Following are brief biographical sketches of our officers and board members:
Betsy Model, President
Freelance Writer, Santa Fe
Telephone: 505-466-2770 (w)
A former NPR/BBC contributor, freelancer Betsy Model has spent the last fifteen years producing material for domestic and international radio, television, newspaper and documentary outlets. She’s a member of American Society of Journalists and Authors, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, National Writers Union and the Public Relations Society of America and has, at various times, taught both freelance writing and public relations at the University of Washington.
David L. Brown, Vice-President Communications
Freelance Writer/Blogger, Rio Rancho
Telephone: 505-867-4840 / iPhone: 505-818-9465
David L. Brown is a freelance writer who lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico with his wife Patricia and cat Tigger. He holds a B.J. degree from the University of Missouri, where he majored in magazine writing and editing. He has been a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist; a magazine staff writer; wrote and edited company publications for a Fortune 20 company; was director of publications for a major national health charity; worked as a freelance photojournalist and videographer; and for twenty years owned his own full-service marketing communications agency in Chicago. He has written thousands of articles, brochures, news releases, scripts and even three books. A long-time member of SPJ, he also is an Accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America and a Life Member of the American Society of Media Photographers. David likes to say that he “took his retirement in the middle instead of the end,” leaving the PR agency business to become a large format and panoramic landscape photographer and owner of a stock photo agency. He became the U.S. partner with the largest Far East stock image company, based in Tokyo, and also created joint ventures with major agencies in England and Germany. He has traveled extensively on business, including multiple visits to Japan, China, Thailand, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Between 1995 and 1997 he kept a motor home in Europe, covering more than 75,000 miles there while shooting stock photos. Long a student of science and technology, he is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2006, proving that mature dogs can learn new tricks, he became a blogger, launching www.starphoenixbase.com. There he has published nearly 400 essays on environmental and economic subjects tied to the theme of his apocalyptic novel After Calamity. Having come full circle after his years in the stock photo industry, he is now doing freelance writing for corporations and marketing communications agencies. His business web site can be seen at www.the-power-of-words.com.
Gywneth Doland, Vice-President-Development
Editor, New Mexico Independent
Gwyneth Doland is the editor of the New Mexico Independent, an online-only news and politics site that is a project of the non-profit Center for Independent Media. A founding writer for the site, which debuted in April 2008, Gwyneth took over as editor in September 2009. She now manages a team of four writers, including Trip Jennings, Heath Haussamen, Marjorie Childress and Matthew Reichbach. With the Independent she has pioneered new media tools such as webcasting and live blogging, focusing on the state legislature and legislative meetings, with the goal of opening the political process to readers and engaging them in the discussion. Before she was a politics junkie, she was a restaurant critic and food writer, working as an editor at the Santa Fe Reporter and Weekly Alibi, where she began her newspaper career in 1999.
Rivkela Brodsky, Recording Secretary, Albuquerque
Reporter, Albuquerque Journal
Rivkela Brodsky is a columnist and business reporter for the Albuquerque Journal and until recently was secretary of New Mexico Press Women. She is a 2006 journalism graduate of UNM.
Julie Ann Grimm, Treasurer
Reporter, The Santa Fe New Mexican
Julie Ann Grimm covers local government for The Santa Fe New Mexican, where she has worked for nearly seven years. The 2001 University of Missouri graduate worked for the Associated Press in Albuquerque for two years before joining the staff at the oldest family-owned newspaper in the state.
Bill Diven, Board Member
Web Producer/Photographer, Placitas
Telephone: 505-764-5211 (w) / 505-867-3184 (h)
After discovering in college I could make money with a camera I dropped out of New Mexico State University in 1972 and joined the Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News as its photo staff. Since then I’ve picked up the degree and wandered among New Mexico newspapers and radio and TV stations reporting, shooting, editing and occasionally surfacing in middle management. Also freelanced for a number of years and did a short stint early on in municipal public information. As a survivor of the transition from film to video to digital I’ve converged into being the senior web producer at KRQE.com, the online face of KRQE-TV, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. I joined SPJ (aka Sigma Delta Chi) at NMSU in 1971 and was a pro member of the Rio Abajo and New Mexico chapters before their untimely demises.
Staci Matlock, Board Member
Reporter. Santa Fe New Mexican
Telephone: 505-983-3303 (w)
Staci Matlock covers water, energy and public lands for The Santa Fe New Mexican. Prior to that she worked at The Taos News, edited a multi-sport magazine in Tucson and founded a Spanish-English rag called The Sonoran Journal. She lives in the little Northern New Mexico village of Rowe with her daughter, two dogs and a fat mustang.
Dan Mayfield, Board Member
Entertainment Writer, Albuquerque Journal
Albuquerque, NM
Dan Mayfield is an award-winning journalist and columnist for the Albuquerque Journal, where he covers New Mexico’s vibrant arts, film and music communities for the statewide daily newspaper. Dan shares his love of rock ‘n’ roll on Sunday afternoons on Real Oldies 1600 AM, where he hosts the weekly Doo-Wop Stop and plays the best doo-wop and vocal group music of the 1950s and 1960s. For KOAT-TV, Dan hosts the weekly Top Billing segment, where he shares his picks for the best weekend activities in the Land of Enchantment on the station’s morning news program. He is an Albuquerque native, an Albuquerque High School and University of New Mexico graduate, and a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. Besides lending general expertise to the chapter’s board of directors, Dan helps spearhead programs and continuing education to benefit all chapter members and New Mexico and west Texas’ journalism community.
Peter St. Cyr, Board Member
Assignment Desk Editor, KOAT-TV
Albuquerque
Peter St. Cyr has a wealth of experience in broadcast, including a prior stint with his present employer, KOAT. He was chief political reporter for Citadel Broadcasting, a contributor to ABC and FOX Radio, and a former contributor to the PBS/KNME program “New Mexico in Focus.”
Dennis Roberts, Program Chair
Freelance Writer
Albuquerque
Dennis W. Roberts is a freelance writer and management consultant in Albuquerque. He retired from Associated General Contractors-NM Building Branch on December 31, 2008. after 40 years of work as a professional writer and public relations consultant. He also negotiated collective bargaining agreements, taught construction safety classes, and served as a management trustee on Taft-Hartley labor-management trust funds, while working for AGC. His newspaper experience included sports writer for the Albuquerque Journal and general assignment reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune He joined Sigma Delta Chi as a journalism student at the University of New Mexico in 1962 and served as president of the NM Professional Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists, in 1971. He also is a past president of the New Mexico Chapter, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). He holds a B.A. in journalism from UNM, an M.A. in Employment Law from Antioch University, Yellow Springs, OH, and an M.A. in Liberal Education from St. John’s College, Santa Fe. He currently teaches an upper division and graduate level course in Construction Safety in the Department of Civil Engineering at UNM.
Dan Vukelich, Board Member
Editor/Publisher, Sun Country Golf
Albuquerque
Dan Vukelich worked for The Albuquerque Tribune, Santa Fe New Mexican and KOB-TV as a beat reporter, assistant city editor, special-projects reporter or investigator reporter for more than 18 years. He moved to New Mexico in 1981 from Chicago after time at the City News Bureau of Chicago and several suburban newspapers. In the late 1980s, he covered Congress and a handful of federal agencies for The Washington Times. After returning to New Mexico, he won an Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., award for a year-long Tribune series, “Whose Legislature Is It?” focusing on conflicts of interest and the impact of special-interest campaign contributions on legislation. He was a member of a 1993 Tribune reporting team that won an SPJ national bronze medal for public service for the series, “DWI: Why Can’t We Stop It?” He led several of the newspaper’s computer-assisted reporting efforts. Dan earned or shared in more than a dozen Albuquerque Press Club, APME and NMPA breaking-news and investigative-reporting awards. Through the 1990s, Dan was hosted KNME-TV’s At Week’s End, In Focus and Stateline New Mexico political-affairs programs. In 1999, he became the producer half of Conroy Chino’s “4 Wants to Know” investigative unit at KOB-TV. He left news in 2001 to form a video-production company. He is editor and co-publisher of Sun Country Golf, a bimonthly statewide golf magazine. Dan joined SPJ in 1993.
