Board Chair Steve Cotton served on Trustees for Alaska’s Board of Directors for two years prior to a one-year term as Acting Executive Director and has recently rejoined the Board. His intimate familiarity with Alaska – and particularly rural Alaska – extends over more than 30 years. While a staff attorney and later deputy director at the Center for Law & Education at Harvard University, he was lead counsel in Tobeluk v. Lind (commonly known in Alaska as the “Molly Hootch case”), which changed the face of rural education in the state by securing local high schools in more than 100 Native villages. Steve has served as First Assistant Inspector General of Massachusetts and General Counsel of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and was one of the national organizers of the first Earth Day.

Board Vice Chair Bob Waldrop lives in Anchorage, Alaska and is an economist currently working primarily in rural Alaska on seafood development projects.  His work background includes the Sierra Club’s Washington DC office, the Alaska office of the National Park Service, wilderness guide, Special Assistant to the Governor of Alaska, founder and VP of NorQuest Seafoods and most recently, rural Alaska economic development consulting.  He has served on several Alaska boards and commissions and spoken at various forums.  Bob joined the board in 2006 and serves as a member of the Finance Committee and as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee.

Board Treasurer Jerry Liboff, who lives in Dillingham, Alaska, is commercial salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay, a tax preparer, fishing broker, and manager of two small Alaska Native Corporations, Koliganek and Igiugig. Jerry is a graduate of UCLA with a B.A. in mathematics and economics as well as additional graduate studies in economics at the University of Wisconsin. He serves on a number of local boards, including the Bristol Bay Coastal Resource Service Area, Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education Foundation, KDLG public radio, and the Nushagak-Mulchatna Land Trust. In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, hiking, reading, and the air quality and emptiness of rural Alaska.

Board Secretary Joyce Bamberger moved to Alaska in 1977 and practiced law for 25 years.   She represented a diverse range of clients in cases involving the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, public utility issues, insurance claims, ERISA, constitutional law, zoning disputes, estate planning and taxation, and corporate and oil and gas law.   After retiring from that career, she became a high school language arts teacher.  She has done volunteer work for several non-profit groups, including as chair of the Alaska Commission for Human Rights, and currently is on the Alaska Civil Liberties Union litigation committee.  Her writing most recently has been published in the Alaska Health Policy Review and the River Poets Journal.  She has a B.A. in philosophy from George Washington University, a law degree with honors from University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a Master of Arts in Teaching from University of Alaska-Anchorage.

Board member Bob Armstrong served as Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Interior from 1993 to 1999 during the Clinton Administration, making frequent trips to Alaska. Before that, he served in the Texas House of Representatives, was Texas Land Commissioner from 1970 to 1982, and served for 6 years on the Board of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He has been credited with leading the successful effort to persuade Texas to nearly double the state's park lands with the creation of Big Bend State Park. Bob was an environmental advisor to Gov. Ann Richards and - perhaps most famously to some of his many admirers - the only conservationist to have a dip named after him at a well-known local restaurant in Austin.

Board member Jonathan Blattmachr is an attorney with extensive experience in tax law.  A resident of Garden City, New York, Jonathan retired in 2008 as a partner in the international law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, LLP. He is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a lecturer in law at Columbia University School of Law, from which he graduated cum laude in 1970. He is the author of four books and over 100 articles on tax law and related topics, and serves as general counsel to the board of directors of the Alaska Conservation Foundation.

Board member Curtis (Buff) Bohlen is a natural resources consultant based in Washington, DC. He served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Senior Vice President of World Wildlife Fund, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, supervising the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.

Board member Robert Childers is a natural resources consultant in Anchorage, Alaska focusing on Alaska Native and Arctic issues. He was deeply involved in passage of the Alaska National Interest Conservation Act, and has been working with the Gwich’in of Alaska and Canada for the last twenty four years in their efforts to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Porcupine River Caribou Herd. He is currently involved in a ocean technology start-up to support marine conservation and research. Bob has been instrumental in founding several environmental organizations in Alaska and the North, and previously served as Trustees for Alaska’s Board from 1989 to 1995 and joined again in October 2005.

Board member Deborah L. (Shocky) Greenberg is an attorney with criminal jury trial experience and experience in civil litigation in fisheries and resources. In 2003, Shocky served as Trustees’ interim Executive Director until a new ED was hired. Prior to that she worked for the State Department of Law, first as an Assistant District Attorney and then as an Assistant Attorney General in the natural resources section. Prior to law school, she worked for the Alaska State Legislature and the House Resources Committee, and served as a Special Assistant to the Alaska Commissioner of Fish and Game. She graduated from Northeastern University School of Law. While in law school, she worked with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Strike Force Unit on criminal prosecution of environmental crimes.

Board member Robert H. Nathan is an attorney, film producer and a partner in the New York based consulting firm of Cinetic Media, Inc. As a University of Chicago trained lawyer, he practiced in the litigation departments of Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco and Sachnoff and Weaver, Ltd in Chicago. He left Morrison & Foerster to found the film production company, i5 Films. A frequent speaker on the state of independent film, film finance and the law, he also has been a guest lecturer at Northwestern University Law School and the Columbia University Graduate Program in Film. Robert is a member of the New York Council of the Alaska Conservation Foundation and the New York Advisory Board of Facing History and Ourselves.

Board member M. James “Jim” Spitzer, Jr. is a partner in the international law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP in the Real Estate Section and Co-Chairs the Institutional Investment Group. His clients include national real estate equity funds as well as local, national and multi-national developers and investors. During his extensive career, he has acted as lead counsel in a variety of complex transactions including preferred equity investments and mezzanine loans. Jim has served on nonprofit boards supporting the arts and conservation. Jim was elected to the Board in September 2006.