Carsten Lien papers, circa 1953-2005

Carsten Lien was born in Seattle on March 24, 1926. He graduated from Ballard High School in 1944 before serving in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war, he attended the University of Washington (Bachelor’s Degree in Education) and Columbia University (Master’s Degree in Education and History) while also working for several summers as a seasonal ranger naturalist in Olympic National Park.

Lien had a long and varied career. Following his graduation from Columbia, he taught social studies at Ballard High School before working at the Bureau of Community Development at the University of Washington. He then took a position as a deputy administrator of the Latin America Training Program for the Peace Corps. Lien also worked at the U.S. Department of Labor, as a senior vice president at Washington Mutual Savings Bank, and as vice president and corporate secretary of REI.

After his retirement, Lien focused much of his efforts on conservation. In 1988, he served as the president of the Mountaineers, a Seattle-based hiking and climbing club that formed in 1906. Three years later, he published his first book Olympic Battleground: The Power Politics of Timber Preservation (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991), which explored the fight to save the forests in Olympic National Park from logging. Lien’s second book, Exploring the Olympic Mountains: Accounts of the Earliest Expeditions, 1878-1890 (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2001), was published ten years later.

In addition to his involvement with the Mountaineers, Lien served on the boards of The Nature Conservancy, Olympic Park Associates, Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Seattle Municipal League, and the Allied Arts of Seattle. He also ran for the Seattle School Board in 1974 and for mayor of Seattle in 1989, although he was not successful in either campaign.

Carsten Lien died on April 7, 2012.