UNDUE INFLUENCE

The National Audubon Society is profiled in Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb's book, Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America

1998 Income: $73, 245,456
1998 Assets: $158,631,289
Founded: 1905
Exempt since: 1972

Revenue and Expenses: Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2000

President and CEO: John Flicker
Board of Directors:

Board member bios:

Oakes Ames, 2000, of New York City, New York

is a physicist and educator. He served as executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, and, prior to that, as president of Connecticut College from 1974 to 1988. He was visiting professor of environmental studies there in 1994. He is president of the Board of Directors of Environmental Advocates, a New York State organization based in Albany. His past Board and committee service includes: task force member on non-governmental organizations of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government; trustee, the Foundation for Independent Higher Education; chairman and member of the Executive Committee, Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges; and chairman, Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee of Connecticut. As a physicist he was on the faculties of Princeton University and of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he also served as chairman of the Physics Department. He has published scholarly papers on experimental nuclear physics and in journals on physics and science education. His major research interest is in energy technology and policy, especially energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Dr. Ames was elected to the Board of National Audubon in November, 1994, and re-elected in December, 1997.

John H. Anderson, 2002, of Winters, California

is a habitat restorationist and owner of Hedgerow Farms, a major producer of native grass seed in Winters, California. His initial habitat work began in 1978 on his own farm at which time he was a practicing veterinarian at the California Primate Research Center in Davis. In the late 1980s he began experimenting with grassland reconstruction on a variety of sites on his farm. In 1990 he initiated commercial production of native grass seed which has expanded to 200 acres of over 25 species including forbs, sedges, and rushes. The combination of seed production and habitat restoration has provided him with a wealth of practical knowledge and experience relative to grassland restoration in California. He has written about and given many lectures and workshops on this topic to a wide range of audiences. He is a founding member and current president elect of the California Native Grass Association, a past director for the Yolo County Resource Conservation District, board member for the Yolo Basin Foundation, and board member for the recently formed state board of Audubon California. He was elected to the Board of Directors in September of 1999 to fill a vacancy.

John B. Beinecke, 1998, of New York City, New York

is Vice President of Antaeus Enterprises, Inc., a private investment firm. He has long been interested in and supportive of conservation organizations. He serves on the Board of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary (Pennsylvania). Mr. Beinecke is also active in several civic organizations. He is a member of the Board of the Lincoln Center Theater. He serves as a director of the Prospect Hill Foundation and the Sperry Fund. He was elected to the Board of National Audubon in December 1989, and re-elected in December 1992. He was elected treasurer of National Audubon in December 1995 and Vice-chairman in December 1996. He also served on the Society's Strategic Planning Steering Committee.

John Bellmon 2001, of Layton, Utah

is an air traffic controller at Hill Air Force Base as a civilian. A member of the National Audubon Society for 20 years, he is the founding president of Wasatch Audubon Society and founding chair of the Audubon Council of Utah. A Governor's appointee to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Northern Regional Advisory Council, he was also appointed by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to the Bureau of Land Management, Utah Resource Advisory Council as a National Audubon Society (environmental) representative. Mr. Bellmon is a board member of the Ogden Nature Center and a former representative to the Hill Air Force Base Restoration Advisory Board, providing public oversight to toxic waste clean-up. Elected to his first term on the Board in December 1998, he is the Rocky Mountain Regional Representative.

Jerry Bertrand 2001, of South Hamilton, Massachusetts

recently retired from his 18-year service as president of Massachusetts Audubon Society. He received a B.A. in zoology from the University of New Hampshire, an M.S. in biological sciences from Florida State University, a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from Oregon State University, and a J.D. in environmental law from the University of Wisconsin. From 1977 to 1980 Dr. Bertrand served as a Chief of International Affairs for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Prior to this appointment, he served as a senior scientist for the President's Council on Environmental Quality under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. Earlier Dr. Bertrand acted as ecological advisor to the chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was influential in formulating the Corps' original environmental policies and guidelines. At its world conference in Germany in 1994, delegates elected Dr. Bertrand as Chairman of BirdLife International. He serves as a trustee and co-founder of the World Land Trust, also in the U.K., and is trustee of the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, D.C. He is also a Vice President of Fauna and Flora International in London. Dr. Bertrand was elected to the Board in December 1998 to fill a vacancy.

Charles G. Bragg, Jr., 2002, of Los Angeles, California

received a B.A. in English Literature from Stanford University in 1967. In 1977 he became a member of the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society and is a past president. He is currently the chapter's membership chair and newsletter editor. He has written a membership tracking and newsletter mailing program (MemAud) which is available free to any Audubon chapter. His inordinate interest in birding and bird photography forced him to write a database manager for his world life list, Christmas counts, slide collection and slide shows. Since retiring from Quincy Cass Associates, a securities firm in Los Angeles, he has been active in several other local conservation groups: Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, Santa Monica Baykeeper, and the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation. Bragg is the nominee from the Western Region and was elected to the Board in December 1996.

Howard P. Brokaw, 2001, of Greenville, Delaware

is a former DuPont Company executive. He is Chairman of the Board of the American Bird Conservancy and a former chairman of the Board and an honorary trustee of the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia. He is a past treasurer of the International Council for Bird Preservation; honorary director of the Delaware Nature Society (past president); investing trustee of the American Ornithologists' Union; founding trustee of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute; and director of Delaware Wild Lands and the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad. He is a past director of the World Wildlife Fund-U.S.; Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association; Forward Lands, Inc. and RARE Center for Tropical Conservation; and past president of the Delmarva Ornithological Society. Mr. Brokaw worked for the President's Council on Environmental Quality, during which time he was director of the Wildlife and America Project (1976-77) for which he conducted a national symposium and planned, coordinated, and edited a comprehensive book on the status and future of American wildlife and its habitat. He has spent several weeks each year during the past 30 years in wilderness travel, wildlife study, and photography throughout the world, and was a consultant to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on environmental education in India in 1978-79. He is also an honorary trustee of the Brandywine Museum and Conservancy; a trustee of the Studio Group, and a past member of the Delaware Humanities Council. In addition to speaking and writing on conservation, he has lectured and written on art and illustration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a director of National Audubon from 1983 to 1990. He was elected by the Audubon Board to his present tenure in September 1994 to fill an unexpired term, and elected by the members in December 1995, and re-elected in December, 1998.

Harriet S. Bullitt, 2000, of Seattle and Leavenworth, Washington

is president and owner of Sleeping Lady Conference and Retreat Center in Leavenworth. She is a long time conservationist, active in many areas, including preservation of wetlands, forests, and Puget Sound. She is a trustee and chair of the Environmental Committee of the Bullitt Foundation. She is trustee of Classic Radio, Inc., in Seattle. She founded and published Pacific Search (later Pacific Northwest) which was originally a natural history and science-oriented magazine. She was Director of King Broadcasting Company until 1991. She was elected to the Board of National Audubon in December 1992 to fill an unexpired term, elected to her first three-year term in November 1994, and re-elected in December, 1997.

Donald A. Carr, 2002, of Vienna, Virginia

received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1970 and a J.D. from George Washington University in 1974. He is former Acting Assistant Attorney General at the Land and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, and currently managing partner of the Washington, DC office of Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts. He has a broad environment and natural resources practice dealing with wildlife, endangered species and wetlands issues, and defense of environmental crimes cases. From 1991 to 1993 he was Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association Special Committee on Endangered Species and Co-Chair of the Environmental Litigation Subcommittee. He is the author of numerous articles on environmental policy and has presented lectures at national and international conferences and conventions.

William Conway, 2002, of Westchester, New York

is a conservation biologist and science administrator at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He has been curator of ornithology, director of the Bronx Zoo, general director of the Society (1966-1999) and president and general director from 1992 until September 1999. He is now senior conservationist. Under his leadership, WCS developed a conservation program of more than 320 science-based conservation projects in 52 nations and a national and international environmental education program, and expanded its New York City operations from the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium to include the Central Park, Prospect Park and Queens Wildlife Centers. He has played a leading role in the redeployment of zoological gardens and aquariums as environmental science and proactive conservation centers. He developed the American Zoo and Aquarium Association "Accreditation Program" and was the father of its "Species Survival Program" for the propagation of vanishing species. Recently, he has sought to focus zoo-aquarium attentions on direct preservation of wildlife in nature. He personally oversees WCS programs in South America's "Southern Cone" and has helped foster the development of a dozen wildlife reserves while contributing to wildlife conservation and park development in East Africa and elsewhere. He played a major role in the development of New York's Mason-Smith Bill and the successful efforts to spread its principles to other states and incorporate them within the international C.I.T.E.S. legislation. He has authored more than 200 articles and reports in ecology and wildlife conservation and has served on the Boards of many conservation organizations including IUCN, National Audubon Society, AZA, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and World Wildlife Fund-U.S. He currently serves on the Boards of the Asa Wright Nature Center (Trinidad), IUCN's Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, International Species Inventory System, American Conservation Association, the Caribbean Conservation Corporation and as an Asesor of the Fundación Patagonia Natural (Argentina). Dr. Conway was elected to the Board of Directors in December 1999.

Leslie Dach, 2000, of Washington, D.C.

is Vice Chairman of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide and managing director of its global public affairs practice. A former legislative director at National Audubon Society, he also was a former on the staff of the Environmental Defense Fund. He served as special assistant to the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee. He was elected to the Board of National Audubon in November 1994, and re-elected in December, 1997.

Jack Dempsey, 2000, of Minneapolis, Minnesota

is a management consultant. He got involved in Audubon during the strategic planning process during 1994-95, and joined the Board of Directors in 1996. He has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia and a BS in General Management and Finance from Cansius College in Buffalo, New York. Prior to working as a consultant, Dempsey was a retail banker with Chase Manhattan. He also owned and operated a restaurant for three years. 

Lynn Dolnick, 2000, of Chevy Chase, Maryland

is chief of the Division of Exhibit Interpretation at the National Zoo, Smithsonian Institution. She has served in several capacities at the National Zoo, and was the founder and director of New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences, a program devoted to advanced biomedical research to benefit wildlife, and to educational outreach to improve science education. Dr. Dolnick is a former researcher in the field of molecular biology, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, England. She was a research associate with Biogen, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has served on the Coordinating Committee of the Boston Women's Fund, and did volunteer curatorial work for the New England Aquarium in Boston. She was elected to the Board of National Audubon in November 1994, and reelected in December of 1997.

Helen Engle, 2002, of Tacoma, Washington

has been an environmental activist for decades, holding offices in The Mountaineers, Washington Environmental Council, League of Women Voters, People For Puget Sound, helped start up various ad hoc Save-the-World groups, and was founding president and 10-year Board Member of Tahoma Audubon Society. She holds now or has held appointments to various state agency advisory committees for outdoor recreation, river management, estuarine sanctuaries, and Department of Wildlife Nongame Advisory Council. She has produced slide shows on a variety of natural history subjects and environmental issues; and has organized extensive educational field trips for Auduboners throughout the West. Mrs. Engle has received many state and civic awards for community leadership, including, in 1977, the American Motors Conservation Award. She was a recipient of the Bausch and Lomb/NAS Conservationist of the Year Award in 1991. She now serves on a number of Boards as well as the Committee of Judges for the Chevron Conservation Award Program. She was a director of National Audubon from 1980 to 1990, during which time she served as vice chairman of the Board for five years. She was elected by the Audubon Board to her present tenure in September 1994 to fill an unexpired term, elected by the members in November 1994, and reelected in December of 1996.

W. Hardy Eshbaugh, 2002, of Oxford, Ohio

is Professor of Botany Emeritus at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His special areas of interest are plant systematics and economic/ethnobotany including the preservation of indigenous cultures and knowledge and plant systematics. His research has focused on the origin and evolution of domesticated plants using chili peppers as a model system for those studies. For the past four years his international conservation effort has focused on two areas. The first is a major research and teaching effort in the Bahamas and Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The second is serving as an instructor in the International Rainforest Workshops based out of Iquitos, Peru, in affiliation with Explorama Tours (a Peruvian ecotourism company) and International Expeditions (US ecotourism company). Dr. Eshbaugh has been active in Oxford Audubon Society for many years as a featured lecturer and leader in the Annual Bird Count. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy (Ohio chapter). He has served in various functions with several professional organizations, including: American Institute of Biological Sciences (president, 1995); American Society of Plant Taxonomists (president); Botanical Society of America (president); Society for Economic Botany (president); and as co-chair of the Steering Committee for Systematics Agenda 2000: Charting the Biosphere. He is an author/editor of two books, The Vascular Flora of Andros Island, Bahamas (Kendall Hunt Publ. Co., 1988) with D.L. Nickrent and T.K. Wilson, and the 4th Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas (Bahamian Field Station, 1993), and many scientific papers and book reviews. He was nominated to the Board of National Audubon by the chapters in the Great Lakes Region and elected in December 1993. He was reelected to the Board in December 1996.

John W. Fitzpatrick, 2001, of Ithaca, New York

is the director of the Laboratory of Ornithology and Professor Ecology and Systematics at Cornell University. He was the executive director of the Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid, Florida, from 1985-1995. From 1978-89 he served as curator of birds, Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and was chairman of the Zoology Department from 1985-1988. In 1972 he began work with Glen Woofenden on Florida Scrub Jays at the Archbold Biological Station. He co-authored The Florida Scrub Jay: Demography of a Cooperative-breeding Bird (Princeton University Press, 1984), for which he was awarded the William Brewster Memorial Award for Outstanding Research by the American Ornithologists' Union. Fitzpatrick has spent considerable time in South America (mainly Peru, Venezuela and Brazil) studying the ecology and systematics of Amazonian and Andean Birds. He was among the first scientists to conduct research in the Manu National Park, in southeastern Peru, and has discovered and described 7 bird species new to science. He is a Recovery Team member for two endangered bird species, a member of the National Board of Governors of the Nature Conservancy, and president elect of the American Ornithologists' Union. He was elected to the Board of Directors of National Audubon Society in December 1995 for his first three-year term, and reelected in December of 1998.

Christopher M. Harte, 2001, of Portland, Maine

is an investment manager. He is a trustee of the Maine Audubon Society, a current Board Member of the Maine chapter of The Nature Conservancy and former Board Member of the Texas and Florida chapters. Since 1989 he has been restoring prairie on an 800-acre ranch 30 miles west of Austin. He is a graduate of Stanford and has an MBA from the University of Texas. He was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and was publisher of the Centre Daily Times in State College, PA, the Akron Beacon Journal, the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. He is a director of Harte-Hanks, Geokinetics, Wildfire Fire Equipment and Hi-Port. He was elected by the Board in March of 1998 to fill a vacancy, and elected by the members in December, 1998.

Pat Heidenreich, 2000, of rural Marquette, Iowa

has been active in Audubon grassroots organizing for many years. She is founder and past president of the Upper Iowa Audubon Society. She was founder and past president of the Dubuque Audubon chapter, and co-founder of the Kolob-Virgin River (Utah) chapter. She is active in the Upper Iowa Audubon chapter, and will be serving on the Board of the newly formed Iowa State Audubon Office. She served on the Board of the Audubon Expedition Institute from 1991-1995. She has been actively involved with the Iowa State Council for a number of years. She serves on the County Committee for REAP (Resource and Enhancement Act). Mrs.Heidenreich is actively involved in political campaigns to elect strong environmental candidates. She serves on the Board of the Friends of the Upper Mississippi River Refuges and is a member of the Advisory Council for the NAS Upper Mississippi River Campaign. She was a Director on the National Audubon Board from 1983-1989, and thereafter served on the President's Council. She was elected by the Audubon Board to her present tenure in September 1994 to fill an unexpired term, elected by the members in November 1994, and reelected in December of 1996. She presently serves as Secretary of the Society.

Marian S. Heiskell, 2001, of New York City and Darien, Connecticut

New York City and Darien, Connecticut, has been actively involved with conservation organizations for many years. She is honorary chair of the Council on the Environment of New York City; chair of the New 42nd Street, Inc.; former chair of the Citizens Westway Park Advisory Committee, past chair of the Gateway National Recreation Area Advisory Commission, and was a principal citizen activist in the establishment of this important resource for the New York City area. She is on the Board of Managers of the New York Botanical Garden, on the Board of the National Park Foundation, and a trustee of The Parks Council. She is a former director of The New York Times Company, the Ford Motor Company, and Merck and Co., Inc.; and a former trustee of Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. In 1974, Mrs. Heiskell was a recipient of the Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson Keep America Beautiful Award, and in 1975, she received the Citizens Union Distinguished Service Award. She served as co-chair of the National Audubon Society's capital campaign for the renovation of the new headquarters building. She was a director of National Audubon from 1982 to 1994. She was elected to her present tenure on the Audubon Board in March 1995 and re-elected to her first three year term in December 1995.

Reid Hughes, 2002, of Daytona Beach, Florida

is past president of Hughes Oil Company and president of Edge Broadcasters and a real estate developer throughout Florida. Hughes is a political activist who has run for the U.S. Congress and Florida Senate, losing in close races. He has received awards and recognition from numerous organizations including the highest awards from the NAACP, the Nature Conservancy, the American Petroleum Institute and he has been recognized by Florida Trend magazine as one of Florida's 100 most influential citizens. Several Governors have appointed Hughes to organizations including governing boards of the St. John River Water Management District, Florida Development Commission and First Chairman of the Florida Environmental Education Foundation. Hughes has served on numerous environmental, civic, education and business boards including Chairman of the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. He holds a B.S. degree from University of Southern California and his post graduate studies were done at the Wharton School of Business. He has an honorary Doctorate from Bethune Cookman College and an endowed chair in water policy at Florida State University is also on the board of the FSU Foundation. He was elected to the National Audubon board in September 1996 to fill a vacancy and elected to his first 3-year term in December 1996.

Susan Hughes 2000, of San Antonio, Texas

is the Texas State Coordinator for the NAS Population and Habitat Campaign, and a member-at-large of the Texas Audubon Society board of directors. She was the newsletter editor for Bexar Audubon Society from 1991-94, the chapter's president from 1994-96, and continues serving on its board. She was president of the Audubon Council of Texas from 1995-96. Susan has coordinated the peer-judged National Audubon Society chapter newsletter contest for the past three biennial conventions. She is a Director of the Edwards Aquifer Authority and the environmental representative on the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group. She coordinated the U.S. Network for Cairo town meeting in San Antonio in 1994, and she has served on the Mayor's Citizens Committee on Water Policy, the City Public Service Citizen Advisory Committee on Integrated Resource Planning, and the Mission Trails Oversight Committee in San Antonio. She is a member of the Bexar County Master Gardeners and her yard is a certified Texas Wildscape. She was a co-founder of Natural Initiatives, a San Antonio program that promotes landscaping for wildlife. Susan holds a Master's in Library Science from The University of Texas at Austin, and has completed additional graduate work in environmental management at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Her career was in corporate and special libraries, before she moved into the marketing communications field. She founded Wordwright Associates, a business, technical, and marketing communications firm, in 1990. She was nominated by Audubon chapters in the Southwest Region in November 1998 to fill a vacancy, and elected by the members in December 1998.

Vivian Johnson, 2000, of Newton Center, Massachusetts

is Associate Clinical Professor of Education at the Boston University School of Education where she teaches urban and international education. A prominent educator and longtime advocate for multicultural education, she has developed a community based reading skills program in Boston and a curriculum resource center on African- American history in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She has traveled to Indonesia for research, and to Portugal to work with specialists to promote multicultural education. A Fulbright Summer Seminar Award Recipient, Dr. Johnson was also a Scholar-in-Residence in Rockefeller Center, Bellagio, Italy. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance and Oxfam America, and served as an Advisory Board Member of Helen Keller International and the Francis Emily Hunt Educational Trust. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and her CAS and Ed.D. from Harvard University. She was elected by the National Audubon Society Board of Directors in 1997 to fill a vacancy.

Donal C. O'Brien, Jr., 2000, of New Canaan, Connecticut

is a senior partner in the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. He has served as Commissioner of Connecticut State Board of Fisheries and Game, and is currently Chairman of The Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality by appointment of Governor John Rowland. Mr. O'Brien has served on Connecticut's Council on Environmental Quality under three Governors over a twenty-five year period. He also served as Chairman of Governor Lowell Weicker's Task Force on Hunting and Public Safety in Connecticut. Mr. O'Brien is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Waterfowl Research Foundation; American Bird Conservancy; Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc.; The Trustees of the Reservations; the Atlantic Flyway Council for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan; and a Council Member of the Save-the-Redwoods League. He is President Emeritus of the International Council of Bird Preservation, Chairman Emeritus of the Quebec Labrador Foundation and former Vice Chairman Emeritus of The Nature Conservancy. Mr. O'Brien is a bird and decoy carver and has won several national competitions. He was twice U.S. National Amateur Decoy Champion and has carved Atlantic Puffin, Arctic Tern and Razorbill Auk models to be used as decoys for Audubon projects in the northeast Atlantic. He was a Director of National Audubon from 1976 to 1988, during which time he served as Chairman of the Board for five years. Mr. O'Brien served as Co-Chair of the Society's capital campaign for the renovation of Audubon House and Co-Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee for Audubon 2000. He was elected to his present tenure on the Audubon Board in March 1991 to fill an unexpired term and elected to his first full three-year term in December 1991. He was elected Chairman of the Board on March 20, 1994, elected to his second three-year term in November 1994, and re-elected in December, 1997.

Ralph Odell 2001, of Putnam Valley, New York

has a B.S. and M.S. in Education. He is a director of Putnam Highlands Audubon Society and a past president, field trip chair and director of Bedford Audubon Society. He was a member of the original Board of Trustees of the Arthur W. Butler Memorial Sanctuary and served as a co-chair of the Board of Administrators. He helped bring about a donation of 50 acres of wetland to the National Audubon Society, which became the Watergrass Sanctuary and sparked the beginnings of the Putnam Highlands Chapter of NAS. He is a founder of the Naturalist's Workshop for children and the Peekskill and Putnam County Christmas Bird Counts, and has assisted with identifying Important Bird Areas (IBAs). He worked on the Emergency Conservation Committee of Northern Westchester and Putnam Counties, and initiated and maneuvered preservation of Manitou Marsh on the Hudson River. Recently he was appointed by the Governor to the Taconic State Park, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commission. Elected to the Board in December of 1998, Mr. Odell is the Northeast Regional Representative.

Benjamin Olewine, IV, 2000, of Redding, Connecticut

is a strategic planning and marketing consultant of The Olewine Company. He has long been active in local, national, and international conservation issues for several organizations, including National Audubon Society; The Nature Conservancy (International Committee in the Connecticut chapter); World Wildlife Fund; and the Connecticut Ornithological Association. His contributions have been many, from developing and executing public relations programs to providing direction in fundraising using promotional programs with major consumer products companies. He is an ardent amateur ornithologist/bird watcher and has traveled extensively in the U.S. and internationally on bird watching and natural history trips. He built one of the first "environmentally friendly" houses in the U.S. in 1985-86. He was elected to the Board of National Audubon in November 1994, and re-elected in December, 1997.

David H. Pardoe, 2002, of Columbia, Maryland

initiated the founding of the Audubon Society of Central Maryland and assisted in the formation of the state Audubon Council of Maryland. He has been involved with volunteer organizations for many years and served as an officer or Board member of the Maryland Ornithological Society, North American Bluebird Society, and Maryland Wildlife Federation, as well as the Audubon chapter and council. He was employed by the National Wildlife Federation for 15 years, and his final position there was shared management responsibility for the Conservation Program's cluster of 5 departments, 28 division, 10 regional field offices, and liaison with over 45 autonomous state affiliates and their volunteer boards. He is currently Eastern Vice President of Gull Rock Services, providing membership development services for nonprofit organization. He is the regional nominee from the Mid-Atlantic Region.

David Pimentel, 2002, of Ithaca, New York

has been a Professor of Insect Ecology and Agricultural Sciences at Cornell University since 1969, and has served on the Cornell faculty since 1955. He has chaired, or served on, several Boards and panels at the Department of Energy, The World Bank, National Academy of Sciences, and the National Geographic Society, as well as other nonprofit organizations and government agencies around the world. His areas of expertise include soil, water, energy, human population, and the environmental impacts of pesticide use. Dr. Pimentel has earned several honorary degrees and lectured at universities internationally. He has authored over 510 scientific publications of which 20 are books. He was elected to his first term on the Board in December 1999.

Ruth O. Russell, 2001, of Tucson, Arizona

has been an active Audubon member for many years. She has served in several chapter positions, including president of Tucson Audubon Society, and is active with the Arizona Audubon Council. An ardent birder, she is a member of several ornithological societies and bands hummingbirds as part of several research projects. Ms. Russell currently serves as secretary for the Appleton-Whittel Research Ranch Foundation, and has been appointed by the Governor to several state boards and commissions. She was elected to the Board of National Audubon as the representative from the Rocky Mountain Region in December 1992, and re-elected in December 1995. In 1996 she was elected Vice-chairman of the Board, and is now serving a third term.

Walter C. Sedgwick, 2001, of Woodside, California

is on the Board of Directors of many organizations including the Southwall Technologies Corporation, which helped produce the energy saving windows of Audubon House, Island Foundation, International Rivers Network, the Florida Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, and Archbold Biological Station. He is also chairman of Tall Timbers Research, Inc., (Tallahassee, Florida); an associate of Invertebrate Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cambridge, Mass.); and an associate with the Department of Entomology, American Museum of Natural History (New York City). He has published several scientific articles on spiders. Mr. Sedgwick was elected to the Board in June of 1996 to fill a vacancy, and reelected in December of 1998.

Amy Skilbred, 2000, of Juneau, Alaska

began her environmental career working with several national environmental organizations including National Wildlife Refuges and Alaska Public Lands Director for Defenders of Wildlife. After completing her graduate degree in international economics, she moved to Juneau and worked for the state legislature and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. She also operated a consulting business, and was a lobbyist. Ms. Skilbred served as President of the board for the Juneau Audubon Society for several years and currently serves as its vice president. She is past president of the Alaska Environmental Lobby and the Alaska Conservation Alliance, a group of statewide organizations which assist local, state, and national conservation groups working on environmental issues in Alaska. Ms. Skilbred was responsible for developing statewide conservation strategies and board policy, monitoring the organizations' financial stability, and fundraising. Nominated by the chapters in the Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam region, she was elected by the members in December of 1997.

Lucy Waletzky, M.D. 2001, of Pleasantville, New York

is a psychiatrist and psychooncologist. She serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve and Memorial Sloan Kettering International Center for the Disabled. She is an associate director of the Stress Medicine Group in Pleasantville, New York and a former clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology, Georgetown University Hospital. She is co-founder and former co-director of the Medical Illness Counseling Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Prior to founding the Center she was in private practice. She is also the founder and president of DateAble, a non-profit organization that has provided friendship and dating opportunities to people with and without disabilities since 1987. Dr. Waletzky was elected to the Board in December 1998 to fill a vacancy.

John L. Whitmire, 2000, of Houston, Texas

retired in 1996 from Phillips Petroleum Corporation as the Executive Vice President of Exploration and Production, and retired in 1998 from Union Texas Petroleum as Chairman & Chief Executive Officer. He received a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University in 1964 and an Honorary Doctorate in 1995. he is a Director for MAPCO, Inc., a member of the API Board of Directors, the Board of Advisors to the Houston Audubon Society, and a past member of the Management Board of the Playa Lakes Joint Venture Wildlife Conservation Project. As Chairman of the Environment, Safety and Health Corporate Committee at Phillips Petroleum Corporation, he directed significant funding and resources toward many environmental projects including the Playa Lakes Joint Venture and the High Island and Gulf Coast Bird Observatory initiatives. He has been instrumental in bringing together environmentally-concerned parties from governmental and non-governmental agencies and industry to form partnerships to preserve habitat through science and education. Mr. Whitmire was elected to the Board in December 1996 to fill a vacancy, and reelected to a three-year term in December 1997.

Liz Woedl, 2002, of Oxford, Ohio

is Vice President and Membership Chair of Oxford Audubon Society (OAS). She was one of the charter members of OAS and its first president, having also served as Newsletter Editor and Program Chair. A local activist with the NAS Population and Habitat Campaign, Ms. Woedl also develops yearly programs on area issues of growth and development cosponsored with the Oxford League of Women Voters. She is the Secretary of the Ohio Audubon Council, of which she has also served as Vice President, President, and Board Member. In 1995 she received the NAS William Dutcher Award for service to the Audubon cause on a regional level. She served on the Strategic Planning committee that organized the Ohio State Office, as well as the Task Force on the Regional Board Member election process. She was a girl scout leader for 14 years, and has been an Administrative Assistant and Art Instructor at the McGuffey Foundation School since 1986. The Regional Nominee from the Great Lakes Region, Ms. Woedl was elected to her first term on the Board in December 1999.

Joyce A. Wolf, 2000, of Lawrence, Kansas

is executive director of the Kaw Valley Heritage Alliance, a nonprofit organization, which is a broad-based coalition of nonprofit, business, education, and civic groups along with local, state and federal agencies,dedicated to promoting greater awareness, appreciation and stewardship of the cultural and natural resources of the Kansas River Valley. With this current position she utilizes her professional training and original career as a bacteriologist in a water-quality monitoring laboratory. She was a founding board member of the Kansas Land Trust and served for four years as its executive director. She is a long-time member of National Audubon and has held a number of chapter and state offices. She is a member of the Jayhawk Audubon Society, having served as its president, vice president, editor, and conservation and education chairs. She has also served as president of the Kansas Audubon Council and as its lobbyist for five years. She was appointed to several state commissions and panels and coordinated the Kansas Clean Air Coalition. Her awards include: the Kansas Wildlife Federation's Air Conservationist Award, the NAS Dutcher Award and the Kansas Audubon Council's Presidents Award. She was nominated to the Board of National Audubon by the chapters in the West Central Region, elected in November 1994, and re-elected in December of 1997.

Bernard Yokel, 2001, of Mt. Dora, Florida

retired as president of the Florida Audubon Society in 1995 after eleven years of service. Since the mid-1970s and during his tenure as president of Florida Audubon Society, Dr. Yokel served as an environmental activist seeking solutions to Florida's growth problems -- developing a bridge between science and sound environmental management. In recent years he has initiated a successful outreach to businesses and industries seeking consensus on environmental issues. His professional background extends to the far East where he served as an educator and school administrator in Guam and Saipan. He is a former research scientist with twenty years of experience as a field biologist in the Everglades National Park, the 10,000 Islands, and the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Preserve. He is a member of many Florida environmental committees and councils serving at the invitation of each of Florida's Governors since 1977. Dr. Yokel was nominated to the National Audubon Society Board of Directors by the chapters in the Southeast Region and elected to the Board in December 1995, and re-elected in December, 1998.

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