Andy Goodman is a Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures and a communications consultant based in Los Angeles. After founding and running the American Comedy Network, a radio syndication company, he got tired of constantly hearing from friends in Hollywood how radio is a "weak sister" to television. So, in 1991 he moved to Los Angeles and launched a career as a television writer. During three seasons writing and co-producing the ABC-TV show "Dinosaurs" (plus co-writing the pilot episode of "The Nanny"), Goodman learned that TV writers are considered weak sisters by screenwriters and made the inevitable next move: He went to work for an environmental group. As president of the Environmental Media Association (EMA) from 1993 to 1998, he worked with members of the film and television industries, encouraging them to incorporate environmental messages into their work. Now an independent communications consultant and trainer, Goodman specializes in helping public interest groups and foundations reach more people more effectively. Current clients include the Campaign for America's Future, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Environmental Defense, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He publishes a monthly newsletter, "free-range thinking," to share best practices in public interest communications, is author of the book, Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, and is currently working on a follow-up, Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. Email: andy@agoodmanonline.com
Tom Munnecke is an independent film maker and general eclectic. He retired as VP and Chief Scientist at SAIC after a career in the health care informatics field, during which he was one of original architects of both the VA's VistA and DoD' CHCS systems. He began an encore career looking at humanitarian and philanthropic applications of technology, founding the Uplift Academy, becoming a fellow at Stanford's Digital Visions Program, and a Sr. Fellow at Civic Ventures. He is also active as a consultant and investor in a number of startups in the networking and personal health record field, as well as founder of the Cosmos Research Center a children's science education group.
