Staff
Robert
Hass, River of Words Judge and Advisor,
ROW co-founder, is the author of several books of poems, including
Field Guide, Praise, and Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood and a collection
of essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures. Born in San Francisco, he
has lived most of his life in California; its landscapes inform both
his poetry and his prose. Hass is also a professor of English at the
University of California at Berkeley. His awards include the Yale
Younger Poets Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the National
Book Critics’ Circle Award for criticism in 1984, an Award of
Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim
Fellowship and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. From
1995-1997, Hass also served as Poet Laureate of the United States
and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
Pamela
Michael, River of Words Executive Director,
ROW co-founder, is a writer and communications specialist. She is
the former director of the United Nations’ Task Force on Media
and Education, and has worked for Save the Children in Egypt, the
United States Coalition for Education for All, and many other development
and educational organizations. Michael also worked for the Discovery
Channel’s Educational Division as a curriculum development consultant
and was Director of Marketing and Public Relations for the San Jose
Symphony. She is the author of several books, including The Whole
World is Watching: An International Inquiry into Media Involvement
in Education, The Gift of Rivers: True Stories of Life on the Water,
and many magazine, journal and newspaper articles . Pamela also hosts
a travel show on public radio in the SF Bay Area.
Yeti,
the Office Dog, is a Tibetan Terrier . She’s been coming to work
every day at River of Words since she was 7 weeks old, when Pamela
Michael first got her. She has a little bed under Pamela’s desk,
where she sleeps most of the day. She’s mischievous and playful
and likes to play with balls, plush dog toys, and dirty laundry (when
she can find it). She knows the footstep sounds of hundreds of River
of Words’ friends and when someone new comes through the door,
she’s up and investigating in a flash. Pamela has spent many
happy hours following Yeti’s jaunty, curly tail along forest
trails and shorelines.
Board of Directors
Carl Cole
Carl is President and COO of C. Cole and Associates, Inc., a Washington,
DC based consulting firm. He serves in a number of advisory capacities,
from areas of environmental concern to literacy. At present, Carl
represents the District of Columbia to the Advisory Board to the Executive
Council of the Chesapeake Bay Program and is a member of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Panel. He is also Vice
Chairman of the Board of the Potomac Heritage Foundation and Trust.
Carl is an avid waterman, who rarely goes to sea without his duffle
library. Carl was also the founding Director of Administration of
the Climate Institute in Washington, DC. He joined the ROW board of
directors in 2000.
Carie DeRuiter
Carie DeRuiter is a principal at MIG with over 25 years experience in the field of media communications, marketing, and graphic design. She has been Director of MIG Communications and Media division since 1995. Before joining MIG, Ms. DeRuiter worked at a number of magazines and newspapers in both editorial and design capacities, and operated and owned a design studio for 14 years. Throughout her career, Carie has produced award-winning work for a wide variety of public and private corporations and institutions, universities and schools, and arts organizations. She lives in Berkeley, California and Orcas, Washington.
Robert Hass (Co-Chairman)
Robert Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995-1997. He is the author of several books of poems, including Field Guide, Praise, and Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood and a collection of essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures. Born in San Francisco, Bob has lived most of his life in California; its landscapes inform both his poetry and his prose. He is also a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1997, he was named National and International Environmental Educator of the Year by the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). Additional awards include the Yale Younger Poets Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for criticism in 1984, an Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.
Thacher Hurd
Thacher Hurd, who serves as art judge for River of Words’ annual contest, has written and illustrated over twenty-five books, including Mama Don’t Allow, which won the Boston Globe Horn Book award, and Zoom City, which was chosen a New York Times Best Illustrated Book in 1998. His other books include Art Dog, Mystery on the Docks, and Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered. Born in Vermont, he is the son of the late Edith Thacher Hurd and Clement Hurd, who together created many beloved children’s books. Thacher joined the ROW board in 2003.
Cindy Polite Kamm
Environmental conservation through education has been the focus of
Cindy Kamm’s career. For the past twelve years she has worked
for the National Audubon Society at their Richardson Bay Sanctuary,
located in Tiburon, California, as an environmental educator. She
has also served as the Director of Fund Raising, the Deputy Director
and Sanctuary Director. While at Audubon, her natural history studies
led her to travel extensively, both as a student and as an Audubon
Tour naturalist. Before working for Audubon, she worked as a biological
consultant for various organizations, including the Nature Conservancy.
Her undergraduate training as a wildlife biologist was in the Rocky
Mountains at Colorado College.
Cindy is also a board member of the “ Sea Training Institute,
“ an organization that teaches elementary and high school students
about San Francisco Bay’s ecology and navigation onboard sailing
vessels. Additionally, she serves on the executive committee of The
Greenwood School, an elementary school she helped to found. Now working
as a freelance natural science teacher, Cindy also has two daughters
at home. She joined the River of Words board of directors in 2000.
Susan Kirshenbaum
Susan Kirshenbaum is our newest Board Member and the founding president of a San Francisco-based strategic design agency. Her professional experience and clients span a broad spectrum—agency, corporate, publishing, not-for-profits and art education. Her clients are include Mattel, Fireman’s Fund, Charles Schwab, and PG&E. With a multi-disciplined background in design, marketing, printing and fine arts, Susan is an active participant in The Bay Area business and arts communities.
Kirshenbaum developed her approach to meeting a company’s marketing communications needs during her tenure at Bay Area-based international shipping company, APL. Prior to APL, she managed marketing communications and production for a Manhattan-based magazine publisher. She has served on the Board of Directors for Pacific Chamber Symphony and has participated in The Roof is on Fire and City of Poets, among other local public art projects.
Susan’s art, education, and business training began early, in the family-owned art school, in Pittsburgh, in a neighborhood filled with parks. She was also fortunate to grow up in a family of art and poetry, a combination of her father’s art and design world and her mother’s love of literature and poetry. Eventually Susan came West, settling in San Francisco’s North Beach, writing poetry, and attending classes at SF Art Institute. Over twenty years later, she continues her art studies and actively exhibits her work.
Recently returned from a two-year sabbatical with her husband and two cats in Barcelona, Spain, where she had a chance to hone her language skills and photographically document life in Catalonia. But she missed the native beauty of California and is looking forward to the challenge of “fog gardening” in The City again.
Jane Rogers (Co-Chairman)
Jane Rogers graduated from Carleton College with a degree in Classics, then went on to obtain an advanced degree in American Studies/Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. She worked as urban planner until the mid 80s when she became Director of Growth Management for the Washington, DC Council of Governments. Jane was an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia, where she taught courses in government. After serving as Deputy Director of Public Policy for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), she served as environmental program officer for the San Francisco Foundation, retiring in 2001. Rogers now serves as a consultant to several foundations. She joined the ROW board of directors in 2003.
Samantha Sanderson
Samantha Sanderson is an MSW whose interests in
literature, art and the well-being and empowerment of young people dovetail beautifully with
ROW's mission. After receiving her B.A. in English Literature from
Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, Samantha did a three year stint as an editorial
assistant at Penguin Books in New York City. Realizing that editing trashy romantic fiction was not all that fulfilling, she returned to her first childhood home
of Colorado to pursue her MSW at University of Denver. Diploma
in hand, she returned to her second childhood home of the Bay Area
in 1997 and helped to create the School Counselor position at her alma mater, Marin Academy, in San
Rafael, a job she held for four years. Two years ago she left counseling to
have a baby and has been lucky enough to be home with him during this time. She is currently exploring ways to reengage with young people and is very
excited to have connected with ROW.
Mary Selkirk
Mary Selkirk has fourteen years of experience in environmental policy, with special expertise in water policy. She is skilled in mediation, facilitation, public policy development, group process and training.
Currently, Ms. Selkirk is the lead CCP facilitator in support of the South San Francisco Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. This is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary project to plan for the largest tidal marsh restoration on the West Coast of the Northern hemisphere. As a special consultant to the Executive Director of the CALFED Bay-Delta program from 1997-2000, Mary coordinated policy issues, agenda development, stakeholder outreach, facilitation of formal and informal stakeholder advisory groups, and strategic planning. She has served as an elected official on the board of a large California public utility. Ms. Selkirk received a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Oregon and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Erin Van Rheenen
Erin Van Rheenen is a writer, editor, and teacher. From travel writing to teaching at the San Francisco Women’s Jail, the through lines in her work have been education, the arts, and social justice. Erin has worked with the Population Council and Planned Parenthood, taught English to college and high school students, and most recently, worked with the Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry to develop inquiry-based science curricula.
An avid traveler who has lived outside the U.S. a number of times, Erin finds that soaking up other cultures and landscapes has led her full circle to a better appreciation of her own backyard, the San Francisco Bay Area. She is inspired by how ROW encourages kids to see and understand their immediate surroundings, then make these impressions their own by capturing them in words and images. She likes how through study of watersheds ROW helps link all the various “backyards” around the world into one seamless, living whole.
Erin writes fiction and nonfiction, most recently launching the second edition of Living Abroad in Costa Rica. She lives in San Francisco and finds herself in Costa Rica several times a year.
Andy Weiner
Andy Weiner is a sales representative for book publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. He has worked primarily in the book industry since 1977, working for a variety of publishers including Penguin Books, Random House, and Chronicle Books. He also was Development Director for California Trout, a San Francisco-based environmental non-profit, and Director of U.S. and Canadian Sales for rightscenter.com.
As a book and nature lover driven by a love of words and water, Andy is excited by River of Words? mission and goals. He is an avid fly angler, and does a little writing every now and then, too. He lives in San Francisco.
Stanley Young
Stanley Young is a marketing, communications and media relations consultant.
Also an author and journalist, he has written books and articles on several
subjects with a focus on the environment.
He was formerly the Communications Director of the California Resources
Agency, the umbrella state agency for natural resources and environmental
management. In that capacity he oversaw the internal and external
communications of 28 departments, boards, commissions and conservancies with
a budget of $5 billion and a total staff exceeding 14,000. Later, as
Director of Marketing for Jones & Stokes he oversaw the communications and
branding for this environmental consulting firm of 500 professionals with
offices in seven states.
A Commonwealth Scholar who attended universities in Canada, Israel and
England, Stanley has also worked as a modern dancer, yoga teacher, chef, and
was a field officer in a Cambodian refugee camp. He is now based in Davis,
California with his wife and two children.
Advisory Board
Rachel Bagby
Gordon T. Beaham III
Wendell Berry
Robert Boone
James Buchanan
John Cole
Oakley Hall
Peter Mattheissen
Mayumi Oda
Gary Snyder
Mark Walters
Philip B. Williams
Terry Tempest Williams
