ACF Board of Trustees
President Jimmy Carter, Honorary Chair, Atlanta, GA
Rhonda L. Bennon: Rhonda joined ACF as a San Francisco Bay Area Council member in 2004. She is a long-time resident of San Francisco, California, and a native of Chicago, Illinois, who did not set foot in Alaska until 1993. But when she did, it was love at first sight. Before even leaving the airport, she knew she was somewhere special, powerful, and important. Rhonda's enthusiasm, affection, and respect for Alaska have continued to grow, and on each of her visits to Alaska, she has made it a point to see a new part of the state. Each visit has reinforced her conviction that conservation, in the broadest sense, is essential to Alaska's—and the rest of the country's—future. Rhonda is a principal and vice-president of The Empire Group, a commercial real estate investment company that specializes in adaptive reuse of historically significant buildings, primarily in San Francisco. She holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College, a M.A. from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley – Boalt Hall School of Law. Rhonda currently serves on the boards of The Mount Holyoke Club of Northern California and Mickaboo Bird Rescue. She enjoys reading, movies, hiking, and learning. Rhonda lives with her husband, Martin E. Brown, a fellow Alaska enthusiast.
Robert C. Bundy, Chair : Bob joined the ACF board in 2001. He has practiced law in Alaska since graduating in 1971 from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. Bob first served as a staff attorney for Alaska Legal Services Corporation in Anchorage and Nome, and then moved with his wife, Bonnie Lembo, to Kiana where he maintained a part-time practice and where they lived when their twin daughters were born. In 1975, the family moved to Nome, where Bob served as district attorney for nearly three years. Bob’s responsibilities in the one-person office extended from Point Lay in the north to Stebbins in the south, and included Kotzebue, Nome, Unalakleet, and surrounding villages. In 1978, the family moved to Anchorage, where Bob has practiced in the public sector as chief assistant district attorney and assistant attorney general for the State of Alaska and—most recently—United States Attorney for the District of Alaska from 1994 to 2001. During his time as a US attorney, Bob was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to serve on her Advisory Committee, where he was chair of the Environmental Issues Subcommittee. Bob engaged in the private practice of law in Alaska as a partner in Bogle & Gates from 1984 to 1993, and is now a partner with Dorsey & Whitney in the Anchorage office.
Susan Cohn Rockefeller: Sue joined the board in 2001. She is a documentary filmmaker whose projects have won top prizes at many film festivals. The most recent, Richard Nelson’s Alaska, was featured on PBS’ Natural Heroes in 2006. She has also written several career-oriented books, including the groundbreaking Green at Work that helped usher environmentally friendly jobs into nontraditional arenas such as art, architecture, marketing, finance, and more. Sue is currently working on Arctic Prayers, a memoir of her time spent in an Arctic Alaskan village teaching community gardening to Inupiat youth. In addition, she is working on co-producing and directing her first screenplay, Girls School. Sue lives in New York City with her two children, Annabel and Henry.
April E. Crosby: April first came to Alaska in 1975 as a backpacker and has lived there, actively involved with conservation, most of the years since. Her love for the wild outdoors developed in the Rocky Mountains and the southwestern deserts, and her study of conservation issues began with early 1970s “Environmental Ethics” courses for her philosophy students. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University (1974) and a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1990). Her focus at Harvard was natural resource economics and dispute resolution. After 16 years in postsecondary teaching and administration in Maine, Colorado, and Alaska, she retired from the University of Alaska’s President’s Office for a year in Barrow at Ilisagvik College as dean of instruction (1998). Now in her 17th year of organizational effectiveness consulting with nonprofit and natural resource management agencies, she makes time for reading, hiking, long-distance cycling, and snowshoeing. She resides in Fairbanks with her husband, Merritt Helfferich.
James D. DeWitt: Jim joined the ACF board in 2008. He grew up in Fairbanks and has practiced law in Alaska since graduating in 1975 from Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois. Jim has worked as an attorney in private practice since 1986 with the Law Offices of Guess & Rudd P.C. He is the author of the Volunteer Legal Handbook through eight editions and for fifteen years chaired the faculty of the Biennial Nonprofit Law courses sponsored by the Alaska Bar Association. He has been a member of the board of directors of United Way of the Tanana Valley for more than twenty years, and was its president in 1993. He is an avid birder and bird photographer. His environmental concerns focus on avian conservation. His other hobbies include fly-fishing, cross-country skiing, hiking, writing, and web site design. Jim is married to environmental consultant Nancy DeWitt, the former executive director of the Alaska Bird Observatory.
Cliff Eames, At large: Cliff joined the ACF board in February 2007. He retired in 2004 after 20 years as Issues Director with the Alaska Center for the Environment (ACE). During that time, his work focused primarily on Alaska’s 104 million acres of state lands and on the protection and restoration of the natural environment on all public lands. Prior to his career at ACE, Cliff served as counsel for the National Wildlife Federation’s Anchorage office and VISTA staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska. He holds a law degree from Boalt Hall at the University of California-Berkeley, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Princeton. He has served on numerous boards, including the Copper Country Alliance, Alaska Quiet Rights Coalition (founding board member), the Anchorage Waterways Council, and Friends of Chugach State Park. He has also spent many years on advisory committees such as the Governor’s South Denali Task Force, the Chugach National Forest Spruce Bark Beetle Working Group, and the Mayor’s Anchorage Wetlands Management Task Force. A recipient of the Anchorage Audubon Society’s Alaska Conservationist Award and ACF’s Olaus Murie Award, Cliff currently lives in Kenny Lake, Alaska. He enjoys hiking, cross country skiing, kayaking, bird watching, and—recently—studying folk guitar.
David Hardenbergh, Treasurer: David has worked in nonprofit administration, environmental program management, and rural community development for twenty years. As executive director of the Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL CAP), David serves as CEO of a $25 million-per-year nonprofit corporation with more than 350 employees statewide, a 24-member board of directors, a for-profit subsidiary, and a separate private foundation. His education includes an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a three-year stint in Peace Corps Nepal, a master’s degree in intercultural administration, twenty years of marriage, and ten years of parenthood. He is an avid traveler, photographer, hiker, climber, diver, kayaker, skier, and investor.
Nina Heyano, Secretary: Nina joined the ACF board in 2003. She was born and raised in Tanana, an Athabascan village at the confluence of the Yukon and Tanana Rivers, and currently resides in Anchorage. Her professional experience includes work on Alaska Native health and environmental issues, and she is presently completing a graduate degree in rural development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Nina currently serves on the boards of Tozitna, Ltd. (Tanana’s Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act village corporation) and the RurAL CAP Foundation. She has served on the board of the Alaska Women’s Environmental Network. Nina and David Heyano have two daughters, Josie and Rosa. Nina enjoys hosting family events, going to fish camp, and traveling.
Carol Kasza: Carol joined the ACF board in 2003 and lives in Fairbanks. She grew up on the front range of Colorado, where she acquired her affinity for open spaces and sweeping vistas. She received a B.S. in psychology from Colorado State University and an M.A. in community psychology from UAF in 1997. She chose rock climbing, traveling, and working construction over going to law school after college, then worked as a mountaineering instructor for Colorado Outward Bound before being enticed to Alaska by her husband-to-be, Jim Campbell. Since 1979 Carol and Jim have owned and operated Arctic Treks, an award-winning wilderness guiding business leading backpacking, rafting, and basecamp/hiking trips in the Brooks Range—the arctic version of her Colorado homeland. Their two children, Kendra (23) and Kyle (19), grew up with the family business. Carol has served on many public land management advisory boards. She was a founding board member and past president of the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association, formed to provide a collective voice for wilderness-dependent businesses to advocate for the sustainability of Alaska’s natural and cultural resources, responsible tourism, and tourism planning for communities.
Marcia I. Lamb: Marcia has over thirty years of senior leadership roles in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Most recently she served as executive vice president of the National Park Foundation, reporting to the President and leading all of their development efforts. She currently serves as a consultant to the Foundation and worked the past year on a national leadership summit on the future of park philanthropy and partnerships. She previously served as co-executive director of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a national nonprofit founded by Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School, working to eliminate economic inequality in America's inner cities through private sector engagement. Before joining ICIC, Ms. Lamb was manager of administration for Fleet Investment Advisors, the investment management business line of the Fleet Financial Group. From 1985 until 1991, she served as assistant secretary of housing for Massachusetts, where she managed most of the state's publicly and privately financed housing programs. She lives in Talkeetna, Alaska; Stillwater, Minnesota; and Dunedin, Florida with her husband and has three grown children who live in each of these three communities. She is an avid outdoor enthusiast who enjoys hiking, kayaking, and camping. In Alaska, she works to support the Denali Arts Council, serving Talkeetna and the Upper Susitna Valley, and Classroom with a View, an Alaska nonprofit helping home-schooled Alaskan youth develop leadership skills and self-esteem through a curriculum-based experiential educational program with trips in Alaska and Mexico
William C. Leighty: Bill is the principal in Alaska Applied Sciences, Inc., a research and development firm in wind generation and science education, and owns a 14-turbine, 700 kW wind plant in Palm Springs, California. He is co-author of twelve papers exploring transmission and energy storage alternatives for diverse, large-scale, stranded renewable energy resources, especially as gaseous hydrogen via pipeline. Bill holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and a master’s in business administration from Stanford University. He is a director in the Leighty Foundation, www.leightyfoundation.org, a small, charitable, family foundation founded by his father in 1985, in their hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Bill lives in Juneau, where he has served on the organizing committee of the Juneau Planetarium, the Juneau Sustainable Community Roundtable, the Juneau Energy Advisory Committee, and the Juneau World Affairs Council. He is the former owner of the Gold Creek Salmon Bake.
Deborah Liggett: Deb joined the ACF board in September 2006. She is a Denver native who grew up fly fishing on the Arkansas and Gunnison Rivers and loving every opportunity to explore both the mountains and the high plains. She graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a B.A. in Environmental Biology and began her life-long love affair with the national parks during her first seasonal job in 1976. Her career with the National Park Service has spanned the nation: Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO; Grand Canyon National Park, AZ; Big Bend National Park, TX; Dry Tortugas National Park, FL; Voyageurs National Park, MN; Everglades National Park, FL; Devils Tower National Monument, WY; and the four southwestern parks in Alaska: Katmai National Park and Preserve, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, and the Alagnak Wild River. She helped rebuild Everglades National Park after Hurricane Andrew, the only Category 5 hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since the 60s. No stranger to controversy, as superintendent at Devils Tower she was involved in a landmark court decision protecting sacred sites, and as superintendent of four Alaskan parks she was involved in access, subsistence, bear-viewing, concession, and wilderness policy issues on a daily basis—guaranteeing her fair share of attention from the Alaska congressional delegation. She retired from the National Park Service in 2005 with 25 years of service. Deb is a "Big Sister" to Emily, age 8, through the Big Brothers/Big Sister program and her personal life is ruled by two cats, Asparagus (Gus) and Annie (Little Orphan). Her husband Jay retired from the NPS in 2006 as the Alaska Regional Chief Ranger. Deb and Jay have been married for 27 years and have lived in Anchorage for nine years—and plan to stay in Alaska. They plan to travel and spend more time in parks. Deb is currently at work on a book of essays about her experiences in parks.
James Liszka: Jim became an ACF trustee in September 2006. He has been an integral member of the faculty at the University of Alaska Anchorage for 25 years. An internationally recognized scholar in semiotics (the theory of signs and symbols), American philosophy, and environmental, business, and professional ethics, Jim has published numerous books and articles on these subjects. He is an environmental educator and is on the editorial board of Environmental Ethics, the premier journal on ethical and theoretical issues on the environment. He is a professor of philosophy, and previously served as chair of the Department of Philosophy, interim vice provost for research and graduate studies, interim director of graduate studies, and president of the faculty. Jim presently serves as dean of UAA’s College of Arts and Sciences, and is also co-founder of the Alaska Quarterly Review, a nationally recognized literary journal.
Nancy Lord, Vice Chair: Nancy has been on ACF’s board since 2005. Originally from New Hampshire, she moved to Homer, Alaska in 1973 and has made her home there with partner Ken Castner. She was a founding member of the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society (1974) and the Alaska Marine Conservation Society (1992); she is past chair of both organizations as well as of the Alaska Environmental Lobby. In 1994 she was awarded ACF's Celia Hunter Award for her environmental volunteerism. She is the author of both fiction and nonfiction books, including Fishcamp, Green Alaska, and Beluga Days, and has written for magazines, newspapers, and the NPR radio show Living on Earth. She fished commercially for salmon for 25 years, and worked as a legislative aide in Juneau, mainly on resource issues, for 8 years. Her education is in American studies (Hampshire College) and creative writing (Vermont College), and she has taught creative writing at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In recent summers, she has been working on small adventure cruise ships in Alaska as a historian, naturalist, and Zodiac driver and is finally becoming acquainted with the extraordinary landscapes and wildlife of places like Glacier Bay and the Pribilof Islands. Among her favorite activities are beachcombing and berry picking.
Doug McConnell: Doug joined ACF’s board in 2002. He has a B.A. in government from Pomona College and an M.A. in political science from Rutgers University. He lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Alaska from 1973 to 1982 (he even met his wife, Kathy Taft, in 1979 at the old Pioneer School House in Anchorage!), and he has returned many times over the years to produce television series, specials, and news reports. He has a deep and lasting affection for Alaska and its people. Doug has worked full-time in television since 1982 creating, producing, and hosting many series, special programs, and news projects for local, national, and international distribution. He has hosted Bay-Area Backroads, a twice-weekly television series broadcast on KRON Television in San Francisco, for 13 years. He has received many broadcast awards, including a handful of Emmys, an Iris, and a Gabriel. He is a founding partner of ConvergenceMedia Productions, which is developing and producing AV products—with a focus on the environment, history, travel, and adventure—for television, websites, and a variety of new media. He maintains a busy schedule of community activities and has been honored recently with the Harold Gilliam Award for environmental reporting in northern California. Doug lives in the Bay Area with his wife, two sons (Nicolas and Patrick), and a bevy of pets.
Helen Nienhueser: Previously a trustee, Helen rejoined the ACF board in 2003. She grew up in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains and graduated from Brown University. She came to Alaska in 1957 for a summer job, fell in love with Alaska, and came back to stay in 1959. Helen worked for the Girl Scouts for three years, homesteaded in Eagle River Valley, and had two sons. She became active in Alaska’s conservation movement in the late sixties and began work on 55 Ways to the Wilderness in Southcentral Alaska, a hiking guide now in its fifth edition. She helped found the Alaska Center for the Environment in 1971 and was one of five volunteer coordinators who kept ACE alive during the early seventies. In 1976 she went to work for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR), where she worked with director Mike Smith to enact fundamental change, and later helped establish and implement a planning process for state lands. In the eighties, Helen served seven years as trustee for ACF. In 1984-85 she took a leave of absence to earn a master’s in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She retired from DNR in 1994 and since has balanced travel and time at her cabins (with husband Gayle), six years as chair of the TRAAK Board (trails), creating Anchorage’s Midtown Park, and serving on the board of Alaska Common Ground.
David Robertson: Dave is a retired software consultant now living in Boulder, Colorado. He spent 16 years with the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a super computer systems programmer before establishing his software consulting business. He holds a B.S. in geology from Lehigh University, and started his career as a mining geologist after he completed military service. Dave served as chairman of the Colorado Mountain Club Conservation committee for five years, where he became "overly familiar" with the complexities of forest plans and planning. In the last eight years of running his software company, he principally worked with and for different environmental groups: Environmental Defense, Western Resource Advocates, The Nature Conservancy, and Rocky Mountain Nature Association, among others. His last major project before retiring was writing an extensive computer model of the Truckee and Carson River systems as they relate to the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, the Newlands Irrigation District, and Pyramid Lake. Dave has served on the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee and serves on a fundraising and advisory committee for the soon-to-be-opened Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum (bwamm.org), a joint undertaking by the American Alpine Club, the Colorado Mountain Club, and the National Geographic Society. He is particularly interested in balancing habitat preservation with recreational use, believing strongly that you cannot get people to love and protect open spaces unless they really know them and have at least limited access to them. Dave and his wife have made upwards of 40 trips to Alaska since 1965, and two of their three children live in Alaska, as do six of their eight grandchildren. There have been many adventures over the years in many of the precious places, including The Valley of 10,000 Smokes, the Juneau Icefields, Denali, the Chugach, and a couple of long backpack trips in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Susan Ruddy: Susan joined the ACF board in 2005. Alaska has been a consuming passion for her for over 40 years, and helping to keep its ecosystems healthy and vigorous is a primary concern for her. Susan brings a wealth of experience to the board. She earned a B.A. in political science from Vassar College. She has been a reporter in Juneau and Washington, DC, and a freelance writer for various journals and papers. She has held government positions with the Anchorage Borough, the US Commission on Civil Rights, and as vice chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has also started several small businesses in research and marketing, communications, and even oyster farming (Lighthouse Point Oysters, in partnership with her son). Her nonprofit experience comes from time at The Nature Conservancy of Alaska and Providence Alaska Foundation. Even with a busy work schedule and her ACF commitments, Susan finds time to serve on five other boards, including the Smithsonian Institution National Board. She has a daughter Lydia, a son Sean, and a recent daughter-in-law Pauline. In her free time she loves hiking, diving, kayaking, reading, and dogs.
Mikayla Saito, Youth Seat: Mikayla is a graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2006. After serving as legislative intern and secretary for the Alaska State Legislature, Mikayla has come to better understand the role of government in our everyday lives and is utilizing her experience, with her passion for the environment, in pursuit of a master’s degree in global environmental policy. Mikayla was born and raised in Alaska, living throughout the state. She has come to appreciate Alaska's unique beauty through her years of traveling in the state and she will never miss an opportunity to explore all that Alaska has to offer.
Theodore M. Smith, Vice Chair, National Trustees: Ted joined the ACF board in 1996. Since 1993 he has headed the Boston-based Henry P. Kendall Foundation. Ted grew up in Montana and completed his college (Pomona) and graduate education (Berkeley) in California. The first 12 years of his career were spent with the Ford Foundation, and he ended his tenure there as resident representative in Indonesia. Later he served as president of an international operating foundation (the Agricultural Development Council) and then as founding executive director of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity. Ted first came to Alaska in the 1960s as a smokejumper flying out of Fairbanks. He is married to Mary Newmann and has two grown daughters—Sara and Emily. When in non-foundation mode, Ted backpacks, fly fishes, plays tennis, and reads history.
Leonard Steinberg: Leonard first came to Alaska in 1974 to evaluate the impact of a development project for his senior thesis. He has resided in Alaska for most of thirty plus years since then. Leonard has worked as a fisheries biologist in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and in the Bering Sea. He has served as a legislative researcher in Juneau, helped keep the General Store in McCarthy in one piece prior to the establishment of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and—as executive director for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council—fought for the protection of wilderness in the Tongass National Forest during the years leading up to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Leonard previously served on the boards of the Alaska Conservation Alliance and Alaska Conservation Voters. He has been an attorney for more than 20 years and currently serves as general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief ethics officer of ACS, a publicly traded telecommunications firm based in Anchorage, Alaska. In addition to his law degree from the University of California's Hastings College of Law, Leonard has a master’s of business administration from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a master’s of public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Adam Wolfensohn: Adam lives in New York City but has been visiting Alaska at any available moment since 1983. He composed music for theater, film, and television for eight years before returning to school for a degree in environmental policy. He currently produces environmental documentaries and has recently completed a film about global warming titled Melting Planet. He is a trustee of the Wolfensohn Family Foundation, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and president of the innovative music organization, Bang on a Can. He is married to Jennifer Small, to whom he proposed in Point Bridget State Park outside of Juneau. It was raining only lightly.
Ruth D. Wood: Ruth grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and has fond memories of swimming in muddy-bottomed, water moccasin- and snapping turtle-filled ponds on the family farm where she spent most weekends of her youth. Always liking the sensation of jumping into untested waters, Ruth tried her hand at several professions from managing the government bond portfolio at First Tennessee Bank, to earning an MBA at the University of Chicago, to working as a marketing consultant in Chicago. She first came to Alaska in the summer of 1989 when her sister signed her up for a Colorado Outward Bound class in the Brooks Range. She loved every rainy minute and returned the next summer to work at the Alaska Center for the Environment (ACE). She volunteered for several years, working mostly on local trail and land use issues. She then served on the ACE board of directors, including one term as president. Ruth is a recreational musher and represented local mushers and the South Birchwood community on the Eagle River Parks and Recreation Board. In 1998, Ruth and her husband, John Strasenburgh, moved to Talkeetna along with their 33 dogs. Ruth was appointed to the Talkeetna Community Council in 2001, and reelected for three additional terms. She has served as chair for the last five years. Intermixed in all of her volunteer work, Ruth (and John, of course) has found time to train and mush her team of dogs on the 800-mile Serum Run from Nenana to Nome, take hiking and river trips to the Brooks Range, and visit their remote log cabins. Ruth feels that Talkeetna is a wonderful rural community that has a very strong bond with the wilderness and natural values of its surrounding lands. Working to retain these characteristics in a booming town, in a booming Matanuska-Susitna Borough, is a significant challenge that occupies much of the time that she would rather spend mushing, hiking, backpacking, boating, birding, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing.
