Councilmember Micki Varney is a 33-year salmon research biologist who built a reputation for solving hard problems by devising new tools and methods to collect and analyze data to increase Pacific Salmon survival and recruitment into fisheries. She served as Oregon’s representative on a standing committee of the US/Canada Pacific Salmon Commission, and her commitment to environmental stewardship dates back to the first Earth Day in 1970, when, at the age of 10, she organized a group of classmates to go pick up litter along the road each week. She chairs Salem’s Climate Action Plan Committee and serves on the League of Oregon Cities’ Energy & Environment Policy Committee, bringing a scientist’s insistence on data and independent verification to municipal climate, housing, and transportation policy.