I am a semi-retired geographer, photographer, and conservationist living near Zion NP Utah. BRIEF PROFESSIONAL BIO:
Robert E.
I was born at a Lend-Lease Navy Base Hospital active in Puerto Castilla Honduras during WWII but actually grew up in the Bay Islands of Honduras (Guanaja for several years and longer in Roatan in French Harbour) so I still consider myself to be an "Islander" (Isleno)--that's "my home" in my heart. My parents (Elden and Venessa Ford) were longtime missionaries in Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, and El
Salvador for most of their adult lives, and I did most of high school in Costa Rica before returning to study in the US at Rio Linda Academy and then Pacific Union College in northern California (Healdsburg and Angwin respectively). See more about me and my family at my personal website (http://geobobford.com/) and see specifically my FAMILY ALBUM (http://geobobford.com/ford-genealogy.html) or read more ABOUT ME professionally at (http://geobobford.com/about.html). Other photos are accessible via my FLICKR photo site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/geobob/). (Bob) Ford has over 35 years experience in academia at Utah State University, Westminster College of Salt Lake City, Brigham Young University and Loma Linda University. He has lived extensively in Latin America, Asia and Africa as an academic administrator, researcher, and development consultant and is fluent in Spanish and French besides English. His academic research specialty is cultural ecology--the study of nature-society relationships--and the policy implications for sustainable development and the human dimensions of global change in drylands, coastal, and montane regions. He has Master’s degrees in public health and anthropology and a Ph.D in Earth Science/Geography. In recent years (1999-2003) was a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where he focused on the application of geospatial technologies on problems of sustainability, climate change, desertification, agriculture, and natural resource management, i.e. such as co-managing the IWG (Inter-Agency Working Group) entitled Geographic Information for Sustainable Development (GISD) which was launched at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). He returned to academia in 2003 at Loma Linda University, California where he has participated in extensive biodiversity, conservation, coastal zone management, and public policy research and applied sustainability work in Mesoamerica (Belize, Honduras) with various NGOs, government, and multilateral partners. Much of this effort has emphasized implementing local-level SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) and capacity-building around protected-areas in the critical Mesoamerican Barrier Reef Region. In 2008 he worked as a consultant to the Abu Dhabi (UAE) government helping reorganize their environment agency. In November 2008 he returned to Rwanda as a Research Professor and Adviser to the CGIS-NUR (National University of Rwanda-Butare). Dr. Ford had been in Rwanda during 1984-1988 as the first Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at AUCA-Mudende (Adventist University of Central Africa). Read about his recent African work at (http://geobobford.com/rwanda.html). In June 2010 (after formal retirement) he completed a short six-month contract as the Interim Director of the Grauer's Landscape Program in Eastern Congo for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund see (http://www.gorillafund.org/). Some of DFGFI's great conservation and research work was recently hightlighted by CNN--read about it here and see videos: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/12/17/grace.gorillas.congo/
Since returning from DRC in June 2010 he took a "grand road trip" across the US and been building a home near Rockville Utah near Zion National Park (see BLOG http://geobobford.blogspot.com/).
