President
Robert Leger
Opinions Editor
Arizona Republic
200 E. Van Buren
Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-444-8138
Email
Bio (click to expand) Robert Leger is opinions editor at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, responsible for the editorial and op-ed pages of the main paper and its community sections. He was president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2002-03 and has served on the SDX board since 2000. He won the Wells Memorial Key, the Society's highest honor, in 2012.

Among his other journalism-related activities: He is a former president of the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona and was a founding member of OpenTheGovernment.org's steering committee. He pioneered an exchange relationship between SPJ and the Journalists Association of Korea.

Before moving to Phoenix, Leger won numerous writing awards during his 12 years as editorial page editor of the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader.

He and his wife, Cindy, enjoy visits from bobcats, javalinas, roadrunners and other desert critters at their home outside Phoenix. Their two sons attend Arizona State University.

Vice President
Irwin Gratz
Morning Edition Producer
Maine Public Broadcasting Network
309 Marginal Way
Portland, ME  04101
Work: (207) 874-6570
Fax: (207) 871-3843
Email
Bio (click to expand) Irwin Gratz has been in radio news for nearly 30 years. He worked as a reporter, anchor and News Director for the number-one rated commercial station in Portland, Maine before going to work for public radio in 1992 as local anchor of “Morning Edition.”

A native of New York City, Irwin holds a Masters Degree in journalism from New York University. He has taught a college course on media ethics and has been a guest lecturer on journalism ethics and broadcast news writing.

Irwin has been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists since 1983 and has held positions as a state chapter president, a member of its national board and was the Society’s national President in 2004 and 2005.

Irwin lives outside of Portland, Maine with his wife and young son.

Secretary
Jane Kirtley
Silha Center
University of Minnesota
Murphy Hall Room 111
206 Church St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Work: (612) 625-9038
Email
Bio (click to expand) Jane E. Kirtley has been the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota since August 1999. Prior to that, she was Executive Director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Virginia, for 14 years.

She was appointed Director of The Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law in May 2000, and was named to the affiliated faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School in March 2001. During the Spring 2004 semester, she was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Kirtley speaks frequently on First Amendment and freedom of information issues, both in the United States and abroad. She also writes the “First Amendment Watch” column for American Journalism Review.

Prof. Kirtley received her J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1979. She holds bachelor’s and master’s of journalism degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Treasurer
Howard S. Dubin
Chairman & Treasurer
Manufacturers' News, Inc.
1633 Central St.
Evanston, IL 60201-1569
Work: (847) 448-1123
Fax: (847) 864-0044
Home: (847)869-7838
Email
Bio (click to expand) Howard Dubin is chairman and treasurer of Manufacturers’ News, Inc., in Evanston Ill. He is treasurer of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, Chicago Headline Club, and Chicago Headline Club Foundation. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists and the Advisory Board of PBS TV Channel 20 in Chicago. Dubin is president of the Howard & Ursula Dubin Foundation.

He is a past president of the SDX Foundation and Chicago Headline Club and past national secretary/treasurer of the Society of Professional Journalists, where he served on the national board for nine years. He has chaired SPJ’s finance, planning, membership & facility location committees.

Dubin has received the Society’s Wells Memorial Key, as well as two national Presidents Awards. The national organization named its annual Outstanding Member Awards for him.

Dubin also served as an officer for the Illinois Freedom of Information Council, and Loyola University Center for FOI Studies.

Dave Aeikens
Reporter
Times Media
Box 768
3000 7th St. N.
St. Cloud, MN 56303
Work: 320-255-8744
Email
Bio (click to expand) Dave Aeikens was SPJ’s president in 2007-2008 and served as national secretary-treasurer in 2006-2007. He was SPJ’s Legal Defense Fund Chairman from October of 2005 to October 2007. He served as Region 6 director for six years and Minnesota Pro Chapter president and secretary. He has been a reporter and editor at the St. Cloud Times for 14 years. He has covered schools, state government and served as the paper's night city editor for four years. He has worked 17 years in daily journalism in Minnesota. He and a colleague wrote articles that showed some government agencies in Minnesota were charging more than state law allowed for paper copies of government data. They won numerous awards for the stories and the Legislature changed state law to limit what governments can charge to 25 cents a page. He is an aficionado of Minnesota open records laws and has one numerous Freedom of Information awards. He is a member of the Minnesota Join Media committee and was honored in 2000 and 2006 with the President’s Award, which the Minnesota Pro Chapter gives for meritorious service. He was one of the founding organizers of the Midwest Journalism Conference, which jointly is the SPJ Region 6 conference combined with five other media organizations. With more than 300 attendees, it is one of the most successful regional conferences in the country.

He chaired the Marquette Tribune Task Force in 2006, which issued a report on the events that led to the dismissal of the Marquette Tribune advisor.

Sonny Albarado
Projects Editor
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
121 E. Capitol Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72201 501/244-4321
Email
Bio (click to expand) Sonny Albarado is projects editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a statewide, family-owned daily newspaper based in Little Rock. As projects editor, he supervises a staff of two reporters and assists other editors and reporters in long-term investigative and explanatory journalism.

Albarado has worked as a journalist since 1970, when he became editor of his college newspaper. His first professional newspaper job began in December 1972 in Houma, La. Except for an 18-month period when he helped a couple of friends start a monthly trade magazine in New Orleans, he has worked in newspapers all of his professional life.

He doesn’t count the year he was a part-time disc jockey as work.

He has been an SPJ member since March 1979, joining in hopes of starting a chapter in the rural area he covered for the daily paper in Baton Rouge, La. Baton Rouge had an active press club but no SPJ chapter. He was president of the press club in 1988-89 and received the local PRSA chapter’s “Communicator of the Year” award in 1988.

After moving to Memphis in 1989, he joined the Mid-South Pro SPJ Chapter. He became chapter president in 1992 and remained president throughout most of the 1990s. He also served as secretary-treasurer and chairman of the chapter’s contest committee in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Albarado became SPJ Region 12 director at the 2006 convention. As regional director, he also became co-director with Region 3’s director of the annual Green Eyeshade Awards program, which recognizes excellence among journalists in 11 southeastern states.

Fred W. Brown, Jr.
Retired - The Denver Post
2862 S. Oakland Ct.
Denver, CO 80014
Home: (303)755-0395
Email
Bio (click to expand) Fred Brown is a former national president of SPJ (1997-98) and is very active on its ethics committee. He writes a column on ethics for Quill magazine and served on the committee that wrote the Society’s 1996 code of ethics.

Brown officially retired from The Denver Post in early 2002, but continues to write a Sunday editorial page column for the newspaper. He also does analysis for Denver’s NBC television station, teaches communication ethics at the University of Denver, and is a principal in Hartman & Brown, LLP, a media training and consulting firm. He has won several awards for writing and community service, including a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing in 1988. He is an Honor Alumnus of Colorado State University, a member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame, and serves on the boards of directors of Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Freedom of Information Council and the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.

David E. Carlson
Director
Interactive Media Lab
University of Florida
P.O. Box 118400
Gainesville, FL 32611
Work: (352) 846-0171
Fax: (352) 846-0172
Email
Bio (click to expand) David Carlson is executive director of the Center For Media Innovation + Research and Cox/Palm Beach Post Professor of New Media at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. He was a pioneer in the development of interactive newspaper products and was part of a team that created the first journalism related website in the world in the fall of 1993.

Carlson holds a bachelor of arts in journalism from Drake University. He resides in Florida with his wife, Jeanne.

Al Cross
Director
Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues
School of Journalism & Telecommunications
122 Grehan Bldg.
University of Kentucky
Lexington KY 40506
Work: (859) 257-3744
Email
Bio (click to expand) Al Cross is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, and an assistant professor in UK’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. He reported for The Courier-Journal for 26 years, the last 15 percent as chief political writer, and continues to write a twice-monthly political column for the Louisville newspaper. He was national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02, and is chairman of SPJ’s Government Relations Committee, a member of the Ethics Committee and a director of SPJ’s Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. His awards include a share of the Pulitzer Prize won by The C-J’s staff for general news reporting in 1989, for coverage of the nation’s deadliest bus and drunk-driving crash. He is a longtime panelist on Kentucky Educational Television's “Comment on Kentucky” and has been a contributor to several books on Kentucky and politics. He grew up in Albany, Ky., is a graduate of Western Kentucky University, and worked at newspapers in Monticello, Leitchfield and Russellville before establishing The Courier-Journal news bureau at Somerset, which later moved to Bardstown. He and his wife Patti have lived in Frankfort since 1987.

David Cuillier
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
University of Arizona
Marshall Building, Room 323
Tucson, AZ 85721-0158
Work: 520/626-9694
Fax: 520/621-7557
Email
Bio (click to expand) David Cuillier, a former newspaper reporter and editor, is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Arizona. He researches public attitudes toward freedom of information and is one of the SPJ newsroom trainers for acquiring government documents.

Brian Eckert
University of Richmond
Director of Media and Public Relations
28 Westhampton Way
Richmond, VA 23173
(804) 287-6659
Email

John Ensslin
Reporter
303-726-9213
Email
Bio (click to expand) John Ensslin is a reporter at The Record in northern New Jersey, where he covers Bergen County government.

Born in Jersey City, N.J, he started in daily journalism at his hometown paper, The Hudson Dispatch. He went on to work for The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Co. and The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Co.

He is a graduate of Columbia University.

He is a past president of The Denver Press Club and a member of its Hall of Fame. He helped start the club's annual Damon Runyon Award. Before becoming SPJ president in September 2011, he served as president of the Colorado Pro SPJ chapter, national membership committee chair, Region 9 director and secretary-treasurer. He also served as co-chair of the SPJ national convention and was named regional director of the year in 2010. He is a past winner of the William Burleigh/Scripps Foundation Community Service award.

He and his wife Denise live in West Milford, N.J.

Jay Evensen
Editorial Page Editor
Deseret Morning News
P.O. Box 1257
Salt Lake City, UT 85110
(801) 237-2185
Email
Bio (click to expand) Jay Evensen is the editorial page editor at the Deseret News, one of two daily morning newspapers in Salt Lake City. He has held that position for 12 years. He writes a Sunday column on a broad range of issues, which has garnered local, regional and national awards. He also has been an adjunct journalism instructor at Weber State and Brigham Young universities. He was region IX director of the Society of Professional Journalists from 1996-2002, serving at various times on the executive and finance committees. Prior to that, he was president of the Utah pro chapter. Before becoming an editorial writer, he was a reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Clinton, Okla., Daily News, and he served an internship at United Press International in New York City.

Steve Geimann
Bloomberg News
10950 Bloomingdale Dr.
N. Bethesda, MD 20852
Work: (202) 624-1960
Home: (301) 468-6422
Cell: (202) 255-7447
Email
Bio (click to expand) Steve Geimann has been a reporter, editor, manager and executive for more than three decades in newspapers, broadcast, trade publications and wire services. He is an editor at Bloomberg News, responsible for financial industry coverage.

The New York native has been Bloomberg team leader, editor and producer since September 1999, joining the company after five years as senior editor at Communications Daily, a trade newsletter covering telecommunications. At Bloomberg, he has directed coverage of telecommunications, transportation and politics before joining Bloomberg Radio in 2005. For two years, he anchored ``Bloomberg: The Final Word,'' a daily wrap-up of market, company and political news broadcast in New York and on satellite radio.

Geimann spent 11 years at United Press International, the Washington-based news agency. He was executive editor and spokesman for two years, shepherding UPI through a 1992 bankruptcy and managing the transition to new owners. He was Washington bureau chief during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Southeast editor in Miami and business writer for upstate New York, based in Albany.

He was a reporter for Gannett Co.'s newspapers in Binghamton, N.Y., for eight years, and a newscaster/reporter at radio stations in Binghamton and Syracuse, where he attended Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Geimann was 1996-1997 SPJ president and for two years chaired SPJ's Ethics Committee. He won the Wells Memorial Key, the Society's highest honor, in 2001.

Since 1997, he has represented SPJ on the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, which reviews and evaluates curriculum at more than 100 universities.

Geimann led a three-year task force of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications to consider changes in technology and the effect on journalism.

He served on the American Bar Association's Conference of Lawyers and Representatives of the News Media, and the Commission on Public Understanding About the Law — a group that considered methods to raise public knowledge of the legal process.

Geimann, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and his wife, Carol Sadler, a project manager at the National Institutes of Health, live in North Bethesda, Maryland, with three cats: Calvin, Bogey and Gumbo.

Todd J. Gillman
Washington Bureau Chief
Dallas Morning News
529 14th St. NW suite 1252
Washington, DC 20045
Work: (202) 661-8421
Cell: (202) 441-6840
Email

Alex Jones
Director
Shorenstein Center
Harvard University
(617) 496-2582
Email

Bill Ketter
CNHI
100 Turnpike St.
North Andover, MA 08145
Work: (978) 946-2000
Email
Bio (click to expand) Bill Ketter is a veteran journalist, news executive and journalism educator. He has served as editor in chief and vice president/news for The Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company in North Andover, Mass., since 2002. The Eagle-Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for breaking news. Previously, he was a reporter, editor and vice president with United Press International for 16 years, and served as senior vice president and editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., for 20 years.

Ketter is a former chairman of Boston University’s Journalism School. He has served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (1995-96), and as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University. He was the first chairman of the international editors forum sponsored by the World Newspaper Association in Vienna, Austria, in 1994 and has traveled to more than 25 countries on behalf of a free press for various U.S. news organizations.

Al Leeds
Retired - The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News
703-243-2153
Email

Sally Lehrman
Knight Ridder Chair
Santa Clara University
Work: 408-551-3000 x 4256
slehrman(at)bestwrit.com
Bio (click to expand) Sally Lehrman is a director at large for the SPJ National Board of Directors. Additionally, she is an award-winning reporter and writer for some of the top names in national print and broadcast media. Her byline credits include Scientific American, Nature, Health, the Washington Post, Salon.com and the DNA Files, distributed by NPR. She specializes in medical and science policy reporting, with an emphasis on genetics, race and sexuality. Distinguished honors include the 1995-96 John S. Knight Fellowship; a shared 2002 Peabody award, Peabody/Robert Wood Johnson Award for excellence in health and medical programming, and Columbia/Du Pont Silver Baton (for the DNA Files); and reporting and writing awards from SPJ, Case, and other organizations.

Besides SPJ, Lehrman is active in several organizations that promote diversity in the media. Her volunteer work in diversity has been recognized by the 2003 Wells Key, a 2002 SPJ President’s Award, the 1998 Howard Dubin Outstanding Pro Member Award and an award for service to the NorCal SPJ chapter. She is author of News in a New America, a fresh take on developing an inclusive U.S. news media, and is a USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism Expert Fellow. Lehrman also serves as SPJ’s Diversity Committee chairperson.

Hoag Levins
Editor/Executive producer
AdAge.com
Work: (212) 210-0414
Email
Bio (click to expand) Hoag Levins is the executive producer of AdAge.com, the daily news website of Advertising Age magazine, the weekly journal of the North American advertising industry.

He is the former executive editor of APBnews.com, an online national news service focused on crime and justice that won seven major journalism awards during 1999 and 2000. Levins is also a former executive editor of Editor & Publisher (E&P) magazine and the Editor & Publisher website.

The 59-year-old editor, writer and photographer has spent three decades in newspapers, magazines and book publishing. He is a former staff reporter of the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Courier Post of Cherry Hill, N.J.

Hagit Limor
Investigative Reporter, WCPO-TV
Assistant Professor of Electronic Media, University of Cincinnati
1720 Gilbert Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 852-4012
Email

Dori J. Maynard
President
Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
409 13th St., Ninth Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
Work: (510) 891-9202
Fax: (510) 891-9565
Email

Bill McCloskey
4709 Overbrook Road
Bethesda, MD 20816
Email
Bio (click to expand) Bill McCloskey, currently at large director of the Society of Professional Journalists is also a member of the Executive Committee, Bylaws Committee and the Finance Committee. He is the retired Washington, D.C.-based Director of Media Relations for AT&T, formerly BellSouth Corp.

In 2008 he was awarded the Wells Key, SPJ's highest honor for a volunteer.

Before joining BellSouth in 1987, Bill worked for 11 years with The Associated Press in Washington.

Bill's professional career started in 1961, when, as a high school junior, he took a summer newsroom job at Metromedia's WIP Radio in Philadelphia. He remained with Metromedia in Philadelphia until he was drafted into the Army upon graduation from Villanova University in 1966.

Ironically, the Army assigned him to the information office of the 1st Signal Brigade in Vietnam where he wrote press releases about the Army's telephone system.

Following his tour of duty, he was assigned by Metromedia to set up a news department for WASH FM in Washington. From 1968 until 1975, he worked as news director, network correspondent and TV news producer and writer for Metromedia in Washington.

He is past president of the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and was the Society’s Region 2 director. He has been recognized three times with SPJ’s “President’s Award” for distinguished service to the Society.

Gordon "Mac" McKerral
Western Kentucky University
140 Bright St. Apt. C
Bowling Green, KY 42104
Work: (270) 745-5882
Email
Bio (click to expand) Gordon “Mac” McKerral is an associate professor and the news-editorial sequence coordinator in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University.

He served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists September 2003 to September 2004. In October 2005, he received the SPJ’s highest award, The Wells Key, for longtime contributions to journalism and SPJ’s mission. He received a national First Amendment Award from SPJ for his work with the Campus Courts Task Force, which focused on gaining public access to campus crime records and campus judiciary records related to hearings on crimes.

McKerral has spent more than 25 years as a journalist and journalism educator. He has been a reporter and editor at newspapers in Illinois, Indiana, Florida and New York and Indiana.

Sue Porter
Vice President, Programs
Scripps Howard Foundation
312 Walnut St.
28th Floor
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Work: (513) 977-3030
Fax: (513) 977-3721
Email
Bio (click to expand) Sue Porter, vice president of programs for the Scripps Howard Foundation, joined The E.W. Scripps Company 30 years ago at The Cincinnati Post as a reporter. She went on to become editor of The Post’s daily Valley Edition and later worked in the company’s corporate communications and investor relations department. After serving several terms as a foundation trustee, she joined the staff full-time in 2005.

Prior to her work for Scripps, Porter was editor of a group of weekly newspapers in suburban Cincinnati. She began her journalism career as a reporter at The Crescent News in Defiance, Ohio, where she attended Defiance College. She has won journalism awards from SPJ and the International Association of Business Communicators, a Telly for video production and the William R. Burleigh Award for distinguished community service.

She is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation executive committee and past president of the Foundation.

Russell B. Pulliam
Associate Editor
The Indianapolis Star
307 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, IN 46206
Work: (317)444-6001
Email
Bio (click to expand) Russell B. Pulliam is Associate Editor of The Indianapolis Star, where he also directs the Pulliam Fellowship Program. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at Butler University in Indianapolis and a World Journalism Institute instructor.

Before coming to The Star, Pulliam was an editorial writer, columnist and editor for the Indianapolis News. He also worked previously as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press and has been a correspondent for The New York Times, Springfield Union, Berkshire Eagle and North Adams Transcript.

Pulliam has received several awards for his journalism work and community service. He is a graduate of Williams College and serves as an elder at Second Reformed Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis.

Neil Alan Ralston
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd #11070
Bowling Green, KY 42101-1070
(270) 745-5841
Email
Bio (click to expand) Neil Ralston serves as vice president for campus chapter affairs, a position he was elected to in 2007 and re-elected to in 2009 and 2011. He began serving on the SPJ Board of Directors in 2003 when he was elected as a campus adviser at-large. Ralston is an assistant professor of journalism at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. Before joining the faculty at WKU in 2006, he was an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches (NAK-uh-tish), La., where he advised the student SPJ chapter. He also has taught at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. Ralston began a career in journalism in 1978 and has worked as an editor, reporter and photographer at weekly and daily newspapers in Missouri, Illinois, Louisiana and Texas. His most recent full-time reporting job was in 1985-89 when he worked for the San Antonio (Texas) Light where he covered city hall, the police, federal law enforcement agencies and the federal courthouse.

Ralston has bachelor's degrees in communication and industrial technology from Northeast Missouri State University and a master's degree in journalism from The Ohio State University where he was a fellow in the Kiplinger Program of Public Affairs Reporting. He earned a doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2002. Additionally, Ralston was named SPJ's campus chapter adviser of the year for the 1998-99 school year.

Kevin Z. Smith
Lecturer
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH
937-229-2038
Email