Pacific Northwest Dark Skies - Second Annual Conference International Dark-Sky Association April 13, 2002 - Clackamas Community College, Oregon Presenters:

Elizabeth Alverez del Castillo: Associate Director, IDA, Tucson, AZ
Keynote Presentation - "Protecting Our Nighttime Environment: Working Together to Achieve Global Solutions" Elizabeth M. Alvarez del Castillo serves as the Associate Director of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). Her formal educational background is in physics and international relations. Before joining IDA, she spent 15 years doing research, project coordination, and public and education outreach in planetary science. Her projects focused on asteroids, comets, NASA's Galileo Project (mission to Jupiter), and the US Gemini Project (twin 8.1-meter telescopes). Since joining IDA in 1999, Ms. Alvarez has become active in the lighting community, especially where educational opportunities abound. She is a member of the IESNA (Illumination Engineering Society of North America) and of the CIE/USA (USA's National Committee of the CIE or International Lighting Commission).

James R. Benya: PE, FIES, IALD, LC
Owner: Benya Lighting Design, West Linn, OR
Board of Directors, International Dark-Sky Association -

Richard Berry: Co-author of 'The Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing' & amateur astronomer Richard Berry has been interested in light pollution for as long as he's had to live in or near cities. In the early 1970s, he headed up a light-pollution team for the RASC Toronto Centre to study the spread of light pollution around Toronto. Based on measurements made by Centre members, he and Robert Pike developed one of the very first computer models to describe light pollution. Richard, in his sixteen years as editor of Astronomy magazine, built it from a struggling newcomer to the largest circulation astronomical magazine in the world. Berry now works as a full-time writer/programmer, researching books about astronomy, creating software for image processing, consulting for publishers and telescope manufacturers, speaking on astronomy to amateur astronomers and the general public, and writing articles and books about all phases of astronomical discovery.

Ken Bronstein: Lighting activist & amateur astronomer Ken Bronstein is an R&D Software Project Manager for the Imaging and Printing Division of Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, Oregon. Ken has been been involved in affecting Corvallis public lighting practices off and on for seven years with some success. Ken is also an amateur astronomer, having built two Dobsonian telescopes. He would like to focus on the one key point that he thinks can make a huge difference to lighting analysis and design.      

Mike Crossland: Senior Lighting Specialist, PGE Michael Crossland is currently the Technical Expert for the Lighting Services Department at PGE. As such, Mike is one of three people at PGE who together decide which lighting equipment is offered to its street lighting and outdoor area lighting customers. During his 27 year career with PGE, he has been a lighting specialist for approximately 20 years, before which he worked in customer service and meter reading. Mike has a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Oregon State University. He has been active in the Oregon Section of the IESNA since 1987, and is a member of the IESNA Roadway Lighting Committee.

Stephen Cousineau: Power Trader for Pacificorp, Power Marketing, Inc. Stephen Cousineau earned his MBA at New Mexico State University as well as a Bachelor of Business Administration in Economics with an English Minor graduating with honors. He is currently a power trader with PacifiCorp, Power Marketing Inc., buying, selling and scheduling electric power from thermal and wind generation in a real time environment to meet loads and utilize generation profitably. He has previously been a strategic pricing coordinator, senior project manager and market research specialist for El Paso Electric and a utility rate analyst for Diversified Utility Consultants Inc.

Scott Davis: Technical Manager, IDA, Tucson, AZ
Originally from Asheville NC, Scott Davis worked for GE Lighting Systems. As their Senior Marketing Coordinator he was in charge of the GE Lighting Systems training institute, including organizing and hosting the training seminars, maintaining the center with state of the art equipment, training trainers and was responsible for the outdoor lighting demonstrations and factory tours. He also oversaw the graphics department and creation of new publications. He has a BA in Biology, from University of North Carolina at Asheville, graduating in 1993.  

Bill Hughes: Editor 'Light Trespass and Sky Glow' technical memorandums for IES. Roadway Glare Taskforce Chair, IES Bill Hughes worked for the City of Portland Street Lighting Division, Supervisor of Design, Operations, Planning, Construction and Maintenance for 28 years before retiring. During this time the City of Portland introduced the use of cut-off fixtures on all City arterials. Has done private consulting on lighting for the Oregon Garden and for a Memory Garden presently being constructed in Portland for the Elderly and Altzheimer Patients. Illuminating Engineering Society: Member of the Roadway Lighting Committee, Maintenance and Light Source Subcommittee, Standard Practice Subcommittee, Chair of the Obtrusive Light Subcommittee. Presently, working on a new design guide for the mitigation of Obtrusive Light.

Robert McGown: author of 'Galaxy Groups and Clusters', electrical contractor Robert McGown has been an active member of many astronomical associations and a space enthusiast for the past 20 years. As an avid amateur astronomer, he is concerned about the rise in light pollution and how it is making observing more difficult near populated areas. In his business as an electrical contractor, Bob has been able to convince businesses and certain governmental agencies to change their lighting policies to create a more dark sky friendly environment. Bob also co-authored a technical paper on illumination accepted by the Space 2002 Journal with Oregon L-5 Chapter of the National Space Society.

Tom Thrall, M.D.: Alpinist, amateur astronomer
Dr. Thrall did his medical training in the Indiana University Medical Center in
Indianapolis, and has been in clinical practice now for 20 years. He currently staffs an occupational medicine clinic in Springfield, and is familiar with the effects of lost sleep and shift work on worker productivity. He grew up in rural Virginia, and used to frequently join his parents on summer evenings, lying out in the back yard looking at the stars. Our nearest neighbor was a mile away, no one had mercury vapor lamps, and there was virtually no light pollution at all. He particularly remembers being in
awe of the Milky Way, which appeared to have real depth to it back then -not just the filmy cloud that we can see these days

Bruce Weertman: Dark Skies Northwest Chair, IDA

Afternoon Keynote: "Understanding Light Pollution, its causes and effects, and working to Preserve our Dark Sky Heritage" Dr. Weertman earned his BS from the University of Wisconsin (1984) and Ph.D. from the University of Washington's geophysics department (1993). His geophysics research took him to the Antarctic continent 5 times where he studied ice sheets and glaciers. He is currently a programmer at the IRIS (The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) DMC (Data Management Center) at the University of Washington. The IRIS-DMC is the world's largest store of earthquake data. He is current Chair of Dark Skies Northwest and has been involved with IDA since 1999. Conference Sponsored By: International Dark-Sky Association: http://www.darksky.org/ida/ Pacific Northwest Dark Skies: http://www.scn.org/darksky/

Rose City Astronomers, Oregon Dark Skies: http://www.rca-omsi.org/darkskies/

Many thanks to the fine folks at the John Inskeep Environmental Learning Center (ELC) and Clackamas Community College: John LeCavalier, James Dickinson, and Renee Boeckman. Also special appreciation to the conference taskforce: Robert McGown, Dareth Murray, Sean League, Rob Guttridge, Johan Meijer, Ron Forrester, Sean League and Scott Himelwright. Supported by: Steve March, D- Representative, District 46, State of Oregon
Earl Blumenauer, D-Third District, U.S. Representative