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John Swingle

Fort Myers, Florida
Chair
Florida Chapter

"I can tell you in five letters what got me involved with the Sierra Club," says John Swingle. "K-A-R-E-N."

Karen Cartwright, Swingle's wife, was already active with the Florida Chapter when the two met in 1999. "I always loved the outdoors—I've camped all my life," Swingle says. "But I was never an activist until Karen took me to a public meeting about off-road vehicle access in Big Cypress National Preserve. I got up and talked in favor of restrictions on vehicular access even though we were outnumbered 250 to 6 by angry swamp buggy and ORV owners. They haven't been able to shut me up since."

Before he became an environmental champion, Swingle was another kind of American hero. "I was a paramedic/firefighter with the Milford, Connecticut, fire department for 25 years, Battalion Chief for the last year-and-a-half. I retired because I was 46 years old and I'd gone as high as I could without being relegated to a desk job. I moved to Florida because I was getting divorced and two of my kids were there."

Swingle's advice to ordinary citizens who care about the environment is simple: "Talk to people. Tell others about your concerns. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. And contact your legislator—elected officials will listen if they hear from enough constituents."

As tirelessly as Swingle works on behalf of Florida's environment, no one will ever accuse him of not stopping to smell the roses. He and Karen have a cabin in the Ocala National Forest to which they escape to be close to nature. "We don't stop playing because we get old," he says. "We get old because we stop playing."

Published: February 27, 2007