May2014

IN MEMORIAMLESLIE ELIZABETH WILDESEN1944–2014Leslie Elizabeth Wildesen, Ph.D. passed away peacefullyat her home on January 24, 2014. She was 69. Leslie wasborn on December 5, 1944, in Phoenix. At 17, she wona scholarship to Stanford, graduating in 1966 with a degree inEnglish with a creative writing emphasis. She went on to geta Master’s in anthropology from San Francisco State Collegeand a Ph.D. in archaeology from WashingtonState University (1973).Following a brief stint heading a researchinstitute at the University of California,Riverside, Leslie moved to Portland, Oregon,in 1974, and became the first regionalarchaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service inthe Pacific Northwest. Her Guidebook of Proceduresand Techniques for Managing Historicaland Archaeological Resources (1977) wasthe first heritage resource guidance manualfor federal agencies. She also served asadjunct faculty in Portland State University’spublic history program, as secretary for theSociety for American Archaeology, and as amember of the State Historic Review Board.Leslie left the U.S. Forest Service in 1980 and became a consultanton archaeological resources, primarily in Idaho’s Riverof No Return Wilderness and in Alaska. In the early 1980s,she became a Congressional Fellow for the Society for AmericanArchaeology. There, she served on the staff of CongressmanJohn Seiberling, working on the House Subcommitteeon Public Lands and National Parks.In 1984, she became the Colorado State Archaeologist andDeputy State Historic Preservation Officer. In the same period,she served three consecutive terms as a presidentialappointee on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, overseeingU.S. involvement in the UNESCO Convention onInternational Trafficking in Cultural Property.Next, Leslie spent a year in Pittsburgh withthe Office of Surface Mining negotiatingenvironmental agreements between federaland state entities, and then in 1990 returnedto Colorado and became Regional Archaeologistfor the USDA Forest Service in theRocky Mountain Region.In 1993, Leslie and her life partner, JeanneCrouch, founded Environmental Training &Consulting International, Inc. (ETCI), acompany specializing in custom environmentalplanning training within the U.S.For the next 20 years, Leslie designed anddelivered over 400 courses to clientsthroughout the U.S. and in Zimbabwe,Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. She andJeanne also worked with the Smithsonian Institution for 10years to design and deliver the Smithsonian EnvironmentalLeadership Course.You may honor Leslie by making a contribution in her nameto an organization she supported and admired, The NatureConservancy.May 2014 • The SAA Archaeological Record57