A Wilderness Society Advocate with Olympic Goals
As a member of the U.S. women’s soccer team, Joanna Lohman has to devote significant time and psychic energy to her sport. But being part of an Olympic gold-medal soccer team in 2008 is not her only goal these days. Lohman, 25, also wants to be an effective advocate for the mission of The Wilderness Society, make her mark in commercial real estate, and find a way for all 2008 Olympic teams to offset their global warming impacts from traveling to Beijing. “I’ve always been competitive, on and off the field,” says Lohman. “I’ve now added the protection of our public lands and the fight against global warming to the list of things that I care deeply about.”
She was six when she began kicking a soccer ball with friends in Silver Spring, Maryland. Lohman discovered she had talent and went on to be named to the under-18 national team. Top colleges recruited her. She chose Penn State, where Lohman was a first-team All-American and runner-up in voting for the M.A.C. Hermann Trophy, which goes to the nation’s top female soccer player. Lohman was elected captain of the under-21 national team. Determined not to be “one-dimensional,” the business major earned a 3.98 GPA.
After college, Lohman made the Washington Freedom Soccer Club, the successor to the Women’s United Soccer Association team that Mia Hamm helped lead to the league title. She also began coaching at the Norwood School in Bethesda, Maryland. A parent at the school, Craig Lussi, convinced her to work with him at Studley, a national real estate firm that represents tenants. Lussi is a senior managing director. “Craig was willing to create a schedule that would accommodate my soccer,” she explains. While playing for Washington Freedom and working for Studley, Lohman was named to the U.S. women’s soccer team, then rated number one in the world. Members of this team will ultimately be selected to wear the USA’s colors in the Olympics.
Cold-calling in search of new tenants to represent, Lohman spoke with Don Barry, our executive vice president. While finding her sales pitch intriguing, Barry nevertheless explained that The Wilderness Society had been adequately represented by a firm for years and that he had no intention of switching. Lohman, however, did not consider “no” to be the last word. She and Lussi remained in contact with Barry, continuing to suggest innovative ways that Studley could save us money. Their persistence paid off. “I began to see that she and Craig had the creativity and energy to get us a significantly better deal on our DC headquarters lease,” says Barry, “so I hired them.”
As she began working closely with us, Lohman’s love for the outdoors, dating back to childhood trips to national parks, was rekindled. She also became interested in global warming as a result of three goals that we set for our new lease—and achieved: much greater energy efficiency, 100% renewable energy, and offsetting the office’s remaining carbon footprint. “Joanna was like a huge intellectual sponge, absorbing every article or report on global warming that I could send her and then wanting more,” observes Barry, who served as President Clinton’s assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. Lohman now calls him “my environmental guru.”
In April, she attended a climate change lecture by former Vice President Al Gore. At a reception before Gore spoke, Lohman told him about her goal of offsetting the carbon impact of Olympic athletes traveling to Beijing. Gore urged her to pursue that goal, so she approached a potential corporate sponsor, who expressed strong interest. She also is considering ways in which top athletes could use their stature to help educate the public about the need for new energy policies.
The soccer standout foresees a long-term relationship with The Wilderness Society. She and Lussi have pledged an extremely generous donation to help upgrade The Wilderness Society’s Ansel Adams photo gallery so that more people will see this large collection of originals and draw inspiration. “I’m honored to be able to give back to The Wilderness Society,” she says, “because this has been such a rewarding experience for me. Incorporating climate change in a lease is a new approach that we intend to take with all our future clients, and The Wilderness Society was the catalyst.”
