Meet Environment Rhode Island’s State Director, Rex Wilmouth

My name is Rex Wilmouth and I am the new Director of Environment Rhode Island. 

I grew up in Coventry, RI and graduated from Coventry High School. Growing up I spent many a day on Johnson’s Pond (the Flat River Reservoir) fishing, water skiing and hanging with friends. Upon high school graduation, I joined the US Navy and traveled around the world, with three tours in the Persian Gulf. While I was in the Navy I saw first hand the pollution of our oceans. On the ships we would dump all of our waste directly into the ocean, including plastics. I didn’t like it and didn’t know what I could about it. After I finished my four years in the Navy I studied at Rollins College in Florida and received a B.S. degree in Environmental Studies. While attending college I realized I needed to do something to change the way we deal with the disposal of garbage and help the planet. 

So, upon graduating I was excited to be hired as a campus organizer with New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), teaching communities how to organize river clean ups and maintain clean rivers. We tested the runoff from the industries along the rivers in NJ and calculated the pollution levels, wrote reports about our findings and released them to the media. From there we built coalitions with the community affected by the pollution coming from the industrial sites. We identified the problem and came up with solutions to pass at the legislature. Before I knew it I had found a purpose in life.

In the summer of 1998 I moved out to Colorado to continue working on environmental issues. With CoPIRG I helped organize citizens and students to stop the building of more coal-fired power plants and advocate for a renewable energy standard to expand wind and solar power production and use in the state. We also supported major expansion of the light rail system in the Denver region to help reduce air pollution in Colorado. 

Later, working with Environment Colorado I helped to pass a law to ban plastic bags in grocery stores and convenience stores to reduce plastic waste. We continued the work on plastics by expanding the recycling programs in the state. We worked on energy efficiency by helping pass a law at the federal level to give funding to individuals to improve their homes with insulation, replace windows with the energy efficient ones, update furnaces and AC units with more efficient heat and cooling pumps and allowing citizens to get rebates for solar installation to produce their own energy right on their own roofs.

I loved Colorado, but there’s no place like home. This summer I moved back to Rhode Island to be closer to family. As the new Environment Rhode Island State Director, I am excited to help protect the special places that I grew up loving, and the community here that I’ve returned to. Together we can keep working towards a healthy livable climate, clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives right here in Rhode Island.