Helen Milliken was Michigan’s First Lady from 1969 to 1983 and is widely recognized as one of the state’s visionary conservation leaders. Among Helen’s many accomplishments was the key role she played in supporting the Pigeon River Hydrocarbon Development Plan. The agreement, completed in 1980 after a decade of fierce debate, allowed for limited development of oil and gas wells in the southern third of the 90,000-acre Pigeon River Country State Forest near Wolverine. The agreement is generally considered to be the best land use plan in the nation for developing energy reserves in a sensitive environment. In 1997, the Institute published Rivers at Risk, a thorough review of the Pigeon River plan that called for its principles to be applied in other sensitive watersheds. Helen was raised in Denver, educated at Smith College where she received a B.A. in American studies, and later studied landscape architecture at Michigan State University. She serves on the boards of the Michigan Nature Conservancy and the Women’s Resource Center in Traverse City. She and her husband, former Governor William G. Milliken, raised two children and now live in Traverse City.
Reg Bird, Chairman
Reg Bird is an environmental activist and a former member of the board of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, where he served the last four years of his 11-year term as chairman. His greatest achievement with the conservancy was leading the negotiations and the campaign to raise more than $23 million to permanently protect 6,300 acres of rare freshwater dunes and forest along the northern coast of Lake Michigan in Benzie County, including three miles of untouched Lake Michigan shoreline. Prior to returning to his home in Antrim County in 1992, Reg and his wife Ann led a peripatetic life overseas for 25 years. From 1987 to 1992 Reg was a full-time consultant to the World Wildlife Fund, leading the effort to reshape their global mission and strategy for the headquarters in Switzerland and 28 WWF offices throughout the world. From 1967 to 1987 Reg worked in Brussels, Geneva, and London as creative director and, eventually, as chief executive officer and a principal of Marsteller International, an advertising agency, and at Burson-Marsteller International, a public relations agency. Reg is an avid road biker and for 10 years led tours through the state for Michigan Bicycle Touring. In the fall of 1996 Reg rode his bike completely around Lake Superior and all the way to North Dakota, where snow forced an end to the adventure. He is part owner of Torch Theater, a community theater that performs in the summer in the Elk Rapids Township Hall Opera House. Reg graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in theater and playwriting. He says he was “a pitiful student but an avid anti-Vietnam War advocate.” Reg and Ann, the parents of two sons, live in Eastport.
Timothy Young, Vice Chair and Interim Treasurer
Timothy Young is founder and President of Food For Thought, an organic gourmet food and gift company based in Honor, Michigan. Timothy is an active supporter for the organic food and farm industry. A respected environmental advocate, Timothy is the former chairman of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council. Along with Bob Sutherland, Tim led the campaign in 1996 to prevent the Homestead Resort from swapping undevelopable wetlands along the Crystal River for public land inside the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. As chairman of NMEAC, the oldest environmental group in northern Michigan, Tim modernized the organization’s approach and message, stabilized its membership, and improved its standing in the community. Tim received a B.A. in international relations from Schiller International University in London and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona.
Hans Voss, Executive Director
Hans is the Michigan Land Use Institute’s immensely capable and visionary executive director, a post he has held since August 2000. He joined the staff in 1995 as the coordinator of the Institute’s project to bring about more environmentally sensitive practices in the oil and gas industry. His work helped to make oil and gas development the most visible grassroots environmental policy debate in Michigan. His articles on the subject were published in the Detroit Free Press, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, and the Great Lakes Bulletin.
Under his guidance as executive director, the Institute constructed a new green office in Beulah, opened three regional offices in Lansing, Traverse City, and Grand Rapids, and expanded its staff and budget. The organization is now among the largest state-based environmental and land use policy and advocacy organizations in America. In 2003 Hans was appointed by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm to the bipartisan Michigan Land Use Leadership Council, where he distinguished himself as one of the 26-member panel's best-prepared, most knowledgeable and most influential members. In August 2003 the council made 160 recommendations to the Legislature and the Granholm administration about how to curb sprawl, rebuild cities, preserve farmland, and improve Michigan's economic competitiveness. The recommendations were consistent with policies the Institute has advocated since its founding.
Prior to joining the Institute, Hans worked for an environmental consulting firm in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1991, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Resource Development from Michigan State University. He and his wife Maureen and two young daughters, Aiden and Lucy, live in Traverse City.
John H. Logie, Secretary
John H. Logie is an of counsel attorney at Warner, Norcross, and Judd in Grand Rapids. As an Independent, he served as mayor of Grand Rapids for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003, longer than anyone else in the 154-year-old city’s history. During his three terms, John deployed what the Grand Rapids Press called “his powers of persuasion, political instincts, and an unflagging energy” to distinguish himself as one of the pioneering Smart Growth leaders in Michigan and the Midwest. During the Logie era, Grand Rapids’ downtown added a new arena, a new convention center, two Grand Valley State University campuses, dozens of loft-style apartments in renovated factories and warehouses, a park designed by Maya Lin, and new restaurants and night spots. He strengthened the police department and improved neighborhoods. Downtown streets that emptied at 5 p.m. became lively well past dark and Grand Rapids, one of just two major cities in Michigan to grow in population during the 1990s, moved much closer to becoming a 24-hour city. John also worked to stem the sprawl in the neighboring townships outside Grand Rapids by supporting the regional planning work of the Grand Valley Metro Council and establishing the state’s first urban growth boundary in the communities served by the city’s water and sewer lines. John founded the Urban Core Mayors group, which includes 12 older urban cities in southern Michigan. Born and raised in Grand Rapids, he attended Williams College in Massachusetts and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. He received a M.S. degree from George Washington University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He and his wife Susan have three children and three grandchildren.
Kim Albright
Kim Albright has a broad background in corporate management, marketing, education, and fundraising. Most recently Kim served as chair, board member, CEO, and consultant to Printvision Inc., a New York City-based software and services firm that provides printing solutions for medium and large-scale companies. Before that she directed enrollment management and financial aid at the Hackley School in Tarryton, New York. Her work in education also includes teaching English and history at middle and high schools and directing alumnae fundraising for Smith College. While working at Smith she formed fundraising committees, designed a three-year capital campaign, made extensive personal visits to former classmates and other alumnae, managed telephone campaigns, and established a corporate gift-matching program. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Kim worked in London, New York and Chicago for some of the top trading and financial firms in the world, including the London Commodity Exchange, the London International Financial Futures Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Citicorp International Bank, and Morgan Stanley & Co. Kim, who has degrees from Harvard Business School and Smith College, lives in Larchmont, N.Y. and spends much of her summer each year in northwest Lower Michigan. She joined our Board in the late summer of 2006, attracted to the Institute’s overall mission and its renewed commitment to hiring a new policy specialist dedicated to Benzie County Smart Growth. She has worked closely with our staff to identify donors in the county whose major gifts will underwrite a $1.2 million, five-year budget to finance that new position and the advocacy and communications work that will accompany it.
Gary Appel
Gary Appel is a senior associate at Learning Point Associates in Naperville, Illinois. He currently serves as the Michigan state manager for the Great Lakes East Comprehensive Assistance Center, a federally funded center that provides capacity building assistance to state departments of education in the Great Lakes region.
A former science teacher, curriculum developer and professional developer, he co-authored The Growing Classroom: Garden-Based Science (National Gardening Association, 2007), a curriculum guide to help teachers use school gardens to teach science, and Leading Lesson Study: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Facilitators (Corwin Press, 2007) on adapting a Japanese approach to teacher collaboration to the US educational system. He was a Kellogg Foundation National Fellow, a founding board member of the Michigan Land Use Institute, and a board member at Crystal Mountain Resort for six years.
Prior to moving to Michigan, Gary served as the executive director and co-developer of the Life Lab Science Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz for over ten years. Gary has followed, with interest, MLUI’s evolution from its origins as a highly effective advocacy group to a robust organization with a complex mission focused on coalition and movement-building.
The social justice aspects of MLUI’s work particularly resonate with him. He believes that poor planning and unbridled growth often hurt most those who have the least. Gary lives in Traverse City with his wife, Mimi, an educator, and their two teenage sons, Raffi and Micah.
Mark Denson
Mark Denson, who was raised in Detroit, is one of the bright young economic development specialists in southeast Michigan. As the director of North American marketing for the Detroit Regional Economic Partnership, a unit of the Detroit Regional Chamber, Mark touts southeast Michigan and the City of Detroit as centers of business development and capital investment. Mark’s career has included posts in business and government. Immediately before joining the staff of the Detroit Regional Chamber Mark was vice president of economic development for the Livonia Economic Development Partnership. Mark’s other posts in his steady rise to influence include serving as the manager for new and small business services with the One Stop Capital Shop of Detroit, Inc., a project of the City of Detroit that specialized in developing, retaining, and attracting businesses in the city’s Empowerment Zone. Mark was the regional economic development specialist for U.S. Senator Donald Riegle Jr. Earlier in his career he was a legislative aide for the Wayne County Committee’s Economic Development Committee, and the Small and Minority Business Task Force. He also was special assistant to the Wayne County Commission chairman, where he helped to craft business-friendly legislation. Mark attended Wayne State University. He is the married father of two sons and lives in Detroit.
Joe Jones
Joe Jones is a partner and senior consultant in Jones & Gavan LLC, a Grand Rapids company that provides consulting in public relations, public policy and government affairs, social marketing, crisis management, and professional fundraising. Residents of Benzie County will be happy to know that Joe’s company gave a big push to the successful 2006 campaign for a property tax to finance Benzie’s new public bus system.
Joe has dedicated much of his career to community service. He hails from the Detroit area, where he graduated from Oakland University. Before moving to Grand Rapids in 1996, he worked with several Detroit grassroots organizations dedicated to revitalizing his hometown’s neighborhoods and businesses. While with Detroit Summer, he recruited youth from around the country and the state to help fix up homes and learn leadership and community networking skills. While with U-SNAP-BAC, he helped to develop home ownership and employment opportunities and organized the annual Mack/Alter Street Festival. And, as program coordinator for the Warren Conner Development Coalition, he organized citizens to influence revisions to the city’s charter and the city’s master plan.
Since his arrival in Grand Rapids, Joe has organized youth outreach and training programs for Careers in Construction; managed staff and business operations for Half Moon Entertainment Center, a large restaurant and entertainment venue; and coordinated programs for Young Dads Inc., which helps fathers to develop better relationships with their children.
After a three-year stint as sales and marketing manager for Construction Trades Subcontracting, he became president and CEO of E.E. Milestone & Associates Inc., which promotes a more diverse workforce and enhances ethnic marketing. He currently holds top positions at both Milestone and Jones & Gavan. Joe and his wife, Jessie, live in Grand Rapids; he has four children and a grandson.
Robert W. Marans
Robert W. Marans is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and a professor emeritus of architecture and urban planning. In the past 30 years, Bob has conducted research on communities, neighborhoods, housing, and parks and recreation and currently focuses on issues of sprawl.
Bob is active in recreation planning and policy in southeastern Michigan. He is a charter member of the Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission and commissioner with the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority (HCMA), the governing body responsible for the planning, development, and operation of the metroparks throughout southeastern Michigan. He also serves on the executive committee of the University of Michigan's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy and trustee and president of the Washtenaw Land Trust. Bob is the author or co-author of seven books and more than 100 articles and technical reports. He has lectured extensively throughout the U.S. and in Asia, South Africa, and Israel.
Bob received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Michigan, a Master of Urban Planning from Wayne State University, and a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan. When he’s not working, Bob enjoys traveling, swimming, and spending time with his wife Judy, two children, and five grandchildren.
Robert E. Mossburg
Robert E. Mossburg is a New Urbanist developer and owner of The Cottage Company, a real estate development, construction, and interior design firm based in Harbor Springs. The company, founded in 2002, has attracted state and national notice for the quality and environmental sensitivity of its residential and resort properties, particularly its Bay Street Cottages project in downtown Harbor Springs, which Builder Magazine named the best cluster community in the country. Before settling in Harbor Springs Rob was an executive in the hotel industry. He was a management and real estate consultant with Laventhol and Horvath in Atlanta, and with Kenneth Leventhal and Company in Los Angeles. Later Rob was the finance and development director of the team that started Residence Inn Hotels, a 104-unit chain that in 1987 was sold to the Marriott Corporation. Rob went on to become co-founder of the Summerfield Hotel Corporation, and led a national expansion program that developed 50 new hotels. He also was president and founder of Sierra Suites Hotels, a division of Summerfield. In 1998, Rob and his partners sold the company to Patriot American Hospitality/Wyndham International, which also named him executive vice president for its all-suite division. Rob was raised in Monroe County and is a graduate of Michigan State University’s School of Hospitality Business, where he is an honorary professor. He serves on the board of the Little Traverse Conservancy, is a major conservation easement donor and land protection advocate. An avid outdoorsman, Rob and his wife, Vee, have two daughters and split their time between Santa Barbara, Calif. and Harbor Springs.
Royce K. Ragland
Royce K. Ragland, a resident of Elk Rapids, Michigan, has a professional background in management training, organizational development and education. Early in her career she developed and implemented education and social service programs in Appalachia and Washington, D.C., then moved to Peace Corps/ACTION headquarters in Washington, D.C., training staff in national and international locations.
Ms. Ragland has developed and managed training programs for public and private sector managers and executives in Boston, Chicago, Palo Alto, and Washington, D.C. During her years in Boston she taught the leadership development curriculum at Lesley Teachers College, directed the leadership practicum, and oversaw curriculum and instruction in the graduate management program. While at the University Of Massachusetts in Boston, she headed the Management Training Institute and developed the first executive training program for commissioners and senior managers.
Pursuing additional interests in landscape design, she has published and taught garden design, and served as artist-in-residence at Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. She was designer and chair of the Medical Center Gardens Project at Georgetown University, a collection of therapeutic gardens and outdoor sculptures created to promote the health and well-being of patients, staff, and students.
Among her most enriching experiences have been the opportunities to live and travel abroad, seeing first hand both the wealth and the challenges of other cultures. Her most memorable international experience was as a volunteer with the World Health Organization smallpox eradication program in Bangladesh, were she lived through floods, famine, earthquakes, and an overthrow of the government.
Regarding the future of northern Michigan, she would like to see more emphasis on health and wellness in community design, and the use of more innovative energy sources. Having grown up on a small family farm, she hopes to see more conservation efforts to save regional farmland.
Royce is a member of the board of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and the Munson Medical Foundation, and participates in the village life of Elk Rapids. She and her husband, Kenneth Bloem, a health executive, have two daughters living in San Francisco.
Craig Sharp
Craig Sharp is a wealth management advisor and certified financial planner with Merrill Lynch in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He specializes in comprehensive wealth management planning and provides investment consulting services for non-profit endowments and foundations.
A former economics and history teacher, Craig spent time in Washington, D.C. with the Academy for Educational Development, focusing his work on sustainable development projects in the third world. His passion for sustainable development ranges from global to local, with particular interest in northern Michigan’s Benzie County where he has had a home for over a decade.
Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Craig owned and operated the Coho Café in beautiful downtown Frankfort, Michigan. He holds a Bachelors degree from Hope College, and two Masters degrees from the University of Michigan. Craig, an avid triathlete, lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, Michele, and their two children, Maddy and Jacob.
Bob Sutherland
Bob Sutherland is president and chief executive officer of Cherry Republic. A lifelong resident of Leelanau County, Bob is building one of the region’s most innovative and successful small companies. Cherry Republic, a retail, mail order, and wholesale distributor of cherry products and apparel, is among the largest buyers and sellers of farm products in northwest Michigan. Bob, who chaired the Institute from 1998 to 2005, also is developing The New Neighborhood in Empire, which is based on traditional design principles. From 1992 to 1994, Bob served as a Leelanau County commissioner. Bob is a founding member and performer with the Beach Bards Bonfire, a popular summertime storytelling group that meets weekly on the beach at the Leelanau School. He is a board member of Friends of the Dunes, on the steering committee of the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments Greenways Project, co-chair of Leelanau Citizens for Farmland Preservation, and sponsor of an orchard preservation project that is managed by the Leelanau Conservancy. Bob is a graduate of Glen Lake High School and Northern Michigan University.
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MLUI Offices
Traverse City Office:
148 E. Front St., Suite 301
Traverse City, MI
49684-5725
231-941-6584
Fax: 231-929-0937
Benzie Office: Michigan Land Use Institute
254 South Benzie Blvd.
Second Floor
Beulah, MI 49617
231-882-4122
Emmet Office: Glenn Puit Emmet Policy Michigan Land Use Institute
325 E. Lake Street, Ste. 22
Petoskey, MI 49770-2463
231-487-0930
Fax – 231-487-0932
Grand Rapids Office: Andy Guy Grand Rapids and Great Lakes Policy Michigan Land Use Institute
25 Ionia SW, Ste. 505
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
616-308-6250
2008 Michigan Land Use Institute.
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148 E. Front St., Suite 301. Traverse City, MI 49684-5725 Phone: 231-941-6584 Fax: 231-929-0937 webinfo@mlui.org
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