Teri Hawks Goodmann

A lifelong Iowan, Teri serves as the Director of Strategic Partnerships for the City of Dubuque, Iowa. Between 2012 and 2020 she served as Assistant City Manager for Dubuque. Prior to 2012, Goodmann served (1994-2012) as a lead developer of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, a Smithsonian Affiliate, the largest cultural and environmental interpretive center for the Mississippi and the Rivers of America in the United States.

Goodmann’s experience includes city and regional planning, environmental restoration, economic development, historic preservation, cultural resource development, fund development and government advocacy at the state and federal level. Community development with a focus on equity, sustainability, and resilience is a priority for Goodmann.

Gubernatorial appointments include the Iowa State Historical Society board of trustees, State of Iowa Vertical Infrastructure Advisory Committee, State of Iowa Smart Growth Planning Task Force and the State of Iowa Norman Borlaug Congressional Statue Committee. Teri serves on the Dubuque County Historical Society Board of Directors.

In 2023, Goodmann was appointed by President Biden to serve a six-year term as Chair of the National Capital Planning Commission.

Goodmann also served on the EPA’s Local Government Advisory Commission, advising the administrator on critical environmental issues impacting local governments.

Teri serves on the National Waterways Foundation board and is a founding member of Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative for mayors of the Mississippi. She is a founding member of America’s Watershed Initiative, advancing recognition of the fourth largest watershed in the world, including thirty-one states and two provinces of Canada.

Ron Kroese

Until his retirement in early 2015, Ron served for nine years as a program officer for the McKnight Foundation's Mississippi River Program, which carried out the Foundation's efforts to protect and restore the Mississippi River and key tributaries in the 10-state river corridor. Before coming to the Foundation, he served as executive director of Minnesota Environmental Partnership, a coalition of environmental and conservation nonprofit organizations working to protect Minnesota's natural resources. Earlier in his career, he co-founded the sustainable agriculture organization, Land Stewardship Project, and worked as its executive director for 11 years. He currently serves on the National Audubon Society's Upper Mississippi River Advisory Committee.

Ron lives in Falcon Heights, Minn.

Reggie McLeod

Since 1980 Reggie McLeod has written about the Upper Mississippi River for countless publications, including USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal, EPA Journal and national feature-writing syndicate Words By Wire. He has served as editor and publisher of Big River Magazine since the first issue, in January 1993. He has lived on or near the river in the Driftless Area since the mid 1970s. He frequently fishes and explores the channels and backwaters from his solo canoe. 

He received the Silver Eddy Award with Special Recognization from Davenport-based River Action in 2018 and the National Achievement Award from the Dubuque-based National Rivers Hall of Fame in 2023.

He is the board chair and lives in Winona, Minn.

Sara Millhouse

Sara Millhouse joined the Big River crew in 2017 and currently serves as news editor. She also writes for regional publications including the Galenian and Eastern Iowa Farmer and works as business coordinator of the Presentation Lantern Center, a Dubuque, Iowa, nonprofit that helps immigrants. She cut her journalistic teeth editing weekly newspapers for about a decade in southwest Wyoming and eastern Iowa.

A native of Galena, Ill., and graduate of Grinnell College, Sara now lives outside Sabula, "Iowa's only island city." She wears a lot of hats, but her favorite is a baseball cap, sweaty after a run.

John Sullivan


John Sullivan is a retired water quality specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Prior to retirement, John was responsible for water and sediment monitoring activities on the Mississippi River.

Since retirement, John has continued to work in the environmental field by conducting volunteer work with the Friends of the La Crosse Marsh,
participating in citizen-based environmental monitoring activities and helping coordinate river paddling tours on the Mississippi. In 2013, John co-started the Mississippi River Paddlers Facebook group to help long distance "thru-paddlers" by providing river-related information and connecting paddlers with kind river souls ("river angels") who help paddlers descending or ascending the river.

John lives in La Crosse, Wis., with his wife Beth.