Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
"Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership" and "Frame of Reference" - Coming together are conversational style shows with local, national, and global experts about issues that affect all of us in some way. I’m, at heart, a “theatre person”. I was drawn to theatre in Junior High School and studied it long enough to get a Master of Fine Arts in Stage Direction. It’s the one thing that I’m REALLY passionate about it because as Shakespeare noted, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”. Think about the universality of that line for just a moment. Think about the types of “theatre” that play out around us every day in today’s world. The dramatic, the comedic, the absurd, the existential, the gorilla theatre (it’s a thing, look it up) that is pumped into our Smart Phones, TV’s, Radios, and PC’s every minute of every day.
Think about the tremendous forces that “play” upon us - trying to first discover, then channel, feed, nurture, and finally harvest our will power and biases in order to move forward the agendas of leaders we will likely never meet. Think of all these forces (behind the scenes of course) and how they use the basic tools of theatre to work their “magic” on the course of humanity. Emotionally charged content matched to carefully measured and controlled presentations.
With that in mind (and to hopefully counter the more insidious agendas), I bring you the Frame of Reference "Family" of podcasts, where the voices of our local and global leadership can share their passion for why and how they are leaders in their community and in many cases, the world. Real players with real roles in a world of real problems. No special effects, no hidden agenda, just the facts and anecdotes that make a leader.
And at the risk of sounding trite, I sincerely thank my wife Ann and my two children Elisabeth and Josiah for continually teaching me what leadership SHOULD look like.
Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
Le Cœur de la Conservation - Part 2: Curt Meine
Ok, I admit that I'm being a bit more flamboyant with the name of this week's episode, but that's because my guest for this week and next really stirred in me a desire to wax poetic. Curt Meine and I have known each other for a long time but I don't think we've ever had an opportunity to have a conversation that was this long. Listen closely and you too will get to know him better in this second part of a two episode conversation with him. Hopefully you will see (or at least hear) how his deep love for humanity and our home drives him more and more to bend the ear of anyone that will listen to his warnings and pleas for more responsible behavior with regards to conservation and preservation. Don't write him off as a "tree hugger". He is a true scientist with the heart of a poet, and he "knows his stuff". He never demands that people agree with him, he only asks that you consider the data that is being collected all around the world. There is no agenda, just a desire to understand and make better decisions based upon our current understanding.
Curt Meine is a conservation biologist, environmental historian, and writer. He serves as Senior Fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and with the Chicago-based Center for Humans and Nature. He is also a Research Associate with the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo and Associate Adjunct Professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.
Over the years Meine has worked with a wide array of non-profit organizations, agencies, universities, and businesses, including the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Wildlife Fund, and the American Museum of Natural History. He has served on the Board of Governors of the Society of Conservation Biology and on the editorial boards of the journals Conservation Biology and Environmental Ethics. He also served as Director of Conservation Programs for the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. In this capacity Meine oversaw the Academy’s “Waters of Wisconsin” initiative, a comprehensive, state-wide review of the status and needs of Wisconsin’s aquatic ecosystems and resources.
In addition to his Leopold biography, Meine has written and edited a number of books on conservation and environmental history, including Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision (1998), The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries (1999), Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold, and Conservation (2004); the Library of America collection Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac and Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology (2013); and the bioregional anthology The Driftless Reader (2017). Meine also served as narrator and on-screen guide for the Emmy Award-winning documentary film Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time (2011), which continues to be screened in venues around the country and has appeared more than 1,000 times on PBS stations.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.