Herbert C. Johnson, who championed BWCA, dies

Herbert C. Johnson, a Minnesota business leader who dedicated himself to removing motorized activity from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, died June 25 at 89.

Friends described Johnson, an engineer and businessman, as "a doer, a get-'er-done kind of guy" who was "always thinking, always observing and making connections."

Of hundreds of people who aided the campaign to ban motorized vehicles from the wilderness area, "Herb was in the small handful of people who really made a big difference," said Kevin Proescholdt, of the Izaak Walton League.

He was born in June 1922, one of three sons of Clarence and Hattie Johnson of St. Paul. After graduating from St. Paul's Mechanic Arts High School, he studied drafting at a vocational technical school.

He went to work in Detroit in 1942 as a machine designer and enlisted in the Navy in May 1943, said daughter Gail Rapson of Birmingham, Mich.

The Navy stationed Johnson in Chicago. He met Erica Kopp, his future wife, at a dance at a Chicago ballroom.

A year after World War II ended, he was in charge of monitoring equipment used to measure atomic bomb blasts in testing at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, Rapson said.

After his discharge in 1946, Johnson married and went to college for an engineering degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. he and his wife returned to Minnesota in the early 1950s, settling in Edina when it was farm fields. Their daughter was born in 1955.

Johnson started his career at Research Inc. and then became the first president of MTS Systems in Eden Prairie, a firm that specialized in testing parts. He later became president of DataMyte Inc., based in Plymouth.

He was a tall, friendly man with a big mustache. He smoked a pipe. He liked to read and travel. He spent what little spare time he had working to protect the BWCA.

An act of Congress created the wilderness area in 1964 but allowed the use of motors in the area as a compromise to win local support, said Greg Lais, executive director of Wilderness Inquiry.

Johnson worked during the 1970s for federal action to ban motorized vehicles in the area. That came in 1978.

"Herb loved wilderness and he loved the idea of preserving and protecting it for future generations," Lais said. "He believed in its intrinsic value for people and experiencing the wilderness on its own terms without motors."

Johnson was one of the few businessmen involved in the issue and he stood out, Lais said.

He was also known for writing letters to the editors of the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers, Proescholdt said. "He had dozens and dozens of letters to the editor published. He was a master of the letter to the editor."

Johnson had a stroke in 1993 that changed his life. His mind and body slowly declined in the past 18 years, Rapson said.

A service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday in Lakewood Cemetery chapel in Minneapolis. Visitation is at 9:30 a.m.

Laurie Blake • 612-673-1711