Ex-Officio Commission Members

Ex-officio members of the Oregon Global Warming Commission are either officials specified in House Bill 3543 or are governor appointees.

They include:

• Dr. Mark Abbott, Dean and Professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. Dr. Abbott received his B.S. in Conservation of Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974 and his Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis, in 1978. He has been at OSU since 1988 and has been Dean of the College since 2001. Dr. Abbott was appointed in 2005 by Governor Kulongoski as cochair of the Climate Change Integration Group which has examined mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to climate change for both Oregon government and business. Dr. Abbott also was appointed in 2006 by the President to a six-year term on the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation and provides scientific advice to the White House and to Congress. Dr. Abbott serves as vice-chair of the commission.

• Senator Jason Atkinson, Senator, Oregon State Legislature

• Senator Alan Bates, Senator, Oregon State Legislature

• Lee Beyer, Chair, Oregon Public Utility Commission

• Bill Bradbury, a former Secretary of State. He served in the Oregon legislature for 14 years representing portions of Oregon's southcoast as a State Representative and as a State Senator. He also held the positions of Senate Majority Leader and Senate President. Bill moved to Bandon, Oregon in 1971 and operated a small business before beginning his career in government. Bill served as chair of the OregonSustainability Board from 2005 to 2009. Bill was one of the early participants in Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Change trainingsessions and he has given over 200 presentations on climate change in Oregon.

• Marvin Brown, Oregon State Forester, Oregon Department of Forestry

• Rep. Scott Bruun, Representative, Oregon State Legislature

• Rep. Ben Cannon, Representative, Oregon State Legislature

• Katy Coba, Director, Oregon Department of Agriculture

• Matt Garrett, Director, Oregon Department of Transportation

• Dr. Mel Kohn, Oregon’s State Epidemiologist, and the Administrator for the Office of Disease Prevention and Epidemiology in the Public Health Division of the Department of Human Services. In that role he oversees over 220 staff who work on a wide range of disease and injury control and prevention efforts. He served on the Governor’s Climate Change Integration Group. Dr. Kohn received a BA from Yale College, an MD from Harvard Medical School and an MPH from Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is on the Executive Committee for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

  Related link: Raising Awareness About Rising Temperatures: An interview with State Epidemiologist Mel Kohn, 9/14/08, Community Health Priorities.

• Mark Long, Director, Oregon Department of Energy

• Dick Pedersen, Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

• Phil Ward, Director, Oregon Department of Water Resources