Jeff DeBonis - Foreword:  Jeff's distinguished career includes leadership in forestry, environmentalism, and employee activism.  He’s worked on national and international projects in the Peace Corps, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Agency for International Development.  DeBonis was a Forest Service employee in 1989 when he became a whistleblower exposing the agency’s willful violation of environmental laws through extensive over-cutting and damage to national forests.  He founded AFSEEE (Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics), a group of dissident environmental activist agency employees within the Forest Service.  In 1992 he founded Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an expanded national organization of public employees of numerous environmental agencies who are working to ensure the integrity and public accountability of their agencies.  DeBonis has been recognized for his leadership by several foundations and public interest groups including the National Wildlife Federation, the Wilderness Society, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, the California League of Conservation Voters, the Oregon Natural Resources Council, and the Society for Conservation Biology.   (Read the Foreword)

 

Roger Contor:  Imagine this. You arrive in Washington State, alone.  You have a pencil and a rental car.  Now, go set up a new National Park.  That was Roger Contor’s challenge in 1968 when the National Park Service made him the first Superintendent of North Cascades National Park and gave him the job of creating something different from National Park orthodoxy - a park to emphasize wilderness preservation.  Roger reflects about changing the face of land management in a stolid agency comfortable with the status quo and the evolution of management innovation such as a let-it-burn fire policy in the Park Service.  (Read an excerpt from Roger's interview)

Gloria Flora:  How should you approach a billion dollar decision to develop or not develop thousands of acres of public land along the Rocky Mountain Front?  What values should guide your decision making?  Who should you listen to in making your decision?  How should you set the stage for success once you announced your decision?  Those questions were presented to Gloria Flora as Forest Supervisor on Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest.  When she came to the decision that allowing oil and natural gas leasing on the Rocky Mountain Front was a bad idea the fallout was expected - criticism and complaint from petroleum companies.  Even a law suit where the oil and gas industry complained that her decision was based on emotion rather than science and that she paid too much attention to the public - claims the federal judge rejected.  In 23 years with the Forest Service Gloria began her career with a Landscape Architecture degree and a desire to improve management of visual resources.  She ended up dealing with some major conservation challenges and facing some of the most intractable commodity interests in the United States with a stake in using public lands for private purposes.  Along the way she collected awards from environmental groups, tribes, community organizations, her agency, and Sunset Magazine's award for Environmental Inspiration.  "Inspiring" is a good word to describe Gloria's career.  (Read an excerpt from Gloria's interview)

Andrea Mead Lawrence:  As a longtime member of California's Mono County Board of Supervisors (in the eastern Sierra Nevada region of California) and a conservation activist, Andrea has something to say about the role of natural resource professionals in our democratic political processes.  As a 'consumer' of professional expertise she has worked with professionals on issues ranging from the preservation of Mono Lake, California, to creation of the Eastern Sierra Land Trust, to organizing the Sierra Nevada Regional Initiative - a region-wide planning effort to preserve the natural landscape of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains.  She has extensive experience with the interface of conservation and our democratic processes and good insights of where and how the professional fits in.  As an Olympic ski champion she also has important advice about achieving personal excellence.  (Read an excerpt from Andrea's interview)

Bern Shanks:  Bern Shanks has gotten around more than most conservationists.  In addition to a Ph.D. in Natural Resources he has worked for two governors, four universities, and federal, state, and municipal governments.  He has been a gubernatorial advisor, a university professor, and the chief executive officer of local and state government agencies.  He has held jobs in eight of the western states and several national parks.  His responsibilities have included land, water, fish, wildlife, and environmental management.  He began speaking out against the sagebrush rebellion as a professor of Natural Resources at Utah State University – a position he was encouraged to vacate after the sagebrush rebels made their displeasure known to University administrators.  Reflecting back on 30+ years experience as both professor and practitioner Bern Shanks takes on the topic of advocacy and the natural resource professional.  (Read an excerpt from Bern's interview)

Tom Peterson:   Tom Peterson founded the Center for Climate Strategies to help governments do a better job managing climate change. In a journey from a Christian fellowship club at college to this world-scale issue Peterson has used the principle of stakeholder self-determination as an effective way to create change. Tom’s professional experience includes a current post as Senior Research Associate at Penn State University where he teaches Climate Law and Policy and past positions as Director of Domestic Policy at the Center for Clean Air Policy; economist with Environmental Protection Agency; advisor to the White House Climate Change Task Force; and many other posts. Having that string of jobs has also been an explicit career management strategy. Tom’s approach to career management features diversity of personal preparation as a way to maximize diversity of job opportunities as a way to maximize his chance to create change—a skill he has been honing since college.  (Read an excerpt from Tom's interview)

Mike Dombeck:  When Mike Dombeck joined the Forest Service in 1978 as a GS-6 fish biologist, he and his wife settled into their 40 acres in Wisconsin’s lake country expecting to stay there for his entire career.  But he would become the Nation’s Chief Forester - responsible for 8 percent of the nation’s land and supervising the 33,000 employees responsible for its stewardship.  Mike wanted the agency to redefine stewardship to mean more than the commodity goal of timber production.  Conservationists hailed him as revolutionary.  Timber and mining interests reviled him as, in the words of one Western Senator, “...delusional.”  To Forest Service employees he meant change.  Mike has said, “Everybody likes trees. Some like ‘em vertical, some like ‘em horizontal.”  His career is about how to keep more of them vertical and why that is wise stewardship.  (Read an excerpt from Mike's interview)

Phil Pister:  A career fishery biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, Phil actively ducked promotions as a career goal.  Instead, his 38-year career was a search for purpose and meaning as a natural resource manager in public service. In the eastern rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Phil became deeply involved in desert fish conservation issues, including  a seminal role in the formation of the Desert Fishes Council.  Unlike most natural resource professionals, Phil has written extensively about his career, including essays that reflect on ethics and the meaning of a professional’s career. (Read an excerpt from Phil's interview)

Max Bazerman:  Why do people say they want one thing, but decide to do another? Is that question relevant for natural resource professionals? Harvard professor Max Bazerman believes it is. Bazerman is a leading researcher and thinker about the difficulties humans have making decisions. His research spans a wide array of questions about why wise policies–-for individuals, organizations, and governments–-do not easily occur, including the topic of poor environmental decision making. Max was the founder and director of the Kellogg Environmental Research Center and he’s served on the board of a number of organizations, including the Consensus Building Institute, Sterling Gorge Natural Area Trust, Maine Coastal Habitat Foundation, The Israel Center for Negotiation and Conflict Management, and the National Council for Science and the Environment. He is the author or co-author of over 175 research articles and book chapters, and the author, co-author, or co-editor of fifteen books, including: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, now in its sixth edition. His list of consulting clients reads like a Who’s Who® of successful government and corporate organizations. Bazerman's research focus is decision making, negotiation, creating joint gains in society, and the natural environment. (Read an excerpt from Max's interview)