The co-founder and CEO of Zumiez, Tom Cam­pi­on, once host­ed Pres­i­dent Oba­ma for a pricey fundrais­er with Sonya Cam­pi­on, his spouse, at their North Seat­tle home. On Mon­day night, Tom made a cross-con­ti­nen­tal con­nec­tion with Pres­i­dent Biden at a vir­tu­al fundrais­er for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Committee.

“I love this guy,” said Cam­pi­on, who effu­sive­ly intro­duced the nation’s forty-sixth pres­i­dent to fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty donors.

Cam­pi­on is a donor with a pur­pose. He is a pas­sion­ate conservationist.

Tom Cam­pi­on takes in the view in Alas­ka (Pho­to: Cam­pi­on Advo­ca­cy Fund)

Years ago, I met the man who sells more skate­boards and snow­boards in this coun­try than any­one else. He was on a Pilchuck Audubon Soci­ety pick­et line in Marysville where then-House Speak­er Newt Gin­grich was rais­ing bucks for the Repub­li­can Par­ty and tout­ing strate­gic advice from World War II Ger­man tank com­man­der Colonel Gen­er­al Heinz Gud­er­ian in his book Panz­er Leader.

In recent years, Campion’s advo­ca­cy has cen­tered on pro­tect­ing Alas­ka, nick­named The Last Fron­tier, from envi­ron­men­tal destruction.

Tom Cam­pi­on had a tense four years with Don­ald Trump in the White House. Using a back­door pro­vi­sion insert­ed in Repub­li­cans’ 2017 tax scam bill, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion tried to ram through oil and gas leas­ing in the Arc­tic Refuge, just before leav­ing office. The regime also tried to roll back the U.S. For­est Ser­vice “Road­less Rule” with the objec­tive of open­ing open old growth forests of South­east Alaska’s Ton­gass Nation­al For­est to clearcutting.

Joe Biden is not a great out­doors­man, but he has come through on caus­es for which Tom and Sonya Cam­pi­on are passionate.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion has declared a mora­to­ri­um on oil leas­ing in the Arc­tic Refuge. The new admin­is­tra­tion is rolling back the Trump roll­back so ancient forests of the Ton­gass will not be sun­dered by roads or logged.

Inter­na­tion­al­ly, the Unit­ed States is back in the Paris Cli­mate Accords.

U.S. Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Deb Haa­land, the first Native Amer­i­can to over­see man­age­ment of America’s pub­lic lands, is mov­ing to restore the Bears Ears and Grand Stair­case-Escalante Nation­al Mon­u­ments in South­ern Utah, cut to pieces by Trump at the behest of the min­ing and ener­gy industries.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic fundrais­er on Mon­day night was clas­sic Biden.

On vot­ing rights, the Pres­i­dent declared:

“It’s under assault in ways I haven’t seen in my entire career, and I was the guy who was able to get the Vot­ing Rights Act extend­ed twen­ty-five years before: We’re going to fight like hell so that doesn’t hap­pen.” (Biden chaired the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee when the Vot­ing Rights Act was extended.)

The Pres­i­dent, who served thir­ty-six years in the Sen­ate, defend­ed and praised the bipar­ti­san infra­struc­ture com­pro­mise work­ing its way through Con­gress’ upper cham­ber. “I had to make some com­pro­mis­es, but it’s going to make a gigan­tic dif­fer­ence,” he said. “It’s going to trans­form the econ­o­my. It’s going to elim­i­nate all lead pipes in Amer­i­ca, so peo­ple can have decent drink­ing water.”

The actions of Pres­i­dents have a rip­ple effect across the coun­try. In read­ing the pool report on Biden’s talk, I thought of an Alas­ka vil­lage named Tena­kee Springs on Chicagof Island, not reach­able by any road and glad of it. The U.S. For­est Ser­vice has had on the books ambi­tious log­ging plans for the area. Across a bay sits a riv­er estu­ary renowned for its salmon runs and feed­ing Alas­ka brown bears.

Forests flank­ing the estu­ary were tar­get­ed for logging.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion has decid­ed the wild­land ought to remain the pre­serve of salmon and bru­ins, and mar­veling vis­i­tors in boats just offshore.

The Biden-backed infra­struc­ture bill will com­mit bil­lions of dol­lars to repair­ing and build­ing new roads. But none will reach Tena­kee Springs.

Tom Cam­pi­on loves such places in the 49th State.

He has tak­en polit­i­cal lead­ers and busi­ness big­gies up to the Arc­tic Refuge, to wit­ness wild­lands where the oil and gas indus­try wants to put haul roads, drilling plat­forms and pipelines. On one vis­it, Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell peered into a spot­ting scope, saw a griz­zly on the low­er slope of a moun­tain, and a wolver­ine high­er up. “Is this unusu­al?” she asked Campion.

The Cam­pi­ons have raised mon­ey for Sen­a­tors, Sen­ate can­di­dates, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, and host­ed 2016 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clinton.

They’ve bond­ed with some guests. The Cam­pi­ons’ dog is named Har­ry Reid after the for­mer Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader. Sonya Cam­pi­on has served as lead on one of the advi­so­ry pan­els Gov­er­nor Inslee cre­at­ed to plan COVID-19 recovery.

The Cam­pi­ons also sup­port exhi­bi­tion books pub­lished by Braid­ed Riv­er, a divi­sion of Moun­taineers Books, and have under­writ­ten shoot­er Flo­ri­an Schultz’s wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy in the Arc­tic, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Kazlowski’s study of polar bears, and Sub­hankar Banerjee’s sem­i­nal pho­to study of the Arc­tic Refuge.

They have con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed NPI’s research and advo­ca­cy, too.

Biden served up a lit­tle par­ti­san red meat on Mon­day night.

“The Repub­li­can Par­ty of today offers noth­ing but fear and lies and bro­ken promis­es,” he stat­ed. “We have to keep cut­ting through the Repub­li­can fog.”

Up on Alaska’s North Slope, mean­while, pho­tog­ra­phers backed by the Cam­pi­ons are shoot­ing cari­bou as they emerge out of the fog.