This is the second in a series of stories catching up with some old and not-so-old friends of Purdue Agriculture Connections. If you are wondering whatever happened to someone you read about in this publication, contact Tom Campbell at tsc@purdue.edu

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The Colorado River and Fred Phillips have been intertwined ever since 1994, when the Valparaiso, Ind., native took a summer job revegetating a portion of the Arizona desert along the California-Arizona state line.

Fred Phillips, BS ’95, and Purdue horticulture professor Bernie Dahl, MS ’74, know plenty about taking chances.

In 1993, Phillips was a struggling second-year student in Purdue
Agriculture’s Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture with an academic record best described as “well below above-average.”

“He just wasn’t really focused during the early part of his education,” Dahl recalls. “Like a lot of other students, Fred found a lot of distractions on and around campus.”

But he found his focus, and a summer job in the Arizona desert before his junior year.

Phillips heard a lecture about a project underway on American Indian land along the Colorado River, and he took the biggest chance of his young life and headed west. Maybe there was a job, maybe there wasn’t. Maybe, he was told, he would be paid. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. And maybe there would be a place to live, maybe there wouldn’t.

But at this point in his academic career, he figured he had little to lose, other than the gas money for the trip to Arizona.

Phillips did get paid and he’s had worse accommodations than the basement he lived in that summer. He returned to Purdue reinvigorated. And with Dahl’s guidance, he earned his degree.

He returned to Arizona and built upon the relationships he had established two years earlier. That led to the chance of a lifetime.

Phillips started his own consulting firm in landscape architecture/ecosystem restoration and parlayed that summer job into a five-year project on the Ahakhav Tribal Preserve near Parker, Ariz. He was in charge of building more than 5 acres of park facilities, revegetating 300 acres of barren land, restoring 500 acres of aquatic wetlands, and establishing a nursery and a 3.5-mile hiking trail. The cover story in the winter 2001 issue of Connections was about his experience.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs in Phoenix named it the outstanding project of the year in 1996.

Dahl knew about taking a chance, too. He stuck his neck out just to keep Phillips in the HLA program. Dahl saw something in Phillips that made him think he could help the student unlock a talent that even Phillips didn’t know he possessed.

“We probably get a student or two a year just like Fred, who have great talent and interests that aren’t too traditional or that don’t follow the company line,” Dahl admits.

“It’s our job as faculty to keep an eye out for those people, students with special talents that may be struggling a little bit.

“Certainly, we take a risk with students like Fred because their talent doesn’t show up the first time they walk through our doors. But you just never know how people are going to turn out.

“As faculty, we sometimes think a little too traditionally. It takes some T.L.C. to help some of the students along their path.”

Like Phillips, Dahl also is an award-winning supporter of waterways. Dahl was one of five national recipients of the River Network’s 2008 River Hero Award for his hands-on support of the Wabash River.

When he talks about Phillips, his voice is full of pride and just a tinge of jealousy.

“Fred’s done way more for the Colorado than I’ve ever done for the Wabash,” Dahl says. “He’s a guy who has spent his entire professional life working on the Colorado River. And he has had a huge impact wherever he has gone. While I sit in my office, he’s out there doing all the work. But I admit, I have been truly inspired by him. He’s gotten great results. He’s not just dealing with promises and theories; he’s actually getting it done. And I admire that.”