I'm NRDC's Director of Communications so Switchboard and NRDC.org are ultimately my responsibility. (Cheers or jeers can be sent my way ... more cheers than jeers please!)
As of July 2007, I'm celebrating my two year anniversay with NRDC. My team of 40 or so dedicated crazies and I manage all communications operations: media relations, marketing and publications, federal communications, NRDC online, multimedia development and OnEarth magazine, NRDC's prize-winning quarterly publication.
Before joining NRDC's staff, I worked for 15 years for the ACLU, first in the New York headquarters and then for a decade in Washington. (A three-month assignment that turned into a 10-year chunk of my life, but that's a different story.) And before that, I was a reporter for The New York Times. I started at the Times as a copy boy after leaving Penn State's happy valley.
That's the extent of my work career. Home life is in lovely New Hope, PA, and is shared with my husband Tim and our six dogs -- Osceola Jack, Doris, Millie, Samantha, Frances and the newest member of the family Beatrice -- and a cat named Max who not very surprisingly thinks he is a dog. Finishing off the household is our roommate Robert and the three feral cats he rescued many years ago.
Posted March 16, 2012 by Phil Gutis in Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, The Media and the Environment
The calls started coming in late in the day Monday. Curious. Concerned. Angry. People wanting to know about that damning “leaked memo” that had posted on the Web. My colleagues and I were dumbfounded. And then we saw a blog...continued→
Posted June 4, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Curbing Pollution, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, Reviving the World's Oceans, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
A few months after starting at NRDC, I was asked to give a major presentation on communications at an NRDC Board retreat in Sundance, Utah. As to be expected, I was nervous, but I had worked hard on the presentation...continued→
Posted April 15, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Green Enterprise
Skyscrapers. Even after thirty years of living and working in New York City, the engineering, the architecture, the majesty all keep me peering upward. The Empire State Building is, without a doubt, one of the most special of them all....continued→
Posted April 13, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Living Sustainably
Early this morning, as I pulled into the parking lot to catch the bus to New York City, I had to pull around a construction truck that was parked in the middle of the road. Odd, I thought. Why was...continued→
Posted April 8, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil, Reviving the World's Oceans, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy
On behalf of all of NRDC -- our Board, our Members, supporters and activists and, of course, our staff -- a huge thank you to the editors and readers of TreeHugger. This afternoon, the NRDC family learned that NRDC was...continued→
Posted April 5, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Living Sustainably
As we left the supermarket Friday evening, we saw a family of five lugging their groceries to the parking lot. Each family member was carrying a reusable bag; one young man had an unbagged jug of cider. And there we...continued→
Posted March 21, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
It was later than usual when we set off this afternoon for our second trip onto the lagoon. A world-renown marine scientist, Bruce Mate from the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, was on a boat nearby and he...continued→
Posted March 16, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Ten percent of the whales that come to Laguna San Ignacio are believed to be “friendly,” to seek the company of humans. Finding them in this big lagoon is not guaranteed. As we set off on our first boat trip...continued→
Posted March 15, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Fear. That’s the only way to describe the emotion that quickly flashed through my mind when we spotted our first gray whale. We were flying over Laguna San Ignacio on approach to the camp and suddenly there it was. I...continued→
Posted February 27, 2010 by Phil Gutis in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Next month, I'll be traveling to Mexico for a visit to Laguna San Ignacio, a birthing ground for the gray whale that almost became a salt factory. I'm beyond giddy at the idea of looking these vast creatures in the...continued→
Posted December 11, 2009 by Phil Gutis in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment
NRDC Trustee Maya Lin has a remarkable mind. The art and memorials that she's created have moved millions of people and left many of them speechless with emotion. This afternoon CNN will air a story about one of her newest...continued→
Posted August 5, 2009 by Phil Gutis in Green Enterprise, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy
Late last month, we moved fast and became one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who trashed a clunker as part of the government's Cash for Clunkers program. Thanks to the government subsidy, we received more than $4,500 for...continued→
Posted July 31, 2009 by Phil Gutis in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil
It felt good, I'll admit, to see the headline on The New York Times website last night. Apparently the $1 billion fund Congress had provided for the Cash for Clunkers program was almost exhausted. In less than a week, more...continued→
Posted July 30, 2009 by Phil Gutis in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil
More than a year ago, I came out of the closet. (No, not that one. I’ve been out of that closet for decades.) I came out as an owner of a SUV, a hulking 1998 Ford Explorer that my husband...continued→
Posted July 20, 2009 by Phil Gutis in Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment
During last year's election campaign, I often turned to FiveThirtyEight.com and its lead blogger Nate Silver for the best analysis of the electoral numbers and polling trends. Since then, I've seen Nate repeatedly on various MSNBC shows and he continues...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
