The Authors of the OE
David Pelinka is a graduate of Portland State University and has worked as a Systems Analyst at Portland Community College since 1996. His interest in OMSI began in the 1960s, when he visited the Washington Park museum and attended summer science classes there. He currently volunteers at OMSI part-time and is gathering material for a comprehensive history of the museum.
Susan Pesznecker is a fourth-generation Oregonian whose grandparents and great-grandparents settled and farmed the land in what is today known as Malin. She is a registered nurse and a college English teacher, earning an M.A. in nonfiction writing from Portland State University in 2007. Susan currently teaches composition and creative writing at Portland State University and Clackamas Community College. She is the author of Crafting Magick with Pen and Ink (Llewellyn, 2009) and has published nonfiction essays in Oregon Quarterly and Oregon Humanities.
Joe Peterson has taught both History and Education courses at Southern Oregon University, recently authored a history of Ashland, Oregon published by Arcadia Publishing, and works with regional teachers to improve how American History is taught.
Karen Peterson began her career at OHSU Historical Collections & Archives as an archival intern in 1998. She continued to work in the Archives, accepting a position as archivist, senior research assistant in 2002; as of 2009 she received the rankof assistant professor. She writes organizational and biographical histories and curates quarterly exhibits. She has degrees in history from Portland State University (B.A.) and the University of California Los Angeles (M.A.) with a focus in folklore and mythology.
K.C. Piccard-Krone is president of the PSU Friends of History, the non-profit organization supporting the mission of Portland State University's Department of History. The Friends of History produces many free educational programs each year including the FOH's Annual Endowed Lecture in History; bringing many world-famous historians to give lectures at PSU. A seasoned journalist, she also advocates for higher education, the arts, cultural heritage and historic preservation. Her board service includes: Oregon League of Women Voters, Loaves and Fishes, Portland Art Museum, Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, Columbia Symphony Orchestra. 1996 recipient of prestigious White Rose Woman of Achievement Award for Portland.
Daniel Pope is professor of history at the University of Oregon. He has published books and articles on American advertising, American radical movements, and, most recently, a failed effort to build five large nuclear power plants in the Pacific Northwest, Nuclear Implosions: The Rise and Fall of the Washington Public Power Supply System (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Elisabeth Walton Potter, a native of Salem, is a 1960 graduate of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. She earned master's degrees in art and architectural history and early American culture at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Delaware. A long-time staff member of the State Historic Preservation Office, she coordinated Oregon's nominations to the National Register of Historic Places until retiring in 1998. She is a contributor of notes on Pacific Northwest architects to biographical dictionaries, and her articles appear in such publications as Vaughan and Ferriday's Space Style and Structure: Building in Northwest America.
Dennis M. Powers is emeritus professor of business at Southern Oregon University. He is the author of ten books, numerous magazine and newspaper articles, including published poetry. Among others, his books include The Office Romance—for which he was on a national book tour—and West Coast/Pacific Northwest maritime books as The Raging Sea (the 1964 West Coast tsunami), Treasure Ship (the Brother Jonathan, this Encyclopedia), Sentinel of the Seas (St. George Reef lighthouse), Taking the Sea (the old-time ship wreckers), and Tales of the Seven Seas (about a charismatic sea captain of the nineteenth century) which is being published in 2010.
Elizabeth Provost is a history consultant and researcher in Portland, Oregon. She earned her masters in history from Portland State University, emphasizing in public history studies. Her masters thesis is titled “The Genesis of Portland’s Forest Park: Evolution of an Urban Wilderness.”
Jarold Ramsey, who grew up on the family ranch near Madras, earned a B.A. from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. He taught at the University of Rochester for more than thirty years before he returned to the Madras ranch in 2000. He is the author or editor of many books, including Coyote Was Going There, Reading the Fire, and New Era; four books of poetry; and numerous articles and monographs. His honors include the Don Walker Award, the Helen Bullis Award for Poetry, and the Quarterly Review of Literature International Poetry Prize.
