Board of Directors

Annette Aguayo

Secretary
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Annette Aguayo is the secretary of the High Country News Board and has served on the board since 2004. A longtime employee of the Southwest Research and Information Center, an environmental and social justice group, she is the editor of the group’s quarterly publication — Voices of the Earth.

Bob Fulkerson

Reno, Nevada

Bob Fulkerson, who has served on the board of High Country News since 2008, is the co-founder and executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. Mr. Fulkerson teaches courses on racism and privilege as an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and also serves PLAN as an anti-oppression trainer. He serves on the board of directors for Wincall Institute and is on the fund-raising committee for Note-ables. In 2005, Mr. Fulkerson received the Leadership for a Changing World award.

Wayne Hare

Grand Junction, Colorado

A long-ago transplant from the East, Wayne Hare became a “native Westerner” while working as a ranger with the Bureau of Land Management in western Colorado, patrolling the Colorado River and McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. Prior to that, he spent several years as an interpretive ranger and later worked as a backcountry ranger with the National Park Service at Canyonlands and Rocky Mountain national parks. Mr. Hare has served as a team-building instructor for Outward Bound in Boston and as assistant director of Outdoor Programs at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Before he was a ranger, Mr. Hare worked on several projects with the National Park Service to increase the cultural diversity of both staff and visitors to natural parks. He has written and spoken about the lack of diversity on public lands and its causes and effects. Mr. Hare has also spent many years in the business world of information technology.

John Heyneman

Vice President
Flagstaff, Arizona

John Heyneman, who has served on the board of High Country News since 2004, manages the North Rim Ranch on behalf of the Grand Canyon Trust. Mr. Heyneman has also ranched in Wyoming, managed a Venezuelan dairy and fruit farm, worked on a Montana governor’s race, and been on the board of the Powder River Basin Resource Council and the Yellowstone Art Museum.

Laura Hubbard

Hailey, Idaho

Laura Hubbard, the state director for The Nature Conservancy in Idaho, began serving on the board of High Country News in 2008. Ms. Hubbard previously worked with The Nature Conservancy’s Arizona Chapter as well as the Wyoming and Montana Chapters in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, she practiced law in Arizona. Ms. Hubbard spent the first 10 years of her career as a wilderness guide, horse-packer and Iditarod dog-sled trainer, and has worked as an apprentice Western saddle maker from the Rocky Mountains to Alaska and south to Baja, Mexico.

David Nimkin

Salt Lake City, Utah

David Nimkin, the current president of the High Country News Board, has been a board member since 2003. He is the southwest regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. Mr. Nimkin founded and is the long-time board chair of the Utah Microenterprise Loan Fund. He is also the co-founder and current board vice chair of Buy Local First Utah. Mr. Nimkin is on the executive committee of the Fourth Street Clinic and on the board of the Colorado Plateau Archeological Association. He has also served as chief of staff to Salt Lake City Mayor, Rocky Anderson; was a partner at Confluence Associates-- a private firm engaged in sustainable development projects throughout the Western US and Mexico; and acted as former state director of the Utah Small Business Development Centers.

Luther Propst

Tucson, Arizona

Luther Propst has served on the board of High Country News since 2005. He co-founded and directs the Sonoran Institute, whose mission is “to inspire and enable community decisions and public policies that respect the land and people of the West.” Mr. Propst has authored and co-authored several books including: Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities; Creating Successful Communities: A Guidebook to Growth Management Strategies; and Managing Development in Small Towns.

Susan “Tutti” Skaar

Bozeman, Montana

Susan “Tutti” Skaar has served on the board of High Country News since 2005. Ms. Skaar is vice president and financial consultant with D.A. Davidson & Co. She served as past president of the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, the Bozeman Business and Professional Women’s Organization, the Bozeman Public Library board and several neighborhood-planning groups. Prior to D.A. Davidson, Ms. Skaar was the Group Travel Director for Off the Beaten Path, and Office Manager at the Montana Wildlife Federation.

Jane Stevens

Winters, California

A journalist for 30 years, Jane Ellen Stevens began her career at the Boston Globe. She founded a syndicated science and technology feature service with 20 newspaper clients worldwide, including the Washington Post and Asahi Shimbun's AERA Magazine. She lived and worked in Kenya and Indonesia. She’s written for magazines, including National Geographic, and was among the first group of videojournalists at New York Times Television. She’s done multimedia reporting for the New York Times and Discovery Channel. Ms. Stevens taught the first multimedia reporting class at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism, and helped set up the Knight Digital Media Center’s multimedia reporting workshops. She has worked with several news organizations in the process of transitioning to Webcentric newsrooms, including the Ventura County Star, National Public Radio, and High Country News. Ms. Stevens is currently a Fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

Dan Stonington

Treasurer
Seattle, Washington

Dan Stonington has served on the board of High Country News since 2005. Mr. Stonington, who is the program manager for the Cascade Land Conservancy, worked as a field organizer for the “NO on Initiative 933” campaign. Prior to that, Mr. Stonington worked for three years as an environmental consultant for Ross & Associates in Seattle.

Luis Torres

Santa Cruz, New Mexico

Luis Torres, who has served on the board of High Country News since 1996, has been a community organizer since the 1960s. His work in community forestry began in the late 1980s, when he was employed by the Southwest Research and Information Center. Mr. Torres helped organize the Madera Forest Products Association, which worked on developing a new forestry economy based on cutting small trees, and he co-founded the National Network of Forest Practitioners. 

Andy Wiessner

Snowmass, Colorado

Andy Wiessner, who has served on the board of High Country News since 1986, is the organization’s longest-serving board member. Mr. Wiessner is public lands consultant with Western Land Group, which specializes in federal land exchanges and land use issues. He served as staff assistant and counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittees on Mines and Mining (1975-1976) and the Subcommittee on Public Lands in Washington, D.C. (1977-1985). Mr. Wiessner also serves on the board of the Wilderness Workshop and the Wilderness Land Trust, -- a non-profit specializing in the acquisition of wilderness inholdings. Other past board service has included organizations such as: Eagle Valley Land Trust, American Wilderness Alliance, Clear Creek Land Conservancy and Eagle County Citizens for Open Space.

Florence Williams

President
Boulder, Colorado

Florence Williams is the vice president of the High Country News board and has served on the board since 2005. Ms. Williams is a former High Country News intern and staff writer who has gone on to write for many publications, including High Country News, The New York Times, The New Republic and Outside Magazine, where she is a contributing editor. She has earned awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and other organizations.