Susan Hughes

San Antonio | Government Official, Activist, Civic Leader

Mrs. Hughes is president of a technical and marketing writing firm, Wordwright Associates, but has been very active in the conservation field as well, both in non-profit efforts and governmental work. She has been deeply involved in the Audubon Society, at national, statewide, and local levels. She has served on the board of the National Audubon Society, where she was active in its Population and Habitat campaign. Mrs. Hughes was also a director and president of Audubon Texas and the Audubon Council of Texas, where she sought to bring together the 21 Texas chapters. Finally, she has been a board member and president of Bexar Audubon Society, which has sponsored such efforts as the South Texas Farm and Ranch Forum and the San Antonio Environmental Network. In seeing the connection between bird populations and habitat that would feed and shelter these birds, Mrs. Hughes became a co-founder of Natural Initiatives, a San Antonio program that promoted wildscaping and became the basis of the Master Naturalist program, which now boasts 35 chapters and 4000 volunteers statewide working on natural resource conservation, preservation, restoration and outreach. Mrs. Hughes has also been engaged in governmental work, both as an appointed and elected official. She is an environmental and historical representative on the Technical Advisory Committee for the City of San Antonio’s Planning Commission, and has a seat on the Citizens Advisory Committee for San Antonio’s municipal power company, City Public Service. In addition to dealing with these issues about the City’s built form and energy supplies, she has worked on water problems as well, as the appointed environmental representative to the South Texas Regional Water Planning Group. Her interest in water has carried over into an elected position on the board of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, which has dealt with many thorny problems such as pumping limits, recharge zone development controls, artificial recharge, and endangered species studies and protection.