursey has resigned in order to serve as primary caregiver for an ailing family member. She will remain at CURE as a volunteer consultant on Conservation Security Program (CSP), mercury and atrazine policy and communication issues.

Patrick has served as CURE’s Development director since the fall of 2004. He is no stranger to CURE, having served as the organizer from the Land Stewardship Project who helped launch the organization back in 1992.

Moore was born in Fort Snelling and the confluence of the Minnesota and the Mississippi Rivers were his playground as a young boy. He has a B.A. in History and Latin American Area Studies from the University of Minnesota, was an editor of the Milan Standard Watson Journal and a producer with Pioneer Public TV in Appleton. He worked for 17 years as an organizer and program director for the Land Stewardship Project before starting the Java River Coffeehouse in Montevideo in 1998. Moore brings his experience as a grant writer, convener, entrepreneur and communicator to his new role as CURE’s Executive Director.

"CURE is a great organization with a mission that has always been close to my heart," stated Moore. "I consider it an honor to be able to work with CURE’s dedicated board and volunteers to help the organization advance the cause for a cleaner Minnesota River."

"There have been many advances on the organizational front since I left CURE back in 1999 to focus on creating Java River -- I think there is a solid foundation that has been laid by former staff and board members that we can continue to build on," he added.

Moore says that his experience in starting a business has helped him see the larger potential for integrating a clean Minnesota River into economic development strategies for the region. "The Upper Minnesota River Watershed can become the central organizing principle in creating a new economy based on sustainable farms, manufacturers and a green tourism industry, and CURE can play a leading role in helping to bring this about," according to Moore.

In the past, many environmental organizations have focused on the "carrot and stick" approach to improving the environment, according to Moore. "On the one hand you have the regulatory stick of the EPA or the MPCA or the DNR and on the other you have the carrot of the federal farm program like the CSP and state and federal incentives like RIM and CREP," he states. We need both of these approaches, Moore says, but now we have evolved to a point where there needs to be a third element introduced: Green Tourism and Green Manufacturing based Entrepreneurship to support a Clean River Economy.

According to Renewing the Countryside, who is working with CURE to launch this new initiative, Green tourism directs people to places where they can get locally grown food and locally made products as well as participate in other attractions, such as canoe routes, hiking and biking trails, birding sites, art events, and other amenities in the Upper Minnesota River Watershed.