GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The group working to restore the Grand River in Grand Rapids has hired a President and CEO who has restored a major waterway in Georgia.
Richard Bishop has been hired to lead Grand Rapids Whitewaterin the effort to restore the Grand River downtown. Grand Rapids Whitewater was founded in 2009 and has been led by co-founders Chris Muller and Chip Richards as volunteers.
Bishop has been the President of Uptown Columbus, INC and Uptown Whitewater Management LLC in Columbus, Georgia since 2005. He has managed a $26 million restoration of the Chattahoochee River.
“Richard’s river restoration experience, along with his career history serving both the public and private sectors makes him an ideal candidate to lead the historic transformation of the Grand River. The Chattahoochee river restoration project has several similarities to the Grand River Project and they are seeing the significant environmental, economic, and social benefits of a restored urban waterway,” said Chris Muller Co-Founder of Grand Rapids Whitewater in a press release.
“It’s a very similar project where it has the restoration right in the downtown core, so I think it really speaks to what we’re trying to do which is everything restored within a section of Ann Street to Fulton Street," says Muller.
You can see a video of the Columbus project here:
Bishop will start in Grand Rapids on August 1st.
