Mary Anne Pickens has been a resident of Columbus and Houston, Texas, where she has pursued her interests as a gardener, historian, landscape writer, and past president of the Native Plant Society of Texas.
Here she discusses her memories of the life, career and influence of Lynn Lowrey, the noted plantsman based in Houston.
Carl Schoenfeld is a plant explorer and the founder and owner of Yucca Do Nursery in Hempstead, where he propagates and sells drought and heat tolerant plants, including rare yuccas, cacti, ferns, and bromeliads.
In this interview, he discusses his memories and insights about the celebrated plantsman and explorer, Lynn Lowrey.
John Fairey was an architecture professor at Texas A&M University, a plant explorer, and the founder and director of Peckerwood Garden in Hempstead, a collection of woodland, montane and desert plants native to the southern United States and Mexico.
Here he describes his memories and perspectives about Lynn Lowrey, the noted Houston horticulturalist, landscaper, and plant explorer.
Mr. Marston is an environmental attorney. He began his career in 1979 as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas, working in the Environmental Protection Division. Then, from 1980 through 1988, he was a partner in the private law firm of Doggett, Jacks, Marston and Perlmutter. In 1988, he opened the Environmental Defense Fund office in Texas, where he worked through 2020, focusing on climate, energy, air pollution, and a wide variety of other conservation efforts. At EDF, he was especially active in designing and arguing for the Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard, which helped drive a boom in wind and solar energy in the state. He also was a key player in the fight to stop the utility TXU from building a dozen coal plants in Texas. Outside of EDF, he has been an active volunteer with Pecan Street, a partnership among Austin Energy, UT, the Austin Chamber, and a number of high-tech companies to reform the U.S. electrical grid. Some of his other board roles include serving as the president of the Texas League of Conservation Voters, vice chair of the Texas Ethics Commission, chair of the board of the Texas Observer, and a trustee for Texas Watch, Texas Rural Legal Aid, Texas Citizens Action, and other groups. He has also been engaged outside of Texas, especially with promoting climate-related car legislation in California, and in improving greenhouse emission regulations nationwide.
Bob King has worked in the sustainable energy field for many years, with 1970s-era stints in Texas at the Governor’s Energy Advisory Council, the Railroad Commission, the Texas Energy Development Fund, and with a volunteer effort to help start the Texas Solar Energy Society. He later held paid positions out-of-state, including ones in Tennessee with the TVA’s Residential Solar Applications Branch, and in California with the Solar Energy Assurance Labeling Program, Local Government Commission, and the Public Utilities Commission Advisory Committee. He returned to Texas in 1983 to lead the Office of Natural Resources during Jim Hightower’s term as Agriculture Commissioner, and meanwhile helped start the Texas Renewable Energy Industry Association. After leaving TDA, from 1991 through 1993, Mr. King coordinated the LOAN STAR revolving loan fund in Texas, which supported energy audits and efficiency retrofits for governmental clients. During the 1993-96 period, he worked for Kenetech, helping build and connect the first commercial-scale wind farm in Texas, and in 1996-97, helped design the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for efficiency and renewable energy customers. In recent years, he has operated out of the Good Company Associates consulting firm, and has been focusing on a smart meter program to allow customers to share energy data.
Ms Hadden has served as the executive director of the SEED [Sustainable Energy and Economic Development] Coalition since 2000. Her work has focused on the intersection of energy and environmental concerns, and has included efforts to block coal plants, to reduce mercury emissions from power facilities, to warn the public about mercury-laden fish consumption, to organize opposition to the re-licensing of the Comanche Peak and South Texas nuclear power plants, to support construction of solar panel arrays, to improve energy efficiency and conservation in affordable housing, and to fight misguided proposals to transport and dispose radioactive waste. From 1980 to 1999, before beginning her work as an advocate at the SEED Coalition, she taught science to middle and high school students, leading courses in physics, biology, astronomy, anatomy, physiology and chemistry, sponsoring science clubs and fairs, and organizing field trips.
In 1969, Mr. Frishman received his Master’s in Geology while studying at the Marine Science Institute, a branch of the University of Texas sited on Mustang Island. Living on the Gulf, he developed a strong interest in Texas coastal issues. His concern for the coast played out in his work as a publisher of a paper, The South Jetty, as a volunteer with the Texas Environmental Coalition, as a member of the Texas Coastal and Marine Council, as a panelist with the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, and as a consultant with a firm, Coastal Resources Management. Topics at the time included hurricane preparedness, port development, channel dredging, fishery management and wetland protection. During the 1980s, his work grew more involved with nuclear waste, dealing with disposal proposals for East Texas salt domes or Panhandle salt beds through positions at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Texas Energy and Natural Resources Advisory Council, and the Governor’s General Counsel. As the Texas high-level waste disposal sites were rejected, Mr. Frishman’s efforts took him in 1987 to Nevada, where he has worked since in analyzing and critiquing Yucca Mountain disposal applications.
Dr. Davies holds a PhD in American Civilization from the University of Texas at Austin, and has had a career in editing and publishing books and journals, many of them about natural resource and conservation topics. She served as the Director of Texas A&M University Press, where she earlier worked as Editor-in-Chief and as the Merrick Editor for the Natural Environment. Prior to working at Texas A&M, she served as Founding Editor and Publisher of Texas Birds, a publication of the Texas Ornithological Society, as well as the Science Editor and Editorial Fellow for the University of Texas Press. In those capacities, she has worked with a number of funders and dozens of authors to bring scores of books and articles about the natural world to the public. The works have touched on a variety of conservation subjects, including water, wildlife, energy, public lands, forests, agriculture, and environmental history. She has also helped support writers through her service on the boards of two residencies for artists: the Madrono Ranch: A Center for Writing, Art, and the Environment, and the Thinking like a Mountain Foundation.
Mr. Carr is a noted field botanist who has worked on plant inventories, surveys and protection efforts for Texas Parks and Wildlife (Natural Heritage Program), the Nature Conservancy of Texas, and his own firm, Acme Botanical Services. He has collected more than 37,000 plant specimens, with more than 15,000 catalogued at the herbarium at the University of Texas at Austin, to improve the understanding of plant distributions across the Southwest. As well, he was a co-author, with Jackie Poole, Jason Singhurst, and Dana Price on the reference volume, Rare Plants of Texas (Texas A&M University Press 2007), and has made contributions to a number of journals, including Lundelia, Sida, and the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
Rev. Malveaux is a Baptist minister who has served congregations in both Corpus Christi and currently in Beaumont. He has also led the statewide public interest group People Against a Contaminated Environment (PACE), which grew out of his concern that air and water emissions from powerful petrochemical facilities abutting these communities were affecting the health and livelihoods of his neighbors and congregants.
