… Originally born in Colorado, (Richard) Sloan moved to Fresno with his parents when he was around 4 years old. He moved to Khartoum, Sudan for two years and returned in 1964 to Fresno. It was then, when he was 13 years old, when he first became acquainted with the San Joaquin River. … During his final years in (Army) service and after, Sloan began volunteering for the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust. That was when he experienced his first canoe ride down the river, where he noted that he was “never out of sight of a tire” while on the water. … “I thought, ‘Oh my God, why doesn’t anybody do anything about that?’ and that’s what spurred me onto that first cleanup, then after that, I started organizing tire cleanups and they turned out to be pretty popular,” Sloan said. In 2000, he got a full-time position with the trust as the River Steward Coordinator and also became chair of the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter. Through his positions he was able to coordinate the river’s first clean up at Camp Pashayan, where they pulled out 60 tires and an old-timey soda vending machine.