Lorrie Otto

Lorrie Otto (September 9, 1919 – May 29, 2010) was an American speaker and author. As an environmentalist, she was an ardent supporter of the protection of biological diversity. She helped to bring about the DDT ban in the United States and helped to establish the Environmental Defense Fund.

Background She was born Mary Lorraine Stoeber in 1919 near Madison, Wisconsin. She was a farmer's daughter and was intrigued as a young child by the freshly turned soil on her father's land. She joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II.

Education and marriage She graduated from the University of Wisconsin.

In 1979, after hearing Otto lecture, Ginny Lindow and eight other women began to meet monthly to discuss natural landscaping. They wanted to promote the use of native plants to landscape city and suburban yards.

Charles Wurster, a founding trustee of Environmental Defense Fund, summed up Otto's environmental career this way: "The lawn police would come around and get after her. Eventually she became a national figure on behalf of all sorts of conservation causes."