Len Ackland

Len is co-director for the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He also oversees the Ted Scripps Journalism Fellowships Program on that campus.

From 1984 until 1991, he served as editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, earning for that publication a National Magazine Award in 1987.

Before working at the Bulletin, Len was a technology and business reporter for the Chicago Tribune and an agriculture and labor reporter for the Des Moines Register. He won a John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for reporting on Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, and a George Polk Award for local reporting.

His books include Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, and Credibility Gap: A Digest of the Pentagon Papers.

Len has a master's degree in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University. (Long ago, he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado, but so did a lot of other people.)

Paul Bateman

Paul (right) has more than 20 years of experience at the intersection of government and business, as a government official, a mining industry executive and a businessman. He is president of the Klein & Saks Group, a public affairs company focused on the mining and metals industries. The firm advises companies, industry organizations and coalitions on political, regulatory, and public policy matters.

From 2000 to 2002, he was president of the Gold Institute, an international industry association, and spearheaded an industry coalition to support the development of the International Code for Cyanide Management.

In the early 1980s, Paul was deputy administrator of the Economic Development Administration, which managed a $200 million-a-year public works program providing assistance to local and state governments ranging from industrial parks to urban redevelopment.

From 1985 to 1988, he served as Deputy Treasurer of the United States, and in 1989, President Bush appointed him to serve on the White House staff as Deputy Assistant to the President for Management.

Bebe Crouse

Bebe (left) is the western news editor for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C.

For nearly 20 years, she reported feature-length stories for broadcast from widely varied settings, including Mexico and Central America.

Now she assigns coverage and selects stories to be aired during such news programs as “Morning Edition,” “Weekend Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

Her team of reporters and producers monitor a broad range of issues that affect 13 states in the West.

Bebe spent six years as a land-use planner in California and Oregon before turning to journalism. When she lived in Oregon, she guided whitewater rafting trips on the Rogue and Snake rivers and led groups to the top of Mt. Hood.

Reese Cleghorn

Reeese (shown here with Jennifer Savage) is currently a distinguished professor of journalism ethics at the University of Maryland in College Park, where he was dean of the College of Journalism for two decades.

While dean, he led efforts that built Maryland’s journalism program into one of the nation’s very best.

The College publishes American Journalism Review and operates the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, the Casey Journalism Center and the Hubert H. Humphrey Journalism Fellowships Program.

Gloria Flora

Gloria (shown here with Jennifer Savage) is founder and director of a Helena-based nonprofit group called Sustainable Obtainable Solutions. She has worked on the razor edge of change in the rural West for nearly 30 years.

After college, she joined the U.S. Forest Service to live and work in Western places she loves. In the early 1980s, she persuaded timber managers on the Kootenai National Forest in Montana to curve the boundaries of logging clearcuts to make the land look more like meadows.

More recently, she served as forest supervisor for the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada and eastern California.

She has received The Wilderness Society’s Murie Award for courageous stewardship of public lands and the Natural Resources Council of America’s Environmental Quality Award for exemplary resource decision-making.

Peggy Kuhr

Peggy (left) is Knight professor of journalism at the University of Kansas.

Until recently, she was managing editor for content at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. Under her direction, that paper’s newsroom has won five consecutive regional awards for general excellence, as well as national recognition for its coverage of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the costs of salmon recovery.

Peggy has been a member of the board of directors of the Associated Press Managing Editors and has worked for The Hartford Courant and the Great Falls Tribune.

Kathy Thomas

Kathy (right) has an extensive background in natural resources, nature education and organizational development.

For six years, she served on the board of directors of the Montana Natural History Center and its showcase institution, the Nature Center at Fort Missoula. The Nature Center is known widely for its broad range of outdoor learning opportunities for children and adults.

Before moving to Montana with her husband (Jack Ward Thomas, a former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service), she held several high-level administrative and organizational-development positions in the federal government in Washington DC. She was Acting Director of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, Director of Compensation for the 350,000-member civilian work force of the U.S. Navy, Deputy Director of Personnel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Kathy also has served as an honorary chair of the Forest History Society. She has a degree in psychology from Wheeling College.

James Risser

Jim (shown here with his wife, Sandi) is a two-time Pulitzer-winning journalist and former director of the Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists at Stanford University.

He worked 20 years for The Des Moines Register. He was the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief from 1976 to 1985.

In 1976, he won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for stories exposing corruption in the U.S. grain-exporting industry. That coverage also won the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award and the Associated Press Managing Editors Award for Public Service.

In 1979, he won a second Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for articles showing the destructive impact of modern American agriculture on the environment.

Subsequently, Jim was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board for 10 years. He now serves on the Knight Foundation’s journalism advisory committee.