Mark Davis
Board Member

Mark Davis is a Senior Research Fellow at Tulane University Law School and is the Director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at the Law School. Prior to coming to the Law School, Mr. Davis served as the executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana for 17 years. The Coalition is a broad based charitable organization committed to the stewardship of Louisiana's coast. Its goal is a coast that is ecologically, culturally and economically vital and sustainable.

Mr. Davis has a BS and JD from Indiana University and an MLT from Georgetown University. He sits on a number of boards and commissions including: Restore America's Estuaries, America’s Wetland Foundation, Gulf Restoration Network, Governor's Advisory Commission on Coastal Restoration and Conservation, Louisiana Recovery Authority Environmental Recovery and Coastal Restoration Committees, LSU Sea Grant Legal Program Advisory Board, Minerals Management Service Outer Continental Shelf Advisory Committee, Louisiana State University School of the Coast and Environment, Advisory Committee. Mark lives in New Orleans.

Robert W. Hastings
Board Member

Robert W. Hastings moved to Alabama in January, 2002 to become the Director of the Alabama Natural Heritage Program in Montgomery. He is now semi-retired, but working part-time with the Heritage Program on projects involving red-cockaded woodpeckers, indigo snakes, and aquatic surveys. He was formerly director of the Turtle Cove Environmental Research Station, a facility of Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU) located near Manchac, Louisiana, in the upper Lake Pontchartrain estuary. He recently completed a manuscript for a book entitled, "The Lakes of Pontchartrain: Their Natural History and Environments."

Dr. Hastings is a professional marine biologist and received the Bachelor of Science Degree form the University of Florida and the Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees form Florida STate University. He spent 12 years as a professor of zoology at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey where he also chaired the Biology Department for two year. He then moved to his position at Turtle Cove.

Dr. Hastings is a dedicated enviromentalist and has been active in numerous environmental organizations, including the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation as well as being a Sierra Club member for over 20 years. He has received many awards for environmental education, including the National Wetlands Award in Education/Outreach by the Environmental Law Institute in 2002.

Juan Parras
Board Member

No additional information is available for this board member.

Bob Schaeffer
Board Member

Bob is the head of Public Policy Communications in Sanibel, Florida, works with non-profit organizations, political campaigns, foundations, and socially responsible businesses. For more than two decades, Bob has been consulting for national and regional groups, primarily in the fields of environmental protection, national security, civic engagement, education reform, and civil rights.

Bob also has experience as editorial writer for television, as a host for a regional National Public Radio talk show and as a writer for an alternative weekly newspaper. He previously served as Research Director for the Mass. Legislature's Human Services Committee, staffed activist groups in New England, and worked at the Education Research Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was both an undergraduate and graduate student.

Bob leads workshops on strategic planning, media relations, public speaking, political campaign design, and advocacy skills. Bob’s publications include Winning Local and State Elections (Free Press/MacMillan, 1986; paperback edition 1998), Giving the Media Your Message, and The News Media and the Big Lie. His biography appears in Who’s Who in America and several similar guides. He resides in Sanibel, Florida.

Susan Spicer
Board Member

Susan is the co-owner and executive chef of Bayona, one of New Orlean’s premier and most popular restaurants. Bayona has earned national attention and been featured in numerous publications such as Food and Wine, Gourmet, Food Arts, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure and many more.

Susan is also co-owner of the award-winning restaurant, HerbSaint; a specialty food market with take-out food and cooking classes, Spice, Inc., and a specialty food market, Wild Flour Breads. Susan has won national acclaim as the 1993 recipient of the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Southeast Region and in 1995 was chosen for the Mondavi Culinary Excellence Award. Susan has been guest chef at the James Beard House, on Cunard's Sea Goddess II, the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, on local and national television and for countless charity events in New Orleans and around the country.

Susan partnered with the GRN as part of our Safe Our Seafood fundraiser and public awareness campaign. She joined the GRN Board in 2006. She resides in New Orleans, LA.

Louis Skrmetta
Board Member

No additional information is available for this board member.

Page Williams
Board Member

Page grew up in the Chesapeake Bay region. After moving to the Galveston Bay area, she has transferred her allegiance to this Bay and the surrounding Gulf of Mexico. Page is an avid scuba diver which motivates her to protect the natural environment. She retired early from the travel business, and devoted herself full time to activism with the Audubon Society and the Center for Marine Conservation. Recently, she has gone back to work part-time in Guest Services at Houston's Reliant Stadium, while maintaining environmental oriented activities and affiliations with GRN, the Sierra Club, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, the Galveston Bay Foundation, and the Houston Underwater Club. She resides in Houston, TX.

Robert Wiygul
Board Member

Robert Wiygul was born in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1967 he attended Elvis Presley Day Camp, Elvis Presley Park, Tupelo, Mississippi. He went on to graduate from Millsaps College in 1981, and the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1984. While at law school he was the Editor in Chief of the Mississippi Law Journal. After graduation, he clerked for Judge W. Eugene Davis of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and later practiced with the firm of Gordon, Arata, McCollam and Duplantis in New Orleans, specializing in natural resources and commercial litigation.

In 1990 he was the Burlington Northern Fellow in Natural Resources Law at the University of Colorado School of Law. From 1990 to 2001 he was employed by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund), most recently as the managing attorney of its Rocky Mountain office in Denver, Colorado. He is currently the resident attorney in the Biloxi, Mississippi office of Waltzer & Associates, a New Orleans law firm specializing in environmental and trial practice. He is a frequent writer and speaker on environmental law, and has litigated more cases than he really cares to think about under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other environmental laws. He is currently litigating cases on behalf of the Alabama Beach Mouse, the Mexican spotted owl, the humpback chub, the flatwood salamander and various other charismatic and not so charismatic creatures.