Clean-Energy Champion Gail Ryba Passes Away

At an Earth Day celebration in 2002 in Santa Fe, I spotted Gail Ryba riding her bike, wearing her ubiquitous yellow jacket. “So, Gail, how’d you like to take over for me as energy chair for the Rio Grande Chapter?” She replied, “Gee, I’m pretty busy with the bicycle coalition and the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy and raising a child.” “I know,” I said, “I always look for overextended activists.” “Okay, I’ll think it over.” The very next day Gail called me and agreed to be the energy chair, and thus began Gail’s short but effective stint as a Sierra Club activist.

Gail found the Public Regulation Commission ripe for public input. So she encouraged Club staffer Carol Oldham to ask the commission to advocate that the electric utility PNM to supply compact fluorescent light bulbs through schools, churches, and public events, and in return Sierra Club would distribute them for free. Tens of thousands of light bulbs distributed, hundreds of folks save on electric bills, and untold pounds of CO2 avoided, are all thanks to Gail’s insight and encouragement.

Gail’s scientific background helped her tackle issues we mere mortals shrink from due to their sheer complexity. The Club’s fight against the Desert Rock power plant was greatly enhanced by her ability to untangle technical and economic arguments and to explain how an alternative route of energy efficiency and renewables is a far preferable road to take.

Tidiness was not one of Gail’s virtues. On the day when the Coalition and the Club were to move from one office site to another, Gail was still putting eminently recyclable items like 10-year-old reports into boxes, and no moving trucks were to be seen. Then, at the appointed 8:00 a.m. hour, bicyclists toting carts and kids’ buggies behind their bikes arrived to
tote off the items for a 2-mile schlep.

It was always fun to carpool to one of our quarterly chapter meetings with Gail. We’d talk on the drive down to Sevilleta about how to get another policy in place to promote bicycling at city hall or DOT, and scheme about promoting energy efficiency before the Legislature or at the PRC, then we’d pick up the conversation’s threads on the drive back.

Getting the news those many months ago that Gail was fighting cancer was more of a blow to the gut then the Gulf oil disaster is now. The last time I saw Gail was at her yard sale, held last autumn to raise funds for her medical bills. Her physical weariness was outmatched by her cheery determination to greet all who came and offer a bargain no one could refuse.

They say no one is irreplaceable. There are exceptions to every truism. Gail is that exception.—Ken Hughes

Gail is survived by her husband, Thomas Robey (former Rio Grande
Chapter treasurer); her daughter, Lynn; her mother, Frances (Joyce) Ryba; and siblings David, Eric, and Diane.

Donations in her memory can be made to the Sierra Club, Gerard’s House, Presbyterian Medical Services Home Care and Hospice, or the Bicycle Coalition of New Mexico.