About Us
The Thinking Like a Mountain Foundation (TLMF) was established in 2008 by Dick and Joanne Bartlett as a thinker and writer-in-residence program with a mission to foster a conservation ethic. The Foundation takes its name from the famous essay by Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac. Permission to use this title was granted by a Memorandum of Understanding with the Aldo Leopold Foundation (ALF), the non-profit organization established by the heirs of Aldo Leopold. The MOU also forges a formal link between TLMF and the Aldo Leopold Foundation based on their shared mission, expressed by the ALF board of directors to "Foster Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic."
Among other important benefits, this relationship ensures access to the prestigious ALF National Advisory Board for candidate references and consultation. As prescribed by the Certification of Adoption filed in 2009 with the Texas Secretary of State, and the Foundation's By Laws, all TLMF physical assets will revert to the Aldo Leopold Foundation upon the deaths of Dick and Joanne, assuring continuity of mission.
Registered with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) Private Operating Foundation, The Thinking Like a Mountain Foundation is a non-profit organization. Attorney of Record is Edgar Duncan, of Duncan, Weakley and Bressler, a San Antonio firm specializing in non-profit legal affairs.
In addition to Dick (president) and Joanne (secretary), the foundation board is comprised of Lonn Taylor, Robert Potts and David Baxter. Dick has been active in conservation for more than 40 years (see biographical summary); Joanne, a former journalist, is retired from her own public relations firm. Lonn, a former historian with the Smithsonian, continues to write Texas history; Robert, a former Vice President of The Nature Conservancy, is executive director of the Dixon Water Foundation; and David, retired from Texas Parks and Wildlife, is a free lance outdoor writer and editor.