John Wesley Powell

John Wesley Powell was a United States Army soldier, explorer of the American West, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He gained renown for his 1869 expedition down the Green and Colorado rivers, achieving the first government-sanctioned passage through the Grand Canyon, and was appointed by President James A. Garfield to serve as the second director of the United States Geological Survey from 1881 to 1894, where he advocated for western development policies grounded in careful environmental assessment. Before leading the Geological Survey he had already become the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution.