From 1994 through 2002, Andrew Purkey served as the founding executive director of the Oregon Water Trust, the nation’s first nonprofit established to acquire existing water rights for conversion to instream water rights.  During this time, he pioneered the concept of voluntary water transactions as a market-based mechanism for restoring “first in time, first in right” flows in depleted stream systems while building trust with local landowners, ditch companies, tribes, and irrigation districts under Oregon’s 1987 instream water transfer law. Andrew has been with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) since 2003, where he has shown a tireless commitment to the art and practice of voluntary flow and instream habitat restoration in some of the most conflict-laden watersheds of the North American West.