May 1, 2024–Susan Anderson, a founding member of Apalachicola Riverkeeper, has joined the staff as Executive Director. Board president, Barbara Powell said, “We’re delighted to have Susan joining Apalachicola Riverkeeper as executive director. Her background in planning and advocacy is a solid match for the organization. And as a founding member, Susan understands the
complexity of challenges facing the river and bay.”
Susan grew up living at the river’s edge at the end of Bluff Road in Apalachicola. Her parents ran the Rod and Gun Sportsman’s Lodge. Her first love was being in the river and swamps swimming, fishing, wading barefoot through the backwaters investigating all of nature’s wonders. Her formative years were shaped by the rhythms of river seasons and seeing how they influenced the recreational, commercial and spiritual lives of the natural and human communities of the basin. The study of bioregional native plants and herbalism that began then along the river has been her livelong avocation.
A graduate of Florida State University, Susan double majored in sociology and religion and pursued graduate work in Urban and Regional Planning and later went on to study Cultural Sustainability at Goucher College. She worked as a reporter while in college and was Executive Director of the Monticello Opera House. While in Monticello, she was appointed to the Jefferson County Planning Commission. A passion for Environmental and cultural issues led Susan to further her career by working for DEP, FWC and the Department of Community Affairs as a Resource Planner. She asked to be assigned to the six counties along the Apalachicola River. What she learned in her time at the agencies demonstrated the need for protections beyond governmental action. In 1998 she worked with a group of dedicated citizens to create the citizen’s advocacy organization Apalachicola River and Bay Keeper. Susan served as this organization’s first Riverkeeper-Executive Director and now returns to continue serving the resource and people she so greatly admires.
Susan Anderson can be reached at [email protected]
