Editorial Advisory Board
Editorial Advisory Board
Terry Anderson is a former journalist, writer, and teacher of journalism and diversity. He is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran, and author of the book “Den of Lions,” about his seven years as a hostage of Shiite radicals in Lebanon. He is honorary chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and founder of the VietnamChildren's Fund, which has built more than 50 schools in Vietnam. He also created the Jenco Foundation, which is named for his fellow hostage, Father Lawrence Jenco, and presents several grants a year to individuals who spend their lives serving those in need in Appalachia. Anderson is currently living in Greenwood Lake, NY.
Jim Blanton has had an active career as a singer, pianist and conductor in concert, opera and chamber music, and was founder of New York's Goliard Ensemble. Meanwhile, as a believer in the transformative potential of communities, he and his partner Dan Radtke have been leaders in revitalizing Port Jervis, where they have lived for 22 years. From a 23,000 sf condemned building downtown, they created the Phoenix, which now houses four businesses and eight residences, with 12 more residences under construction. They also restored five grand historic homes and launched a tree project, resulting in planting of 165 trees in Port Jervis.
Gail Buckland, author, former professor at The Cooper Union, and curator, has owned property in Warwick since the late 1970s. Her books and projects
include histories of rock and roll, sports, the Middle East and climate change. She was a consultant on the History Channel series, The Story of US, and curator of Visions of Liberty, celebrating the Centennial of the Statue of Liberty. For 12 years she collaborated on the New York Times Best Seller, The American Century, by Harold Evans. This book, a political history of the second century of the American
Constitution, examined the constant challenges to our democracy and
how we, as a country, prevailed.
Christopher Holshek, a retired Army Civil Affairs colonel, is an independent civil-military strategy and operations consultant. He is senior civil-military advisor on civil-military and peace operations and gray-zone warfare at Narrative Strategies and senior civil-military advisor for a NATO project on “Resilient Civilians in Hybrid and Population-Centric Warfare.” He writes extensively on peace and security and civil-military topics, and his op-eds and articles appear in Foreign Policy, The Huffington Post and other publications worldwide.
Locally, Chris is secretary of the Orange County American Legion Riders. He is also the founder of the National Service Ride project, a veteran-led initiative in partnership with the Orange County Youth Bureau to help schools enhance their service-learning curricula by mobilizing youth to serve their country through their communities, improve their future prospects, and become better citizens.
Geoff Howard has been a management trainer and consultant with Warwick Associates for 40 years. He was previously budget director for New York City Addiction Services Agency. His ventures abroad included serving as Peace Corps Deputy Country Director in the Ivory Coast and Senegal, Professor of Development Economics in Jamshedpur, India; and volunteering with the Peace Corps in Senegal and with Jewish World Services in Senegal, Uganda, Namibia, Thailand and Ghana.
Geoff’s Warwick community endeavors have included leading Community 2000 and Sustainable Warwick, establishing a program that preserved 5000 acres of Warwick farmland, work on the transformation of Mid-Orange Correctional Facility to Wickham Woodlands Park, as well as Community Visioning and the Community Garden and Orchard.
Burt Thelander has been a psychiatric nurse for 30 years, working in public inpatient and outpatient behavioral health for the NYS Office of Mental Health. For the last 16 years he has also been a Field Surveyor evaluating quality and safety in hospitals and health care systems with the Joint Commission. For a decade he has worked part time as a performance improvement specialist in urban medical centers and as an auxiliary NYS Nursing Board member.
Closer to home in Deerpark, Burt was a member of the state mandated Town of Deerpark Police Department Reform Committee and has been working with a community group and scientists to monitor local streams for contaminants. He works with the Pathways Community of Vision Hudson Valley to develop trails in Orange County.