Birds Georgia Welcomes Three New Board Members

(L to R): Bill Bell, Courtenay Dusenbury, Wink Weinberg
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Birds Georgia welcomed three new directors elected by members to the Board of Directors at their annual meeting on December 8. Bill Bell, Courtenay Anne Dusenbury, and Wink Weinberg were elected for three-year terms beginning January 1, 2025. In addition, Mary Anne Lanier, Ellen Miller, and Scott Porter will return to the Board of Directors for a second three-year term. Esther Stokes will return to the board for a special one-year term. Marc Goncher, Senior Legal Counsel, Environmental, Safety and Sustainability for The Coca-Cola Company, will serve the second year of his two-year term as board chair.
 
Bill Bell is a retired investment management executive with 29 years of investment experience. From 1999 to 2024, he worked at Atlanta Capital Management, an investment advisory firm with $33 billion in managed assets. During his career he served as a managing director, management committee member, and portfolio manager for the core equity team. Prior to joining Atlanta Capital, he worked for the Florida State Board of Administration where he was a portfolio manager for their special situations equity fund. Bill grew up in Tallahassee, FL and has a B.S. in Business from Florida State University. He has had a lifelong interest in the natural world and is a passionate outdoorsman and fly fisherman. He has a particular interest in ecological preservation and habitat restoration in the southeast. Bill currently serves on the board of directors for the Altamaha Riverkeeper and resides in Atlanta, GA.
 
Courtenay Anne Dusenbury is retired from a 25-year career at Emory University’s Global Health Institute and affiliated Task Force for Global Health. She served as Director of Global and Federal Affairs for the Task Force, representing it at the World Health Organization and with Congress and the Administration. Previously, she was the Founding Director of the Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy, bringing together donors, non-governmental organizations, and persons who have experienced leprosy in a worldwide advocacy and disease elimination network. For 11 years, she was the founding director of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (the “CDC’s of the world”) office at Emory University’s Global Health Institute, working with 100+ countries to create and improve their public health systems. She served as Emory’s Director of Global and Federal Affairs, worked as a Legislative Director in the U.S. Congress, and for the Governor of Puerto Rico in San Juan and in Washington, DC. She started her career at the Pennsylvania State Senate. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Courtenay and her husband George live in Decatur, GA, with their two adult sons nearby. A master birder who coordinates the Project Safe Flight Decatur team, her favorite bird is the Eastern Bluebird.
 
Winkler Weinberg is a lifelong birder. He was born in Rockaway Beach, NYC, and first paid close attention to wild birds at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at age nine. After leaving New York, Wink lived in Columbus OH, Augusta GA, Washington DC, and the Republic of the Philippines before settling in Atlanta. He has resided in Georgia for over 44 years. He practiced medicine as an infectious disease specialist for 45 years. He is the author of No Germs Allowed!: How to Avoid Infectious Diseases At Home and On the Road, and a co-author of The Water We Drink. Wink has served as spokesperson for Reckitt and Coleman (for Lysol), Georgia Pacific (Chairman, Health Smart Advisory Board), and Kimberly Clark (for anti-viral Kleenex). After retiring in 2022, Wink was able to devote more time to biking, woodworking, reading, grandparenting, and he rekindled his passion for birds and conservation. Wink resides in East Cobb with his wife Lynn, a talented designer and avid gardener. Together, they have two children and four grandchildren.
 
“We are excited to welcome Bill, Courtenay, and Winkler to the Birds Georgia Board of Directors,” says Marc Goncher, board chair. “These individuals bring a wealth of talents and experiences to the Board that will help Birds Georgia fulfill its mission of building places where birds and people thrive.”
 
Additional Birds Georgia board members include Joshua Andrews, Michael Chriszt, Robert Cooper, Joshua Gassman, Marc Goncher, Gus Kaufman, Paige Martin, Susan Maclin, Colleen McEdwards, Jennifer Johnson McEwen, Jon Philipsborn, Marlena Reed, Jim Renner, Sally Sears, Amy Beth Sparks, and Ayanna Williams.
 
For more information on Birds Georgia visit https://www.birdsgeorgia.org/.