My Bio

I was the director of public affairs for two federal science agencies (the National Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration) and the communications director to former Vice President Dan Quayle at the White House. I was also a national journalist, and the director of a strategic communications consulting business. I'm  currently the executive director of Climate Nexus,  based in New York, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, Time, U.S. News & World Report and other publications.

My new book, THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, from St. Martin's Press will be available Sept. 25, 2018. Bill McKibben calls it a "touchstone book for understanding the world we're daily creating." Senator John Kerry says it is an "enlightening - and alarming - explanation of the climate challenge as it exists today." Sierra Club leader Michael Brune said the book "challenges us to save not just our world but our humanity.:"

My previous book with St. Martin's Press, POISON TEA, was well-received by critics. The New York Times called it a "refresher course in Civics 101." Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kobert said: "Poison Tea is compelling, richly reported, and utterly chilling."

In addition to my non-fiction work, I've also written more than 20 inspirational novels with Tyndale, Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, Guideposts, Summerside Press, David C. Cook, Hodder & Stoughton, Harold Shaw (part of Random House) and Victor Books. My latest fiction series, with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Kevin Leman, is the Worthington Destiny series.

In Washington, I was a senior public affairs official in the U.S. Senate and federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration; a national journalist with Knight-Ridder and others; head of a strategic communications consulting firm for more than a decade; director of communications for former Vice President Dan Quayle at the White House; and the director of legislative and public affairs at the National Science Foundation from 2006-2011. I’m currently the executive director of Climate Nexus, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in New York funded by a number of foundations including the Skoll Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Energy Foundation and others to focus on national climate and energy communications.