This is the story of both Adam McLane and his wife Nancy because the story of one cannot be told without telling the story of the other.

They met on a cross-country Greyhound bus in 1962. Adam was taking a break from business school at Stanford and Nancy a break from California and college. By the time they reached Manhattan where Adam grew up, they each knew they wanted to be together always.

They married the following year, Nancy at age nineteen and Adam five years older. Together for almost fifty-nine years, they had the kind of marriage we all hope for. Their early years together were spent in San Francisco and Palo Alto where Adam worked as an accountant. He then segued into the wine business at Heitz Winery and finally to Zero Population Growth, running the business operations at both.

After a country-wide search for the best place to live, they chose Helena. Together they immersed themselves in their new community, bringing energy and skills that made Helena and Montana a better place. You might remember the early effort at recycling (the Bottle Bill) or the struggle over land use (Reeders Village) or tree planting (Growing Friends) or political campaigns too numerous to recall.

They were activists and dedicated to improving the environment. Along the way they made friends with a large group of like-minded people. In those days of long ago, Nancy and Adam were a fixture in the Boogie Haven crowd where Adam earned the affectionate nickname of "Smuggler" due to his penchant for bringing caseloads of wine from California to Montana in the back of their old red Datsun.

Non-profit organizations and their management were Adam's great interest. He started out with the Northern Rockies Action Group which provided training and technical services to non-profits around the region. He then went to the Montana Environmental Information Center for thirty-six years, working until weeks before his passing. He was MEIC's unsung hero working as business manager, financial advisor, strategic planner, organizational historian, editor and sage. His humility and passion for environmental protection combined with his unmatched critical thinking and analytical skills created the foundation upon which MEIC grew and thrived. It is far easier to find people who care passionately about the environment than it is to find those who know how to balance the books and structure an organization to run efficiently. Adam was one of those rare people who had it all.

Adam was a gentle person with a steely sense of right and wrong. He was not one for flashy show. His humor was dry, as was his taste in wine. But there was another side to him that some of us were lucky enough to know – the affectionate, the poetic, the sentimental.

In addition to Nancy, he leaves behind friends and coworkers at MEIC and two sisters, Vicky and Jeannie. Adam was adored by and so supportive of his second Helena family of sister-in-law Betsie Walton and her daughters Kymberly and Emily. But he will be missed most especially by his wife Nancy to whom he was devoted.

The family is so grateful to all those who stood by Adam in the last months and will stand by Nancy in the months to come. A special thank you to the attentive and compassionate Dr. Jessica Bailey.

He will be forever remembered and held in awe by all who had the privilege of knowing him. Think of him when you pass a tree in town or a forest. He likely had something to do with sustaining both. If you wish, donations to MEIC, Prickly Pear Land Trust or NAMI would be appropriate.