(If you're looking for my blog posts about earth stuff, click here to avoid reading a bio.)
My Time on Earth
I've never escaped Earth's gravity, and really don't think it's likely that I'll get the chance. In fact, I've never been much more than about seven or eight miles above the Earth's surface, still within its atmosphere. So I could say that I've always been pretty close to the Earth.
Growing up in a small town, I took advantage of my proximity to forests, wetlands and waterways, spending a lot of time hiking, bicycling, birdwatching, picking wild blackberries and the like. As an adult, I wound up living in Hawaii, taking pictures of interesting scenery, waterfalls, volcanoes and sea life, and working with technology.
All seemed relatively normal until the morning of June 12, 2004, when I woke up to find a rather peculiar e-mail in my inbox. Someone I'd never heard of was planning a visit to my island as part of a family vacation, had stumbled across my photos and resumé online, held a high-level position in an international organization I'd also never heard of, and wanted to talk to me about joining their team.
And so it was that over a table at the local pancake house, I agreed to fly around the world to occasional conferences on various aspects of sustainability and the environment, taking pictures, desktop-publishing, building web sites, schmoozing delegates, and eventually writing and editing as well. Oh, and for a couple years I wound up coordinating everyone else's flights too, but that's another story.
So I applied for a passport, and a couple months later, I wound up flying to Kauai for a few days to meet the team's leaders, swimming a mile or so of open ocean along the Na Pali Coast, and only finding out afterward that you're not supposed to do that. A month after that, I was at United Nations headquarters in New York learning the tools of the trade. And a month or so after that, I was told to get a visa for India as quickly as possible, and sent off to New Delhi for my first trip of any kind outside the United States.
Since then I've attended conferences on all kinds of things - forests, climate change, sustainable development, oceans, chemicals management, hazardous chemicals, wetlands, migratory species, water, fisheries, whales, hydropower, livestock, renewable energy, food security, Africa's development needs, Millennium Development Goals, and persistent organic pollutants. My favorite topics are oceans, forests and wetlands.
In the process, I've flown over half a million miles, made it to twenty-some countries on five continents, learned to at least say hello in the six official languages of the United Nations (and quite a few others), and gotten to meet a few Nobel laureates, including the late Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai.
An increase in other work has meant I don't get to do this as often as I used to, but I still occasionally fly off for a week or so, to keep up with what's going on with the planet.
My Time on Earth
I've never escaped Earth's gravity, and really don't think it's likely that I'll get the chance. In fact, I've never been much more than about seven or eight miles above the Earth's surface, still within its atmosphere. So I could say that I've always been pretty close to the Earth.
Growing up in a small town, I took advantage of my proximity to forests, wetlands and waterways, spending a lot of time hiking, bicycling, birdwatching, picking wild blackberries and the like. As an adult, I wound up living in Hawaii, taking pictures of interesting scenery, waterfalls, volcanoes and sea life, and working with technology.
All seemed relatively normal until the morning of June 12, 2004, when I woke up to find a rather peculiar e-mail in my inbox. Someone I'd never heard of was planning a visit to my island as part of a family vacation, had stumbled across my photos and resumé online, held a high-level position in an international organization I'd also never heard of, and wanted to talk to me about joining their team.
And so it was that over a table at the local pancake house, I agreed to fly around the world to occasional conferences on various aspects of sustainability and the environment, taking pictures, desktop-publishing, building web sites, schmoozing delegates, and eventually writing and editing as well. Oh, and for a couple years I wound up coordinating everyone else's flights too, but that's another story.
So I applied for a passport, and a couple months later, I wound up flying to Kauai for a few days to meet the team's leaders, swimming a mile or so of open ocean along the Na Pali Coast, and only finding out afterward that you're not supposed to do that. A month after that, I was at United Nations headquarters in New York learning the tools of the trade. And a month or so after that, I was told to get a visa for India as quickly as possible, and sent off to New Delhi for my first trip of any kind outside the United States.
Since then I've attended conferences on all kinds of things - forests, climate change, sustainable development, oceans, chemicals management, hazardous chemicals, wetlands, migratory species, water, fisheries, whales, hydropower, livestock, renewable energy, food security, Africa's development needs, Millennium Development Goals, and persistent organic pollutants. My favorite topics are oceans, forests and wetlands.
In the process, I've flown over half a million miles, made it to twenty-some countries on five continents, learned to at least say hello in the six official languages of the United Nations (and quite a few others), and gotten to meet a few Nobel laureates, including the late Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai.
An increase in other work has meant I don't get to do this as often as I used to, but I still occasionally fly off for a week or so, to keep up with what's going on with the planet.
