SENIOR STAFF
Senior Staff ProfilesAlong with the LLC members, the following individuals serve as members of the Burning Man Senior Staff:
Andie Grace - Beth Scarborough - Duane Hoover - Erin MacCool - Heather Gallagher - John Pettitt - Joseph Pred - Kristy Evans - Marcia Crosby - Matt Morgan - Moebius - Quinn Payton Yarbrough - Ray Allen - Susan Bernosky - Terry Schoop - Tony Perez - Wally Bomgaars - Zabed
Andie Grace
Communications Manager/Girl of Action
Andie Grace, whose own mother sometimes even calls her "Actiongrl", is that guest who comes to your party and does dishes and empties the ashtrays — so it was only logical that she found her way to the middle of things and joined the Burning Man staff not long after attending the event for the first time in 1997. Her widely varied role as Communications Manager includes managing the Regional Network, wrangling legal and media-related issues, providing staff management to the media, legal, and documentation team operations, supporting Marian Goodell and Larry Harvey administratively, representing the Project in various community forums, helping with content management on the website, and writing and editing internal and external communications — including the weekly Burning Man newsletter, The Jack Rabbit Speaks.
Born, raised, and corn-fed in St. Louis, Missouri, she was a student of linguistics and human sexuality at San Francisco State in 2000 when her hobby, volunteering for the Project, evolved into a full-time job. Prior to that, she had been an incorrigible dilettante, working in fields ranging from advertising to house painting to English tutoring to caring for emotionally disturbed children. While she lists making art, writing, blogging and playing bass as favorite hobbies, her spare time, of late, has been solely devoted to a new avocation: producing independent films.
Beth Scarborough
Aka Bettie June
Associate Director of Art Management
Beth first heard the siren call of the playa in 1997, and attended her first event in 2002. Having heard about "naked people doing art in the desert", she was intrigued and wanted to learn more. She had a wonderful time, and vowed to be back. Little did she know Burning Man would become a full time focus.
After enjoying the wonders of the Floating World, Beth moved to London for a couple of years to pursue a degree in art history. But the siren call still echoed, and Beth quickly found a way to incorporate Burning Man's ground breaking art efforts into her studies. Her master's thesis was on how Burning Man is creating new artists and a new museum space. While in London, she began doing some work for the art department, supporting Crimson Rose, and returned to the States for the summer to do work in the office. Working in the art department gave Beth the chance to leverage her years of marketing and project management experience while also pursuing her passion for art.
Wrangling artists and volunteers has now become a primary focus for Beth — well, secondary to her son — and one that gives her excitement each day to see what crazy, beautiful, eccentric, out of this world ideas people want to bring to the playa.
Duane Hoover
Law Enforcement and Agency Liaison (LEAL) Team Manager
Duane Hoover (aka Big Bear) serves as the Team Manager for the LEAL Team. This group, charged with the role of being Burning Man's primary Law Enforcement and Agency Liaison, affords an opportunity for Duane to apply his experience as an organizational consultant and Professor of Management. This experience, combined with five years in the role of Ranger Director (Rangering since 1997), has allowed Duane to not only become familiar with many of the primary Law Enforcement and Agency personnel, but also to develop positive, long term working relationships with them.
As a member of the Burning Man Senior Staff, Duane directs his efforts towards assisting Burning Man in reaching its various goals, as well as acting as an interface between Burning Man and those various entities that have regulatory responsibility over our beloved annual gathering. When asked what his experience is like on playa, he says "It is a non stop process involving riding the edge of chaos, done under often frustrating conditions, using a set of tools and a time frame ill suited to the purpose." Duane also reports that he gets to go to a lot of meetings on the playa, a place he first approached in 1996 as a break to get away from meetings. On this topic, the quote is "But going to meetings on behalf of Burning Man and the citizens of Black Rock City is not burdensome work in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, it is an act reflecting both a love of the Burning Man community of kindred spirits and a devotion to what Burning Man has become and will evolve to be. Facilitating successful and desirable outcomes in that context is so joyous that doing it does not feel like 'work' at all."
Duane, over the years, has been a college professor, owned a beer distributorship, managed his consulting company, formed his own auto race team, owned and managed radio stations, and even acted as a Morning Show air personality. He spends what spare time he has reading Burning Man e-mails, and working on a book on motivation, leadership, and management.
Erin MacCool
a.k.a. Playground
Project Manager/Labor Coordinator, DPW
Playground came to Burning Man in 1995. From San Francisco, she drove what seemed like all night, sleeping on the side of the road, to wake up and continue driving to see the desert in the beautiful morning light. Now the drive is no big deal (and seems WAY shorter) and she drives it many times a year for DPW work weekends and the production of the Burning Man event.
Playground has the ability to make order out of disorder and find the clarity in the chaos. This aids in the juggling of human resources/volunteerism, resource management and scheduling that helps make DPW tick. Playground has held at a wide range of jobs from OddzOn (home to the Koosh Ball and the Vortex Football) to a medical research facility to house painting. Her hobbies include reading, watching movies, problem solving and ceramics.
Greg Miller
Black Rock Ranger Department Head
Greg aka SeaDog is the Black Rock Ranger Department Head. He is responsible for the overall operations of the Ranger Department, which includes the Black Rock Rangers, LEAL team, Sanctuary team and Echelon group. On the playa he can be found almost anywhere at all hours. Being the department head for one of the largest departments on the playa his days are spent in meetings and nights interfacing with participants, staff, and outside agencies. He likes to say his job is like that of a conductor of a symphony when all the parts are in tune they make fine music. If you ask him he is quick to tell you that the Ranger Department Staff are some of the most dedicated hard working volunteers on the playa.
As a member of the Burning Man Senior Staff he has the reputation of telling it like it is without the sugar coating. Greg has a broad base of experience being a retired Naval Officer, X-Airline pilot, General Contractor, and business owner he brings a unique and different approach to solving the ever changing problems facing the Burning Man Project.
Heather Gallagher
CameraGirl, CalendarGirl, ComputerGeek, CG!
Heather Gallagher aka CameraGirl is a recovering corporate IT consultant with a Master's degree in Computer Science tucked under her rhinestone-studded belt. Heather first stepped foot onto the playa in 2000 and, in many ways, has not left it since. CameraGirl was born in 2001 as the Documentrix for the Center Camp Cafe and CampArctica, where she got hooked on Burning Man imagery, joined the web team and eventually became the Photo Editor for burningman.com. Since 2003, under the guise of her secret identity, CalendarGirl, she has produced each of the Burning Man Wall Calendars.
In early 2004, she could no longer deny her inner ComputerGeek and began managing the Burning Man Technology Department. There she uses her cat herding abilities and special powers to bring some method to the madness. At first, her conservative east coast family wasn't certain about all this, but as this sort of resembles a real job and they have since visited Black Rock City, they seem to have gotten used to her super high-fi color-shifting blonde dreadlocks and her serious costume addiction (warning: colors and costumes may change often, and without notice).
In her "spare time", Heather practices Anusara yoga and further scratches her constant creative itch as a photographer, mask artist, photo journalist, web geekette and image productioneer. You can see her collection of Burning Man imagery, webumentaries, and tons more artsy crap on her websites bohemianmasquerade.com and photosbycameragirl.com. Heather is a Scorpio in Leo rising, born on Halloween, with about 5 planets in Scorpio. So you see, it's really not her fault.
John Pettitt
Black Rock Ranger Logistics Manager
John aka "Trapper" is a recovering engineer. An Englishman who has lived in California since 1991, John dropped out of college to start his first company at the age of 18. It went bust in three months. Since then he's learned a lot and has been a founder of several successful high-tech companies. Along the way he installed the first commercial internet connection in the UK (a whole 32 kbits, about half the speed of dialup). After founding and taking public a couple of dot coms (Beyond and CyberSource) he "retired" and became a professional photographer. In 2003/4 John worked as staff photographer for Howard Dean's presidential campaign. When Dean wasn't nominated, he took a vacation in the desert in the summer of 2004. John joined the Black Rock Rangers in 2005 and hasn't looked back.
In 2007 John became a consulting senior staff member with the role of Ranger Logistics Manager. It's his job to make sure that the black rock rangers have the supplies and equipment they need and that the other departments get the information they require from the rangers. When he's not working for the rangers, John continues his professional photography and is currently working on a book project.
Joseph Pred
Emergency Services Operations Chief
Joseph (call sign: Battalion 1) has been affiliated with the Emergency Services Department of Burning Man since 1996. He serves as Chief for Black Rock City's Fire/Rescue Department, Emergency Medical and Clinic services, communications system, 911 dispatch center, and Mental Health services, he works year round with REMSA, BLM, PCSO, NV Department of Health, and other agencies to make Burning Man as safe as possible from a public health and public safety perspective. He also currently serves as the Chairperson for the Burning Man wide Safety Committee, and is also the Projects' Ombudsman.
Originally from Sweden, he spent part of his youth growing up in the Bay Area, where he eventually made contact with one of the Burning Man organizers. While Joseph does work for BM year-round, he also has several other professional affiliations with various Fire, EMS, and Law Enforcement agencies. He owns an emergency response and consulting firm called Mutual Aid Response Services and is also an appointed Commissioner in San Francisco with a Public Health seat on the Entertainment Commission. Joseph has an educational and experiential background in management, pre-hospital emergency medicine, crisis intervention/emergency psychiatric services, law enforcement, dispatch/communications and fire fighting.
When not working Joseph enjoys scuba diving in remote exotic places, DJing eastern fusion down tempo at various clubs in San Francisco, and occasional dabbles in extreme no-holds-barred technology geeking.
Joseph's personal values and beliefs strongly guide him in the concepts of balance and harmony with all things and the use of these concepts in the spiritual, emotional, and physical path he enjoys in everyday life.
After years of listening to people talk about this thing called "Burning Man" and wondering what all the fuss was about, Kristy finally made the trek to the Black Rock Desert in 2003 and was immediately awestruck by the larger than life scale of the event and the swiftness with which the playa destroyed her shade structure. A trained sociologist who is eternally fascinated by the 'why' and 'how' of things, Kristy began volunteering in 2005 in order to figure out how this crazy gathering in the desert comes to be every year. Still able to picture that very first person she encountered after turning off the highway, she knew without question that Gate was where she wanted to be — to be that first person to welcome others.
In 2007 she took on the task of helping to organize people and things in the department (read: making lots of spreadsheets). She soon became the Volunteer Coordinator and her role has evolved organically every year since then. Currently she is the Administration Manager and Labor Coordinator for the Gate, Perimeter and Exodus Department, which basically means she spends a lot of time trying to make sense out of chaos.
Kristy has volunteered with a handful of other departments and is also a lead for the Special Events Team, which plans events for the Burning Man community in the San Francisco Bay Area the other 51 weeks of the year.
Kristy's non-Burning Man endeavors include working as a project manager in non-profit social science research, traveling with the other freaks in her volunteer-run circus, and figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up. She is passionately curious, can out-question you to death, and is at optimum performance when she has one too many things to do, which is most of the time.
Marcia grew up on a defunct dairy farm in Massachusetts, luring neighborhood kids into her dirt-floored cellar for Halloween parties where the cobwebs and creepy-crawlies were *not* props. She worked summers — in Pilgrim garb — at Plymouth Plantation, and attended her first day of elementary school dressed as a fairy princess.
She escaped the confines of colonial thinking after college — and landed in the Bay Area, where she worked in advertising and created large-scale fabric installations for corporate events. In 1984, Marcia co-founded Climate Theater, perhaps best known for the Solo Mio Festival, which introduced solo performance as a legitimate art form, and which received many awards, including the prestigious NEA Advancement Award.
While producing thematic, art-filled costume events such as GlasHaus, Bunny Jam, Anon Salon, and Sea of Dreams have kept her busy over the last 25 years, she still found time to open the seminal Icon Byte Bar and Grill ('94 - '95), lauded with a color spread in the New York Times for being the first internet restaurant – though she mostly just enjoyed creating the recycled-technology decor.
Marcia's first burn was in 1994, and she began volunteering for the Man in 1996. Marcia currently manages both the Center Camp Cafe and Arctica (Ice) departments. Off-playa, Marcia is the Events Coordinator for Burning Man's Special Events Team, which produces the annual Decompression street celebration.
In 1997 Matt Morgan (aka HazMatt) graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a prestigious and eminently employable degree in English. Soon after, he was willing to take anything that came along that would pay the bills. He answered one of those ads that asked, "Do you want to surf the web and get paid for it?" And who wouldn't! So, he ended up weaseling his way into an Austin dot com and enjoyed the collateral profit that came from working at a company that epitomized the flagrant spending of the boom.
Then in 2000 he came to Burning Man, had an amazing experience and decided he wanted to live like he was on the Playa all the time. Luckily, in the early part of 2001 Matt was laid off. This freed him to do things like not work and to make plans to ride a bike out to Nevada and sign on with the Black Rock City Department of Public Works. He did actually ride from Reno to Gerlach that summer and, due in large part to really bad planning, the ride was astoundingly difficult and dangerous.
Matt enjoyed several weeks working out doors at a wide variety of tasks, almost none of which he was qualified for but which he attempted enthusiastically. At that time there was a need for another person in the Gerlach office to help the Purchasing department and having only recently escaped the data mines, it made sense that he help out where he was must useful. In 2002 HazMatt moved to San Francisco and began working.
Four years later, as the DPW Business Superintendent, Matt manages the Purchasing department which handles procurement for DPW and other departments as needed. He is also part of the DPW Council, the group that manages the overall operations of the Department of Public Works. As a member of senior staff, Matt broadly represents DPW Management with a focus on the Purchasing department.
Moebius (along with C-Load and Spider) is responsible for the management of Perimeter, Gate, and Exodus. His first Burning Man was in 1995, when drawn by a Cacophony society newsletter he headed out into the unknown (armed with only shiskebabs for sustenance). The next year, Moebius returned, unveiling the 'Frequency Publica' public access radio station. Starting in 1997 Moebius worked with the rangers, forming (with Hail Mary) the 'Burn Activity Team' or BATS, responsible for perimeter security for fire events.
At some point in the dark of a night in 1997, 'The Perimeter' called, urging Moebius to head to the verge of Black Rock City to experience the event from another angle. Moebius continued his activities with the BATS for a time, but eventually became the full time manager of 'Perimeter' taking it from a part-time (albeit effective) operation to a 24x7 department with upwards of 100 staff.
After 13 years, Moebius continues to return, drawn by the friendship and energy of the amazing Burning Man staff.
Quinn Payton Yarbrough
a.k.a. Ghost Dancer
Nevada Properties /Ranch Manager
As the son of an architect, Quinn picked up a skill-saw at the age of 10 to build his first childhood fort (a three-story structure complete with a gazebo, second story deck, finished drywall interior and working electrical), and he's been playing with power tools ever since.
After 12 years of designing, building, and decorating feature film and television sets in Hollywood, Quinn quit the movie industry only to be led by a trick of spirit to Burning Man's pre-production ranch (Black Rock Station) in May of 2004 where he was initially hired as the construction foreman for a multitude of structural additions and improvements then being made to the ranch. Since then, Quinn has left his personal handprint on each property Burning Man owns in Gerlach and now manages and maintains all those properties year round.
As the ranch manager, Quinn coordinates DPW Work Weekend projects, The Man build and works with various other Burning Man departments during the months of pre- and post- production. He also has the daunting task of organizing and maintaining the storage of Black Rock City's entire infrastructure. Quinn works with the DPW Operations Team in planning and managing DPW for each year's event, and runs the Special Projects Team on playa.
Aside from of working all the time, Quinn has an extensive personal history in Native American Ceremonial Traditions and interactions with various elders from different tribes. Personal hobbies include: playing the drums, photography, assorted arts and crafts, and ATVing in the surrounding Black Rock Desert area throughout the year.
Ray Allen
Government Relations & Legal Affairs Manager
As the Executive Project Manager, Ray reports directly to the six-member Black Rock City, LLC Board. His year-round primary areas of responsibility include: legal matters, government and media relations, insurance issues and human resources. Ray has worked on legal issues such as Free Speech rights of Burning Man participants and the Organization, search and seizure concerns relating to law enforcement at the event, land use, real property, contracts, employment, worker's compensation, insurance and administrative law. Ray also works with numerous federal, state and local government agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the Pershing County Board of Commissioners. In the weeks leading up to the Burning Man event, Ray is busy ensuring that Black Rock City is in compliance with government permit requirements. During the week of Burning Man, Ray is in the process of giving tours of the art and infrastructure of Black Rock City to various government officials.
Ray's fascination with human nature instinctively led him to study anthropology at the University of Florida, and in 1996, drew him to the social experiment that is Burning Man. In 2002, Ray graduated from the UC Davis, School of Law and began practicing law at Arter & Hadden, LLP in Los Angeles. When the firm went bankrupt, Ray found a much more creative way to apply his law degree by working for the Man.
Ray loves to mix his professional life with his creative side and feels that working for Burning Man is the best way to achieve balance in life. He believes that Black Rock City is an alternative model for a more artistic and creative way of life both during the event and year-round.
Susan Bernosky, aka Sweetthang, was born in Columbus, Ohio, but doesn’t consider that home. Five states, one natural disaster and seven siblings later, she finally landed in Gretna, LA where she prefers to claim her roots. Eventually abandoning her brothers, sisters, parents and high school at 17, she joined a cult, became a vegetarian and had a baby in California. Over the next 20 years, in addition to preparing for the end of the world, she raised three children and honed her skills as a recording studio grunt, pharmacy clerk, motorcyclist, and insurance salesman. She learned two lessons from these experiences: using intuition is not cheating, and there is no limit to what one can accomplish.
In 1997, the same year she started her now-thriving insurance business from scratch, Sweetthang was gifted a ticket to Burning Man. She admits to being a spectator for a mere 1½ days. The next year she returned as a volunteer for the Greeters, for whom she was project manager from 1999 to 2004. After a year off she returned as a member of the Placement Team and then accepted her current position of Placement Project Manager in 2008. As the Placement Project Manager, Sweetthang is responsible for the care and feeding of a team responsible for Registered Theme Camp Placement on playa and the year-round communication and planning required to accomplish this task. They also manage additional placement needs prior to the opening of the event for the volunteers, staff and artists that create their home in Black Rock City.
She thinks her Gemini nature and life lessons account for her ability to play and succeed in two totally different sandboxes. She attributes her success in life to three rules: love your family, take care of your body and live true to yourself.
Terry Schoop
BRC Community Service Departments Manager
Terry Schoop graduated from the San Jose State University with a degree in Graphic Design. Rejecting the notion of pursuing a career in advertising, Terry obtained training in computer graphics working for business graphics vendors first in his native east bay, and then the silicon valley. Shortly thereafter he found himself serving the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, where as a vendor since 1987, he has been bringing graphic 'order from the chaos' of medical research theory and data.
His second year on the playa, Terry joined the Burning Man Lamp Lighters in 1999, and moved from Luminary, to Volunteer Coordinator, to Council Member, then to Project Manager in 2004. Along the way he designed LL posters, t-shirts, and necklace charms, built Greeter booths at the Ranch, and worked just a little on playa art installations, including 2001's Spinnin' Anemone Carousel, and several of the Temple Crew projects.
At the conclusion of 2004, Terry resigned from Lamp Lighter leadership, only to accept a new senior staff position, overseeing the management of all Black Rock City Community Service Departments: Airport, Arctica, Burning Man Information Radio, Center Camp Cafe, Earth Guardians, Greeters, Lamp Lighters, Placement, Playa Info, Recycle Camp, Shuttle Bus, and the Volunteer Resource Team.
The Coyote or Tony Perez has been coming to the Northern Nevada desert from San Francisco to work on Burning Man since 1996 and embraced the project by setting the spires on the promenade. Coming from a background of music, entertainment, and the night side, it was easy for him to take to the expressive nature of the event and after six years, he's now the Site Manager and a Sr. Staff Consultant. This job encompasses the building and striking of Black Rock City and the management of the crews there in, and puts him out on site in the field doing the actual hands on work with his crew for a nine-week duration. During the rest of the year he sings and plays the saxophone in his own band called "Second Hand Smoke" and does some casual bartending in a neighborhood bar in San Francisco. Though his roots are in the city, the call of the high desert brings him back every year as well as the satisfaction of bringing the magnificence of Black Rock City to fruition... unless the surf's up.
Wally Bomgaars
aka Odwally
Playa Safety Council Manager
Wally first came to Burning Man in 1997 with a group of friends who had been going for a couple years and couldn't stop talking about it. The event left quite an impression, and he has been throwing more and more of his life into it and the Burner community ever since.
Having participated in community service most of his life — from serving food to the homeless on Christmas Day as a youth, to years spent volunteering on a crisis hotline as a young adult, and recently sitting on the Board of non-profit after-school arts program for at-risk youth, Mariposa's Art — it naturally followed that he would volunteer with Burning Man. He has been involved in many aspects of the Burning Man project over the years, including managing the Exodus team, sitting on the Rangers management team, and managing the Department of Mutant Vehicles. In 2009, Wally took over management of the Playa Safety Council.
Wally has a degree in Business Management with a focus on small business and entrepreneurship. He also has a degree in Culinary Arts. Passionate about food and cooking, he spent most of his life cooking before moving on to other endeavors. He still loves to cook whenever possible. He also runs a security business that provides services for burner type events around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
Zabed Monika
Administrative Manager
Like many folks, Zabed was introduced to Burning Man in 1999 by a knowing friend, who packed all her playa essentials — water, food, 21 costumes — into his already-dusty Honda and invited him to share what was, to him, an unknown and better universe. He was literally blown away by his first encounter with the Man, learning that capes need vents to be practical in high desert winds. Falling in love on first contact-addling sight, Zabed vowed to make Burning Man a year-round commitment.
Despite good intentions, Zabed’s on-off tussle with procrastination and a decade working on the (coffee) chain gang intervened…until one fateful day when he seized the chance to put his finely tuned administrative skills to work for Burning Man. Having also worked in many, many non-coffee jobs, including hauling frozen chickens, searching for false teeth, and hitting folks with rubber hammers, Zabed felt he was perfectly prepared to join the Burning Man team.
Zabed’s days as the Administrative Manager are now spent sorting things (paper and pixel), organizing things and, occasionally, training non-things (people). While at it, he tries to make sure the Burning Man office never becomes The Office.
Zabed’s non-Man activities include butchering American English, dosing up on vitamin D in Dolores Park, shaking his rump to anything that isn’t a jam band, and riding his tragically un-hip bike.
