Mike Hudak

Michael John Hudak is an environmental researcher and author, Sierra Club activist,[1] radio broadcaster,[2] and public speaker [3] concerned with the environmental damage (and harm to free-living animals, or wildlife) that ranching inflicts on US public land (mostly in the Western states). He is an author of Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching (which focuses on grazing issues) and its companion series of web-based videos. In 1999, he founded the nonprofit Public Lands Without Livestock.Hudak's grassroots educational outreach on "public lands grazing” addressed thousands of Sierrans (Sierra Club members) and others. His photos and written explanations clearly picture the ecological problems of continuing livestock production on public lands.

Michael John Hudak
Born (1952-12-04) December 4, 1952
Johnson City, NY, USA
NationalityUSA/American
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma mater
Known forPersuading the Sierra Club to shift its policy on the grazing of cattle on public lands toward a science-based policy.
Scientific career
Fieldsenvironmental activism
InstitutionsSierra Club

Education

Before he focused entirely upon environmental activism and advocacy, he was a computer industry researcher. His doctorate (1986) in Advanced Technology (Computer Science) and bachelor's degree (Mathematics) (1975) are from Binghamton University (also known as State University of New York at Binghamton), and his master's degree (Computer Science) is from Northwestern University (1977). His doctoral and industrial research within the field of artificial neural systems included modeling associative memory and investigating properties of Restrictive Coulomb Energy Classifiers.[4][5] His PhD dissertation was titled "Life in an Associate Memory: Tales Demons Tell."[6][7][8][9]

Sierra Club work

From 1993–1994, he served as the Binghamton (NY) regional coordinator for the short-lived Beyond Beef Campaign (headed by Jeremy Rifkin and Howard Lyman), which mobilized grassroots support in favor of McDonald’s offering a meatless (vegetarian) eco-burger at all its North American outlets.

In 1997, after several years of hiking on western public lands during which he noted livestock impacts, he began a more intensive study of livestock production by researching publications and traveling across the West for more than twenty months. Between February 1998 and May 2000, he presented forty-five photographic talks to Sierra Club groups, chapters, and committees in 20 US states to encourage a Sierra Club policy shift to oppose public lands ranching. He wrote several articles for Internet display and for publication in Sierra Club newsletters. Fifteen Sierra Club chapters and twenty-two groups (37% of Sierra Club membership) by summer 2000 had signed resolutions calling for the Sierra Club to oppose commercial livestock grazing on federal public lands.

As resource person to the Sierra Club's Grazing Task Force from June 1999 to May 2000, he learned in December 1999 that the club's National Board planned to consider revising that policy at its May 2000 meeting. When the board in early May postpone that discussion until its September meeting, he began qualifying a member ballot initiative as an alternative to board action. He called for the qualification of a ballot initiative in support of ending commercial livestock grazing on federal public lands, personally gathering nearly half (600 of 1,307) the signatures supporting the initiative (enough to qualify), with the rest gathered by dozens of other Club activists.

While gathering signatures on the ballot petition, he chaired a Sierra Club subcommittee advocating adoption of conservation policy to end commercial livestock grazing on federal public lands. These negotiations at the September 2000 board meeting led to the grazing policy adopted by the Club’s Board of Directors at that time. He gave the agreement tentative support despite policy weaknesses and called for withdrawing the ballot initiative for the following year. Some club members who had worked with him on the petition drive disagreed with his views and completed qualifying the initiative, which was subsequently defeated in the 2001 election by more than a 2-to-1 margin.


Chrononology of Sierra Club involvement


Affiliations, awards, achievements

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-11-06. Retrieved 2009-10-25.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-11-23. Retrieved 2009-10-25.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. http://www.mikehudak.com/Presentations/GrazingPresentations.html Selected list of presentations
  4. article about Restricted Coulomb Energy Classifiers (1992)
  5. Google search on Restricted Coulomb Energy Classifiers
  6. ACM Digital Library, Life in an associative memory: tales demons tell, Author: Michael John Hudak. Doctoral Dissertation - Life in an associative memory: tales demons tell. State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, USA ©1986. Association for Computing Machinery doctoral dissertation registry. UMI order no. GAX86-07469
  7. Publication ID 13885, Year 1986. PIKE (Penn State Information, Knowledge, and wEb) Research Group website, Pennsylvania State University
  8. RCE Classifiers: Theory and practice. Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal, 23:41992. article about Restricted Coulomb Energy Classifiers (1992)
  9. Google search on Restricted Coulomb Energy Classifiers
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