Ron Blatman
Ron is Executive Producer/Producer for Zoo Story: The Evolution of the American Zoo. He has followed the changes in zoos for years and has visited 36 zoos across North America.
His first film foray was as Creator and Executive Producer/Producer for Saving the Bay: The Story of San Francisco Bay, a national prime time PBS TV series narrated by Robert Redford. Saving the Bay’s four episodes cover San Francisco Bay from its origins to the present and highlight three pioneering women who saved the Bay from becoming little more than a river in the 1960s.
Go to www.savingthebay.org for more including video clips and an extensive education section. The series won four regional Emmy awards including for Best Documentary. Screenings were held for members of Congress at the US Capitol and in conjunction with the state legislature in Sacramento.
Ron is also Executive Producer/Producer of Saving the City: Remaking the American Metropolis, a 13-part TV series in production highlighting successful and unsuccessful examples of urban redevelopment throughout the US and Canada focusing on downtowns and nearby neighborhoods. To get a sense of the series, go to www.savingthecity.org for more information including preview videos.
Ron previously worked in real estate development and finance in his native San Francisco and on Wall Street in New York, as well as serving as Director of Business Development in the San Francisco mayor’s office in the early 1990s. He was the mayor’s point man for keeping the San Francisco Giants baseball team in the city as well as catalyst for a major new Federal office complex.
Ron earned an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a concurrent Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley.
Rick Hills
Rick, Executive Producer, is an attorney and residential real estate developer in San Francisco. Through employment, fundraising and volunteer service, he has seen zoos and wildlife conservation organizations inside and out for most of his adult life. He is the former Chairman of the Foundation Board of San Diego Zoo Global.
He was the first executive director of the Charleston, SC-based Turtle Survival Alliance, the world’s leading organization dedicated to the conservation of freshwater turtles and tortoises. He was also the Facilities Subcommittee Chairman of the Zoo Advisory Committee, appointed by the Board of Supervisors in the late 1980’s to investigate and make recommendations for the improvement of the San Francisco Zoo.
Now based in San Francisco, Rick is originally from San Diego. He worked in Building and Grounds at the San Diego Zoo while attending college at the University of California, San Diego, and after in Guest Services at San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park. He did fundraising for the Los Angeles Zoo and the California Condor Recovery Project while attending law school. He was also on the San Francisco Planning Commission in the late 1990’s.
He earned a BA cum laude in History Honors from UCSD and a JD from the UCLA School of Law.
Blair Gershkow
Blair Gershkow is a documentary editor with credits on all the major broadcast networks, including PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC’s Nightline, PBS’ Great Performances, Oprah!, and CBS’ 60 Minutes. His body of work includes editing and The People vs. Dan White, a docudrama about the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. He also edited Thanh’s War and J.B. Jackson and the Love of Everyday Places for PBS, Silicon Valley: The New Gold Rush for CNN, and Fox 2/5, the story of the first Marines deployed into Iraq — which won a national Emmy for ABC Nightline.
From 2003 until 2009 he edited all three separate series’ for the San Francisco Symphony and PBS, entitled Keeping Score (9 shots in its entirety). In 2008 Gershkow edited the independent documentary The Judge and the General for PBS (and theatrical), which recently won the prestigious Dupont Award, as well as nominations for best Documentary with the Directors Guild of America and the National Emmys. Finally, in 2009 he completed editing the 4 part independent series, Saving the Bay. Narrated by Robert Redford, it chronicles the environmental and political history of San Francisco Bay. Gershkow recently completing the editing of San Francisco Symphony at 100, the story of the Symphony as they celebrate their 100th anniversary. Currently he is working on a documentary about Skokie, Illinois and is editing a biopic of Wynton Marsalis for PBS.
Lisa Landers
Lisa Landers is a producer, director and writer who has developed and produced documentaries for television networks such as the Smithsonian Channel, National Geographic Television, Discovery Channel and others. Through her work she’s covered a diverse range of subject matter including natural history, science, culture and arts. Her films and writing have also appeared in world-class museums such as the American Museum of Natural History, the National Building Museum, the Tech Museum of Innovation and Papalote Museo del Niño in Mexico City.
For several years Lisa served as the managing editor and a series producer for QUEST, an award-winning KQED/PBS multimedia series focused on science and the environment. Earlier in her career Lisa was one of the producers of a feature-length film and educational series Year On Earth, which chronicled some of the most pressing threats to wildlife around the globe.
Lisa holds a B.A. in Architectural Studies from Tufts University and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.