Dave Dempsey has helped shape conservation and Great Lakes policy for 25 years and is an author and co-author of five conservation books. He currently serves as Communications Director for Conservation Minnesota, a nonprofit organization in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Dave has been active in environmental matters since 1982. He served as environmental advisor to Michigan Governor James J. Blanchard from 1983-89. From 1991 to 1994, Dave was program director at Clean Water Action. He served as Policy Director of the Michigan Environmental Council from 1994 to 1999. President Clinton appointed him to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in 1994, where he served until 2001.
Dave is a resident of the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. His titles include:
- Ruin and Recovery: Michigan’s Rise as a Conservation Leader, an environmental history of Michigan since its statehood in 1837, published by the University of Michigan Press in 2001;
- On the Brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st Century, a history and look forward on the state of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, published by Michigan State University Press in 2004. The Traverse City Record Eagle said On the Brink “provides a resilient and expansive framework on which to hang a growing environmental consciousness – and conscience – about these five spectacular inland seas.” On the Brink was named a 2005 Notable Book by Michigan’s Department of History, Arts and Libraries.
- A biography of Republican William G. Milliken, Michigan’s longest-serving governor and a champion of the environment. Published by the University of Michigan Press in April 2006, the book is entitled William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate. The Grand Rapids Press said this “excellent biography…reminds us that the original purpose of politics was to serve the people -- not the candidates, not the pollsters, not the political consultants and backroom ideologues, and certainly not the political parties themselves.”
He also wrote Great Lakes for Sale: From Whitecaps to Bottlecaps, published by the University of Michigan Press in 2008, and is co-author of The Waters of Michigan, published by the Michigan State University Press in 2008.
Dave has a bachelor of arts degree from Western Michigan University and a master’s degree in resource development from Michigan State University, and served from 1999-2004 as an adjunct instructor at MSU in environmental policy through the Department of Resource Development (now Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies). He serves on the board of directors of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
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