About

I’m a former ship captain, marine biologist, high school science teacher, and biologist/senior manager in charge of congressional and media relations for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, who now writes fiction, memoir, satire, essays, commentary and poetry. My work has been published in the Stonecoast Review, Wooden Boat, American Bungalow, The Belladonna Comedy, and many others. I have also written briefing materials for three cabinet secretaries and two U.S. Presidents, and I have extensive experience with the media, having been interviewed by nearly every major print, broadcast, and wire service in the U.S. and print and wire services in eight foreign countries. Since leaving the federal service I’ve authored more than 60 published articles on sailing, the sea, endangered species, social and environmental justice, and political satire.

My forthcoming book is about my experience as a federal biologist under hostile conditions that coerced me and others to promote the interests of the oil and gas industry at the expense of wildlife, habitat, and a stable climate. What do you do if your government bosses order you to lie and break the law and threaten your job if you don’t? What do you do if the penalty for telling the truth means losing your job, income, and possibly your home? What happened during the George W. Bush administration in the early 2000s was the precursor and template for what’s happening today, both in the federal workplace and in the fight to slow climate change. Readers deserve to know how it helped set in motion what we’re seeing now. For three years during that time I was also whistleblowing to The New York Times anonymously through an intermediary, which resulted in multiple front-page stories. The reason for not going directly to the NYT was that the Bush administration had jailed a reporter for several months for not revealing her sources. When the Interior Department demanded that I give them everything I had on a NYT reporter who wrote a major piece that annoyed them and caused cancellation of a hearing on Capitol Hill, I had nothing to give them with which to get her fired, because I had never emailed or spoken with her.

The book is titled True Doubt, A Deep State Journey. I’m pleased to be repped by Lisa Amstutz at the Storm Literary Agency.