John is the Chief of Medicine at the Spokane Veterans hospital, where he has cared for military veterans since 1986. His medical career is inspired by his mother, Marie Osborn, who is Idaho’s first nurse practitioner and set up the health care system for 6,000 square miles of central Idaho based in Stanley.  His love of the outdoors is from his fishing partner and father, Cal Osborn.

John edited the journal Transitions for The Lands Council for 12 years (1988-2000), chronicling the historic changes underway in the Columbia River region.  He is a co-author of Railroads and Clearcuts:  Legacy of Congress’s 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant, and has authored and published numerous special reports, including on the Spokane River, Washington’s water crisis, and the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.

John currently serves on the board of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Columbia Institute for Water Policy, chairs the Sierra Club’s Upper Columbia River Group, and works with the Regional Ethics Network of Eastern Washington (RENEW).

For an interview by Derrick Jensen, in Listening to the Land (1995), click here.