James Joseph Disinger, 63, left this plane to dance forever with the spirits of his beloved trees and wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains. Revered by his many friends as a great naturalist, he shared his deep connection with the flora, fauna, and geology of the world outdoors through hiking, skiing, climbing, kayaking, and photography.
Born in Columbia, Missouri, to Seymour and Bernice Disinger of German and Osage heritage, he connected at a young age with nature, hand tilling land with a horse and plow, hunting, tracking, trapping, and fishing the rivers. An entrepreneur before the age of ten, he sold the fruits of his labors at roadside stands and developed a fly-tying enterprise that employed local adults. As a young boy Jim was interested in pollution and how it affected his town where he lived and played. He collected samples from his local waterway for over 20 years and headed the Hinkson Creek Watershed Workgroup. A skilled spelunker, his friends relate stories of their adventures in Missouri caves.
His sharp mind advanced him rapidly through Catholic schools and higher level academia, winning multiple scholarships to study at University of Missouri while his peers were still completing high school. He earned two bachelors and a masters degree, studying with renowned professor Stanley E. Manahan. Talented in all the sciences, he gravitated towards environmental sciences and organic chemistry, building an early career as an engineer famed for innovations in mass spectrometry.
Jim served as the Environmental Project Manager at the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City and as an Environmental Scientist at Lee Scientific/Dionex in Salt Lake City, conducting environmental assessments throughout Colorado including the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and UNC Geotech sites. He has also worked with the University of Missouri, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the state of Colorado, and the County and City of Boulder, performing ecological assessments within the Boulder Creek and South Platte watersheds.
He founded and chaired the Boulder Watershed Workgroup, a stakeholder-run nonprofit, and ran his own company Environmental Technologies. His computer-based environmental decision support models have been used throughout the United States. In later positions, he served the community as a consumer adviser at Radio Shack and in several technology troubleshooting firms housed at IBM.
He brought his enthusiasm for the sciences to students in several western states and Central America, teaching and distributing to schools the WatershED environmental science curriculum and teacher training kits he developed. Gifted in engineering, he designed multiple electronic and mechanical devices and long before GPS was ubiquitous, invented Fire Commander devices to track the precise locations of firefighters via satellite for their safety when battling blazes.
Arriving in Boulder, Colorado, in the late 1980s, he founded multiple nonprofits to protect the environment through education, collaboration, research, and activism. Hundreds volunteered under his tutelage to map details of the botanical assets of hundreds of miles of trails and track the habitats of wildlife with his Boulder Creek Watershed Workgroups. His cartoon character Bernie the Badwater Trout taught the local community the importance of caring for our water sources. He produced and hosted dozens of cable television broadcast interviews and discussion panels with internationally acclaimed experts regarding many complex environmental concerns and coordinated colloquiums with University of Colorado at Boulder to interface with community resources. A series of Boulder Creek art shows he launched provided a visual expression of the value that regional artists place on their local environment.
Volunteering his talents, he traveled the world, building water systems in Ecuador, distributing his environmental science education kits in Mexico, and acquiring computers for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He has campaigned door-to-door for political candidates and distributed educational materials through social media. Sharing his environmental expertise, he has worked to preserve local forests.
An accomplished climber, skier, and hiker, he volunteered with Rocky Mountain Rescue, providing first responder services that saved many lives or held the dying in his arms. He coordinated many excursions for friends to celebrate the great outdoors together, leading and co-hosting hundreds of hikes. He enjoyed dancing, especially to complex Latin rhythms and swing era melodies. In his young adult years he played bandoneon in a tango orchestra and banjo in a bluegrass band, dabbling with multiple musical instruments.
His many friends will feel his spirit as we hike mountain and foothill trails and will remember him when we hear birds singing and the wind in the trees. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him and especially by his long-time sweetheart Serene Karplus.
Saturday, May 29, 2021
2 p.m. at Chipeta Park Pavilion
245 Lakeview Drive, Nederland
Bring dish if participating in potluck, stories to share.
Wear mask, weather-appropriate attire (may be chilly/damp).
(Originally published in the May 20, 2021, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)
