Dave Dempsey

Dave Dempsey has been active in conservation and environmental policy since 1982. He is also the author or co-author of nine books on environmental subjects, as well as the award-winning William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate, a biography of Michigan’s longest-serving governor, and Ink Trails I and II, about Michigan writers, co-authored with his brother Jack.

Dave is currently senior advisor to FLOW, a Traverse City-based water law and policy center dedicated to upholding the public’s rights to use and benefit from the Great Lakes. He also served as environmental advisor to Michigan Governor James J. Blanchard, as executive director for the Michigan Environmental Council, as a Presidential appointee to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, as Communications Director for Conservation Minnesota and as a policy advisor for the International Joint Commission.

His policy record includes work on Michigan’s first Great Lakes water diversion ban, toxic cleanup, recycling promotion, groundwater protection, sand dune conservation, and protection of Michigan’s Natural Resources Trust Fund.

In 2009, the Michigan Center for the Book, the Michigan Library Association and Sleeping Bear Press gave Dave the Michigan Author Award.

Dave has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Michigan University and a Master’s degree in resource development from Michigan State University.