Ranger Kidwell-Ross is a Master’s level economist who is president of Skagit County-based American Proofreading Co. Long an advocate of giving back for the greater good, Ranger was a founding member of an early Skagit County-based environmental group, Habitat Watch. He served on the Citizen’s Advisory Board for the Environmental Element of the Washington State Comprehensive Plan, as well as spent a year as a member of the Advisory Board of the Skagit Valley Herald.
Ranger has also donated his time to non-profit and charity events as a performance artist for over 35 years. From the mid 1970s to around 2004, he appeared as the clown and magician personality “Mr. Turquoise” at non-profit and charity events, as well as participated in dozens of local and regional parades.
In the early 1990s, recognizing the importance of ensuring the Earth’s clean water supply, Ranger founded, and then edited for a decade, American Sweeper magazine, which was the first U.S. publication to address the negative impacts of storm water runoff pollution generated from pavement and other impervious surfaces. Today, his WorldSweeper.com website is the world’s leading resource in that field.
In addition to actively writing on this topic for his website and other publications, Ranger provides counseling on the subject to businesses and municipal agencies around the U.S. and the world.
Ranger’s writing and Internet publishing work have garnered him 19 national APEX Awards for Publication Excellence since 1994, as well as other honors and accolades. He was the author of a book entitled “The Rise of Bio-Diesel,” which was published in 2008. In 2009 Ranger co-authored, with Dr. Jack Lessinger, a book on current socio-economic theory entitled “The Great Prosperity of 2020; Fall of ‘What’s in it for Me?’ — Rise of ‘What’s in it for Us?’”
An accomplished percussionist, Ranger has enjoyed a lifetime of wide-ranging musical experiences throughout the Pacific NW and around the world. He has played with numerous bands since the age of 16; currently, he plays with “The Poor Man’s Jug Band,” which appeared at the 2010 Skagit County Fair. Over time, Ranger has performed in Japan, China and Europe, as well as had a headline appearance in 2007 at Thailand’s 2nd World Music Festival.
In addition to his enduring interest in music, Ranger is a sculpture artist who has designed and built a number of large-scale, whimsical sculptures on his wooded Skagit County property. He is also involved in the U.S. art car community, and displays his art truck “Toynota” at numerous public events throughout the Pacific Northwest.