Dr. John F. Chamblee has an A.B. degree in Political Science and Anthropology from the University of Georgia and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. His academic specializations are computer-enabled regional science and the relationships between geophysical landscape structures and human social boundaries.
Dr. Chamblee has been using databases and computerized mapping to enable research and project management goals since 1994, when he began working for the Georgia Archaeological Site File Office. While still a graduate student, he received a Presidential Recognition Award for Distinguished Service from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) for his work developing a database for managing the intellectual program of the SAA Annual Meetings. John is an eclectic scholarly collaborator, having authored or co-authored, or contributed to books and book chapters, as well as scholarly articles in Bioscience, Ecology and Society, Early Georgia, The Journal of Field Archaeology, Land Economics, The Journal of Real Estate and Finance Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and River Research and Applications.
John is committed to servant leadership and has served on management and advisory boards for churches, Scouting organizations, large-scale scientific projects, and a National Science Foundation Funded national environmental informatics coordinating committee. He became involved with Humane Borders in 2003 when his wife, Ruby, then a volunteer, recognized that the organization needed a geographic information system (a type of electronic mapping software) database to manage their migrant death maps and encouraged him to develop one for the organization. He has managed the migrant death mapping program ever since.
- Retired psychiatric social worker, working in public schools as a consultant and advisor to programs for emotionally handicapped children.
- Member of University Presbyterian Church,Tempe, where I have taught adult ed, been a deacon, and served on far too many committees.
- Married to Catherine May, a historian at Salt River Project. She will retire soon and begin her dissertation on the Presbyterian Church and its work on the border.
- Involved with Humane Borders since 2004, probably done 60 trips to the Ajo area.
- Dan and his wife, Catherine, have 5 children, and 10 grandkids.
- Was a missionary kid and grew up in India where my parents taught at a Bible College.
- Is active in promoting and selling Just Coffee both at my church and throughout the Presbyterian denomination.
- On the board of the PBRO-Presbyterian Border Region Outreach.
- Enjoys walking, the picture is on the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile journey I took two years ago.
- On the organizing committee of the Migrant Trail Walk, a 75 mile walk from Sasabe to Tucson that occurs every year beginning on Memorial day.
Ms. Bear served for 24 years as General Counsel and earlier as Deputy General Counsel for both Democratic and Republican administrations at the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the environmental agency in the Executive Office of the President. CEQ has responsibility for advising the President on environmental issues, developing environmental policy and coordinating its implementation within the executive branch. CEQ is also the agency charged with overseeing implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the statutory basis for the environmental impact assessment process and it promulgates the regulations binding on all executive branch federal agencies.
Ms. Bear chaired the Standing Committee on Environmental Law of the American Bar Association from 1991-1993. She chaired the Steering Committee of the Environment Section of the District of Columbia Bar Association, which won the “best section” award during that period. She received the Chairman’s Award from the Natural Resources Council of America, the Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club, the Distinguished Achievement Award in Environmental Law and Policy from the American Bar Association.
Ms. Bear now lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she remains professionally active in environmental law and policy with a special focus on the borderlands. She chairs the board of Humane Borders and also serves on the boards of Defenders of Wildlife, Border Action Network and the Mt. Graham Coalition. She received a Bachelors of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1974, and graduated from McGeorge School of Law, Sacramento, California, in 1977. She has been admitted to practice by the District of Columbia Bar, State Bar of California (inactive), the U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona (pro hac vice) and the U.S. Supreme Court.