Steve Walther, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law — Scenic Nevada Heroe

Mr. Walther is a fourth generation Nevadan, his great grandfather having arrived in Virginia City from Switzerland in 1961, the year Nevada became a territory. The Walther family has continued to live in Virginia City, Washoe Valley, and the Truckee Meadows since that time.

Mr. Walther he has been active in a number of community activities. He has been a member of the Reno Rodeo Association for 39 years, serving as its president in 1988-1989. As the co-founder of the Reno Rodeo Foundation, he has served as Chair of the Board of Trustees from 1992-2001. He was a co-founder of the Nevada Self-Help Foundation, a foundation which provides housing and charitable assistance to disabled persons, with a goal of assisting them in becoming independent. He was also appointed by Governors Laxalt and O'Callahan, respectively, to the Nevada Indian Affairs Commission to study ways in which to improve the human condition in the State of Nevada. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Judicial College, and has taught judges in Russia for the NJC and in Washington, D.C. He has been a member of the Nevada State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since 1971, having been reappointed by each presidential administration since that time.

On the professional front, Mr. Walther is a former president of the State Bar of Nevada, former president of the Western States Bar Conference, former president of the National Caucus of State Bar Associations, and a former member of the Board of Governors of the 400,000 member American Bar Association. He was the first chair of the Executive Board of the ABA Center for Human Rights, and continues to serve on the Executive Board, along with Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and others. For two years, Mr. Walther, by ABA presidential appointment, served as the representative of the ABA to the United Nations. In addition, he served on the Executive Board, along with the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, of CEELI, the acronym for the ABA entity which oversees all technical assistance projects of the ABA in 21 countries of the former Soviet Union. He is immediate past Chair of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, which consists of 6,000 lawyers who contribute to research on ways to improve the law. He has taught law to lawyers, judges and laypersons in the Soviet Union, now Russia, over several years.

Mr. Walther has been active in protecting the environment in Northern Nevada for many years. In 1992, he co-founded the Washoe Parks Foundation, now known as the Nevada Land Conservancy, and served as Chair of its Board of Trustees for six years. Nevada Land Conservancy is one of the most effective conservation entities in Northern Nevada. Mr. Walther also served on the Southwest Truckee Meadows Advisory Board, by appointment to that position by the Washoe County Commission. He was active in an effort to obtain reconsideration of the tentative freeway alignment selection made by the Federal Highway Administration and the Nevada Department of Transportation, which ultimately resulted in the selection of the "S alignment" through the South Truckee Meadows.

Over the last several years, Mr. Walther has been dedicated to preserving the integrity of the Southwest Truckee Meadows Land Use and Transportation Plan, the plan adopted by the Washoe County Commission in the early 1980s. This effort includes maintaining the density and vision by the plan, the transportation size and structure, land use designations, envisioned at that time. In recent years, toward that goal, he has been active in protecting the foothills of the Southwest Truckee Meadows by seeking to obtain dedication and/or acquisition of undeveloped property for recreational, park and wildlife preservation. This effort includes the 1,400 acres agreed to be dedicated to Washoe County by the ArrowCreek Development Company, as well as acquisition of the 1,019 acre Ballardini Ranch.

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