David Yarnold

David Yarnold (born November 26, 1952) was the president and CEO of the National Audubon Society. He became the conservation organization's 10th president in September, 2010.

National Audubon Society

Yarnold is a believer in the power of social media which he believes will lead to, "a younger, more diverse audience to help us create the Audubon of the future . . . This isn't your grandmother's Audubon anymore" He oversees Audubon's Important Bird Area program, and Audubon's flyways based approach to conservation developed under his leadership. and the Diversity Leadership Institute for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. While assistant managing editor of paper's afternoon edition, the San Jose Mercury News won a Pulitzer Prize for general reporting for its coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. An investigation into local government corruption in 2004 led to his selection as one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing.

Recognition and honors

Yarnold is the recipient of the Ida B. Wells Award for Diversity (2003), the Catalyst Award for Diversity Leadership (2003), the Edom award for Inspirational Leadership (1998), and numerous journalism prizes, including the National Headliner Award for editorial writing (2005). He helped direct The Mercury News Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing in 2005.

His article "Don’t Throw Bald Eagles Under the Bus" appeared on the April 12th, 2016 SAT test as the prompt for the student-produced essay response.

Articles and publications

Yarnold publishes frequent opinion pieces on energy policy, bird conservation and other environmental topics, and is a contributor to The Huffington Post and Audubon magazine's blog "The Perch". He has been featured by news sources such as CNN, NPR, BBC, PBS, MSNBC, Politico Magazine and The New York Times.