Martha Marks has enjoyed a varied career. After teaching high school Spanish for five years, she returned to graduate school, earned a Ph.D. in Spanish literature and linguistics at Northwestern University and taught college for eleven years. In 1985, she left academia to write textbooks (6 published in all) and work as a free-lance language proficiency tester and trainer for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and many colleges, universities, and corporations.
In 1990, a local land-use battle led Martha into politics. In 1992, she was elected to the Lake County (IL) Board and Forest Preserve Board on an avowedly pro-environment platform. The following year, she helped form the Lake County Conservation Alliance, an umbrella organization of grassroots groups trying to preserve the natural beauty and quality of life of their area. She was re-elected two times as a county commissioner and served for ten years until her (voluntary!) retirement in December 2002.
In 1995, Martha was one of a handful of Republican environmentalists who set out to restore the GOP's conservation ethic by creating Republicans for Environmental Protection. She served on the Steering Committee in 1996; later that year she was elected president, an office that she still holds. She was re-elected to REP's board in 1998, 2002 and 2006.
Martha served on the Board of Directors of the national League of Conservation Voters from 2001 to 2007. In October 2002, she was honored with the "Council's Chair's Award" at a gala awards dinner of the National Resources Council of America.
Martha's diverse career has earned her recognition in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the Midwest, and Who's Who of American Women. She is also an accomplished wildlife photographer with her own "Martha's Art" web site. She and her husband live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Martha describes her hobbies as travel, photography and escaping into nature.
Martha is often invited to speak to audiences about REP and her vision for a restored GOP conservation ethic. You can read these speeches on our web site:
Thank you, Governor Schwarzenegger, speech given directly to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a private reception hosted by State Senator Tom Harman in Sacramento, California, June 27, 2007
"What would TR do?" keynote speech at the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition's "Return the Great Forest" conference in Hendersonville, North Carolina, on April 12, 2002.
Roadless forests: The best deal a governor could make, published July 21-25, 2006, in the Salt Lake Tribune, BIllings Gazette, Spokane Spokesman-Review, Hartford Courant, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Albuquerque Journal, Huntsville Times, Raleigh News & Observer, Yorktown Daily Press, and Santa Barbara News-Press
