In the 1,042-acre Ahakhav Tribal Preserve, Fred Phillips has forged an oasis in the middle of the Arizona desert. Phillips, BS ’95, hired onto the project in 1994 as a summer helper. But over the next six years, restoring the acreage along the banks of the Colorado River became his life’s work. In 1999, Phillips left the preserve that straddles the California-Arizona state line to start his own consulting business in Flagstaff, Ariz.

As project manager for the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Phillips established a Purdue pipeline of students who went west to help create the preserve. Other Purdue graduates who assisted Phillips on the project are Adam Perillo, BS ’96, Sonia Mullenix, BS ’96, Christina Rinderle, BS ’97, and Keith Clow, BS ’97. Connections editor Tom Campbell took hundreds of photographs when he visited the thriving, and evolving, preserve with Phillips in October 2000. There wasn’t room in the Winter issue of Connections for all the photographs, so what follows is a collection of photos. All are by Campbell, except for four that Phillips shot while documenting the project. Click on a photo to view it in a larger format and see the caption.