Board of Directors 2010
Christy George, President
Carolyn Whetzel, First Vice Pres. & Programs Chair
Peter Fairley, Second Vice Pres. & Membership Chair
Don Hopey, Treasurer & Finance Chair
Peter Thomson,Secretary
James Bruggers, Future Conference Sites Chair
Jeff Burnside
Rob Davis
Douglas Fischer
Cheryl Hogue
Robert McClure
Sharon Oosthoek
Timothy Wheeler
Bill Kovarik, Rep. for Academic Membership
Heather King, Rep. for Associate Membership
Ex Officio Board Member
Jim Detjen, Founding President
SEJ Headquarters
Beth Parke, Executive Director
Christine Rigel, Director of Programs and Operations
Linda Knouse, Records Manager, SEJournal Design Editor
SEJ Project Consultants
Jay Letto, Director of Annual Conferences
Cindy MacDonald, Web Content Manager
Joseph A. Davis, TipSheet and WatchDog Editor; member, SEJ FOI Task Force
Mike Mansur, SEJournal Editor
Talli Nauman, Diversity Program Associate
Advisory Board
SEJournal Editorial Board
Endowment Committee
SEJ board service FAQ's
— the whats and whys of serving on the SEJ board
Board of Directors 2010
President
Christy George produces documentaries at Oregon Public Broadcasting. She started at OPB in 1997, creating a bureau covering the intersection of business and the environment for the Los-Angeles based national business show, "Marketplace". Before that, George edited foreign and national news for The Boston Herald and covered politics for WGBH-TV, where she won a New England Emmy for an investigative documentary about Massachusetts political corruption. She started out in 1976, covering noise and air pollution and neighborhood encroachment by Logan Airport for The East Boston Community News — a dream beat that led to jobs in print, radio and television. George shared in "Marketplace's" Peabody Award in 2001 and her special "Liquid Gold," on how water is being bought, sold and marketed like any other commodity, was part of "Marketplace's" 1998 winning submission for a Columbia-DuPont Silver Baton award. A high school graduate, she was a 1990-91 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Contact Christy, 503-293-4001.
First Vice President and Programs Chair
Carolyn Whetzel is an environmental reporter for BNA, a private publisher headquartered in Washington, D.C. that covers legislative developments, federal and state laws and regulations, court decisions, and economic trends. Whetzel is based in California and covers a variety of state environmental issues including air and water quality, hazardous wastes, chemicals, and energy since 1992. Her work appears primarily in BNA's Daily Environment Report, Environment Reporter, Toxics Law Reporter, Chemical Regulation Reporter, Occupational Safety & Health Reporter, and Daily Report for Executives. Whetzel joined BNA in 1970 while attending George Washington University, but left four years later to travel and move to California. Before rejoining BNA, she wrote for in-house publications for several companies and institutions and was a freelance writer in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Dallas. Contact Carolyn, 909-793-1430.
Second Vice President and Membership Chair
Peter Fairley is a ground-breaking energy and technology journalist based in Victoria, British Columbia. He is a contributing writer with Technology Review magazine, contributing editor with Spectrum, and author of the webjournal Carbon-Nation, covering developments in renewable energy, nuclear power, the sustainable use of fossil fuels and clean transportation technologies. An experienced foreign correspondent, Fairley has worked on assignment on four continents, from Bolivia to China and throughout Europe. Other publications where Peter's byline can be found include The Sunday Times of London, Canadian Business, Architectural Record and Popular Mechanics. Prior to freelancing Fairley served as Washington bureau chief and senior managing editor for Chemical Week, chronicling the global chemical industry's collision with the environment and its struggle to change. Fairley holds a master's degree from NYU's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and a B.Sc. in molecular biology from McGill University. Contact Peter, 250-514-6248.
Treasurer and Finance Chair
Don Hopey has covered the environment for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1992. He has written series about an 80-mile canoe trip through the Wild & Scenic sections of the Allegheny River, the "Wise Use" movement in Pennsylvania and problems with the nation's hazardous waste incinerators. He participated in an end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail by five eastern newspapers in 1995, hiking more than 500 miles from Virginia through Pennsylvania. Reports on the hike were reprinted in a book, An Appalachian Adventure. He is co-author of Exploring the Appalachian Trail: Mid-Atlantic States, one of five guide books in a series that highlights the trail's social and natural history. He teaches an environmental issues and policy class at the University of Pittsburgh. Contact Don, 412-263-1983.
Secretary
Peter Thomson is the environment editor at the BBC/Public Radio International program "The World" and the author of Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal. He was the founding producer and editor of NPR's groundbreaking environmental news program "Living on Earth" in 1991, and in a decade with the program also served as senior editor, western region bureau chief, senior correspondent and special projects editor. Thomson's work has been honored with numerous awards, for reports and documentaries on subjects ranging from oil, natives and wildlife on Alaska's North Slope to threats facing America's drinking water supply to the environmental legacy of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Thomson has received fellowships from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Rockefeller Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. He is a member of the advisory board of the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, and has served on the advisory board of the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. Contact Peter, 617-983-2327.
Future Conference Sites Chair
James Bruggers covers environmental topics for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal in Kentucky and served as SEJ president from October 2000 through October 2002. He's been a professional journalist since 1982, working in Montana, Alaska, Washington, California and Kentucky, and an SEJ board member since 1997. In 1998-99, he was awarded a year on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus as Michigan Journalism Fellow. Bruggers has won numerous reporting awards. His report on railroad workers and brain damage was a top-ten finalist in the public service category of the 2001 Associated Press Managing Editors national contest. And in 2004, he won the Thomas Stokes Award, the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation's Excellence in Journalism Award, and two Best-of-Gannett awards for the series, "Toxic Air: Lingering Health Menace." Bruggers is a graduate of the forestry and journalism programs at the University of Montana, where he also earned an M.S. in environmental studies. He also writes a blog, Watchdog Earth. Contact Jim, 502-582-4645.
Jeff Burnside has been in the news business for more than 20 years working as a reporter, anchor, news manager and producer in cities such as Seattle, Boston and now Miami where he is part of the highly regarded WTVJ Special Projects Unit. In addition to environmental reporting, Jeff reports investigative, long-format stories, and periodically covers daily news. He's won more than 20 journalism awards — for television and newspaper reporting and photography — including several regional Emmys. Among his environmental stories, Jeff broke the story regarding harm to marine mammals from low frequency active Navy sonar, documented concerns over rock mining threats to Miami-Dade wellheads where one million people get their drinking water, has traveled extensively to cover the decline of the world's coral reefs, and ventured to the bottom of the ocean aboard a scientific submersible during bioprospecting and chronicling the damage from bottom trawling. His general assignments have ranged from interviewing presidents, going inside to investigate violent white extremists, exposing dangerous religious cults, documenting serious lapses in Florida's drivers' licensing, videotaping bribes, to going undercover to chronicle the secret pipeline from puppy mills to pet stores. His assignments have taken him to Indonesia, Central America, throughout the Caribbean and every part of America. Jeff is also a frequent invited speaker and panelist on environmental journalism and journalism ethics. In addition, he earned a fellowship at the Metcalf Institute for Environmental Reporting (University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography) and a fellowship at the Western Knight Center for Specialized Reporting in political coverage (University of Southern California Annenberg School). He is a long-time member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Jeff was born and raised in Seattle, Washington where he grew a fondness for the outdoors, including boating, water and snow skiing, scuba diving and alpine hiking — reaching the summit of Mount Rainier. He's married and lives in Miami Shores, Florida. Jeff is also active in volunteering for community non-profit organizations. He graduated from Washington State University's Edward R. Murrow School of Communications. Contact Jeff, 954-622-6192.
Rob Davis is an investigative reporter who focuses on the environment for voiceofsandiego.org, a pioneering nonprofit online daily news source in San Diego, Calif. He regularly writes about water, climate change and San Diego's habitat preservation efforts. His reporting on redevelopment shared a 2008 award from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Rob started his career at the Hanover (Va.) Herald-Progress and worked at the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star before heeding the call of Manifest Destiny in 2005. He is a Maryland native who graduated from the University of Richmond in 2000 with a B.A. in history and journalism. Contact Rob, 619-325-0529.
Douglas Fischer is the editor of DailyClimate.org, a nonprofit, foundation-funded news Web site focusing on climate change. Before switching to the Web, Fischer spent eight years covering the environment for the Oakland Tribune and five years at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska, where, among other hats, he was the paper’s restaurant reviewer. He started his journalism career in Newsweek’s Letters Department. His articles have won numerous national and regional awards, among them an Award of Merit from the inaugural Grantham Prize. Fischer is a graduate of Columbia University and lives today with his wife and two children in Boulder, Colo., where he's learning to play piano. Contact Douglas, 303-955-8255.
Cheryl Hogue has covered national environmental policy developments from Washington, D.C., since 1987. For the last decade, she has reported on pollution-related issues for Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of a major scientific organization, the American Chemical Society. Her first environmental reporting was a series on the health of the Chesapeake Bay for The Daily Banner in Cambridge, Md., on the Delmarva Peninsula. After daily newspaper stints there and at the Montgomery Journal in Rockville, Md., she moved to the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA). While at BNA, Hogue covered Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and international environmental policy. She co-authored Toxic Substances Control Guide: Second Edition, a book detailing the major U.S. laws regulating chemicals. She holds an M.S. in environmental sciences and policy from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in biology from the College of William & Mary. She's an avid birdwatcher. Contact Cheryl, 202-872-4551.
Robert McClure's midlife crisis was all about environmental reporting. A Florida native, he spent a decade on the beat at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where he wrote numerous articles pointing out the need for Everglades restoration in the years leading up to launching of the planet's largest ecosystem restoration there. He also was awarded a prestigious Knight Wallace journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he studied environment and economics and concluded that he must move West to tackle the really big environmental stories. That's what he did, taking a job with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He spent his 40th birthday — his second weekend living in the Pacific Northwest — camping at Mount Adams. In a decade at the P-I, he produced five multi-part projects on mining, endangered species, and the need for environmental restoration of Puget Sound and the Duwamish River. He covers climate change and other environmental news topics regularly in his blog, Dateline Earth. When the P-I ceased publishing in March 2009, McClure was instrumental in helping launch a start-up non-profit news venture called InvestigateWest to carry on investigative and narrative reporting on the West. His professional career began at United Press International's Miami and Tallahassee bureaus. McClure is the recipient of numerous state, regional and national journalism awards including the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. Contact Robert, 206-718-0340.
Sharon Oosthoek is a Toronto-based freelance science and environment journalist. Her work has appeared in New Scientist, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic, cbc.ca, Today’s Parent, Canadian Family, ON Nature and Canadian Wildlife. Sharon has more than 20 years' experience working for daily newspapers, magazines and online news services. Before becoming a freelancer in 2002, she was a reporter for The Hamilton Spectator for 10 years covering social trends, education and crime. She’s also the author of Kate’s Story, a book and CD about a young girl whose life changed dramatically the day she found out she had cancer. A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Sharon holds a bachelor’s degree in political science. Her journalism degree is from Ryerson University. She has twice won both Science in Society Journalism Awards from the Canadian Science Writers’ Association and the Western Ontario Newspaper Awards. Sharon has also taught corporate communications students at Toronto’s Centennial College how to write. Contact Sharon, 416-763-1390.
Tim Wheeler covers the environment for The Baltimore Sun. He has written about the environment frequently in his 30-year journalistic career, which included a decade as the beat reporter for The Evening Sun and then The Sun after the two papers merged. He spent two years as an editor helping to coordinate The Sun's medical, science, religion and environmental coverage, during which reporters for the paper won an SEJ award for spot-news coverage of a chemical-laden train fire in downtown Baltimore. His reporting on the Chesapeake Bay, childhood lead poisoning and other environmental topics also has won multiple awards. Before coming to Baltimore, he worked for newspapers in Richmond and Norfolk, VA., and for Media General News Service in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, with a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. Contact Tim, 410-409-3469.
Representative for the SEJ Academic Membership
Bill Kovarik is a professor of Communication at Radford University in southwestern Virginia where he teaches science and environment writing, media history, media law and web design. He has also served on the faculty at Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland. Kovarik's professional experience includes reporting and editing for Jack Anderson, the Associated Press, The Charleston (S.C.) Courier, The Baltimore Sun, Time-Life Books, Latin American Energy Report and Appropriate Technology Times. His books include The Forbidden Fuel (1982), Mass Media and Environmental Conflict (with Mark Neuzil, 1996), and Web Design for the Mass Media (2001). He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University (1974), the University of South Carolina (M.A., 1983) and the University of Maryland (Ph.D., 1993). Contact Bill, 540-831-6033.
Representative for the SEJ Associate Membership
Heather King is a sustainable business consultant based in San Francisco. She helps international corporations and non-profits adopt environmentally sustainable strategies and practices. King has over 15 years' experience of strategic planning, business development, and marketing experience with leading companies such as Apple, Oracle, Disney, Discovery Media, and several media technology startups. In 2009, she was an Executive Fellow at the Presidio Graduate School of Business Sustainability. King is also a freelance photojournalist and producer. In 2001, she produced A Day in the Life of Africa, the 15th in the award winning Day in the Life Series. She has an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth and has lectured at Stanford and Haas business schools on corporate/non-profit partnerships. King serves on the board of a leading Land Trust and was previously a director of a San Francisco based media education center. Contact Heather, 415-752-2195.
Founding President
Jim Detjen is the Director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. He joined the MSU faculty in January 1995 as the Knight Chair in Journalism. Detjen spent 21 years as a professional newspaper reporter and editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and other publications. His reporting has won more than 50 state, national and international awards including Polk, National Headliner, Stokes and Meeman awards. He is a three-time finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Detjen is a contributor to or author of four books on environmental and science journalism topics. He has lectured widely and has taught journalism workshops in the British Isles, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Mexico and throughout the U.S. Detjen helped found the International Federation of Environmental Journalists in 1993 and served as IFEJ president from 1994 to 2000. He earned a bachelor's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. Detjen was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach at Nanakai University in Tianjin, China, during the spring semester of 2002. Contact Jim, 517-353-9479.
SEJ Headquarters
Executive Director
Beth Parke became SEJ's first executive director in 1993. She provides entrepreneurial leadership to clarify, protect and advance SEJ's mission. Parke's responsibilities include implementation of board policies, budget and finance, development, strategic planning, university relations with regard to annual conferences, and collaboration with partners in the journalism community. From 1984 - 1992 Parke was senior producer and host for Consider the Alternatives, an award-winning radio series on public policy issues. Prior to that she was employed as a producer for National Public Radio affiliates WGBH-FM, Boston and WHYY-FM, Philadelphia. Parke earned a B.A. in Communications from Boston College, and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Contact Beth, 215-884-8174.
Director of Programs and Operations
Christine Rigel, director of programs and operations, has been with SEJ since 1993. She designed and built SEJ's database system and served for many years as design editor of SEJournal. Current responsibilities include planning and implemention of SEJ programs, supervising administrative and program staff, managing SEJ's computer systems and working with SEJ's board on awards, membership and elections committees. Rigel feels that her unique contribution to SEJ is in finding ways to enable a small staff to perform heroically through streamlining procedures and other methods of maximizing team performance. Rigel earned a B.A. in professional writing from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She is also an accomplished photographer. Contact Chris, 215-884-8177.
Records Manager and SEJournal Design Editor
Linda Knouse, records manager and SEJournal design editor, began working for SEJ in the fall of 2002. Knouse maintains member records and accounting files and lends support to many programs and projects. Before joining SEJ's staff, Knouse was employed by Montgomery Newspapers where she handled billing data and page layout for display advertising. Knouse's freelance writing on environmental subjects has been published by Montgomery Newspapers, Montgomery Town and Country Magazine and Pennsylvania Magazine. Contact Linda, 215-884-8174.
SEJ Project Staff
Annual Conference Director
Jay Letto, a founding member of SEJ, has been the group's annual conference director since 1993. He also works as a freelance writer and editor. From 1986 to 1992, Letto served as director of the environment program at the Scientists' Institute for Public Information in New York City, where he was also co-editor of SIPIscope. Letto has organized scores of programs for journalists on the full spectrum of environmental issues. As annual conference director for SEJ, he works with the board conference chair and dozens of member-volunteers to organize a balanced, diverse and news-making program dealing with the myriad aspects of news reporting on environmental issues. Letto is on the editorial board of the Stanford University publication Ecofables/Ecoscience and on the advisory board of the Science & Technology News Network. Letto earned his B.S. in biology and environmental studies from the University of Michigan. He also holds an M.A. in journalism, with a certificate in science and environmental reporting, from New York University. Contact Jay, 509-493-4428.
Web Content Manager
Cindy MacDonald, SEJ's Web content manager, develops and maintains fresh, accurate and timely content for www.sej.org on a daily basis. She has applied her technical expertise and extensive experience as a detail-oriented writer and administrator to this creative and critically important service to the SEJ community since December 2000. Based near Lindsay, Ontario, Canada, MacDonald is an avid proponent of accurate information in general and on environmental issues in particular. She is a French/Spanish undergraduate of the University of Windsor, Canada. Contact Cindy.
TipSheet and WatchDog TipSheet Editor; member, SEJ FOI Taskforce
Joseph A. Davis, free-lance writer/editor in Washington, D.C., directs the WatchDog Project, an activity of SEJ's First Amendment Task Force that reports on secrecy trends and supports reporters' efforts to make better use of FOIA. He also edits TipSheet, a biweekly electronic newsletter of story ideas and sources co-published by SEJ and the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF). Davis was senior writer with the Environmental Health Center until 2002, where he was acting editor of EHC's Environment Writer as well as principal author of EHC's reporter's guide on the science of global climate change. Between 1982 and 1989, he covered energy, environment and natural resources for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. Davis earned his B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has experience in database reporting and has taught Web publishing. Contact Joe, 301-656-2261.
SEJournal Editor
Mike Mansur has covered environmental issues for The Kansas City Star since 1991. He worked on The Star's investigative project about the U.S. Department of Agriculture — work that won numerous national awards including the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Mansur was a Michigan Journalism Fellow in 1993-1994 and a longtime board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. He served as SEJ board president in 1999-2001. Currently, he edits the SEJournal. In 2002, Mansur moved to a new assignment of covering government affairs in Kansas City, although those stories may still include an environment story or two. Contact Mike, 816-234-4433.
Diversity Program Associate
Talli Nauman is co-founder and co-director of the Aguascalientes, Mexico-based bilingual independent media project Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, initiated with a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1994. She was the Americas Program associate and editor at large for the International Relations Center, a people-based policy think-tank and non-profit, trilingual web publisher based in Silver City, New Mexico, from 2003 to 2006. She writes a weekly column on environmental issues in the Mexico edition of the Miami Herald and takes part in hemispheric efforts to promote environmental community right-to-know and access to public information on industrial toxics. Nauman recently returned to reside in the United States after living and working in photojournalism in Mexico for 16 years. Her background includes more than 30 years in major media outlets in the Americas, including the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, UPI, and The Associated Press in Los Angeles and Mexico City; a master's degree in International Journalism from the University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard-Radcliffe. Contact Talli, 215-884-8174.
Advisory Board
Marla Cone
Steve Curwood
Peter Desbarats
Gregg Easterbrook
Charles Eisendrath
Judy Muller
Rich Oppel
Gene Roberts
Rick Rodriguez
Sandy Rowe
Teya Ryan
Robert Semple
Judy Woodruff
Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)
Katherine Fanning (1927-2000)
Thomas Winship (1920-2002)
SEJournal Editorial Board
Robert McClure (chair)
Mike Mansur (editor)
Elizabeth Bluemink
Adam Glenn
Bill Kovarik
David Sachsman
JoAnn Valenti
Denny Wilkins
Endowment Committee
Peter Thomson (co-chair)
Carolyn Whetzel (co-chair)
Emilia Askari
Brenda Box
James Bruggers
Peter Dykstra
Dan Fagin
Christy George
Kathrin Lassila
David Ropeik
Robert Thomas
Beth Parke (ex officio)