Ron created Saving the City: Remaking the American Metropolis as a result of years of traveling to and studying cities from a variety of perspectives. He also created and produced the acclaimed Saving the Bay national PBS series narrated by Robert Redford about the history of San Francisco Bay.

Ron previously worked in real estate development and finance in his native San Francisco and on Wall Street in New York, as well as serving as Director of Business Development in the San Francisco mayor’s office in the early 1990s.

He earned an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a concurrent Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley.

James, who edits, writes and shoots, has worked on independent commercial and documentary productions for over a dozen years. His most recent feature was directing The Book Makers, seen nationally on public TV. Previous credits include a trilogy of films about European winemaking released on Netflix.

James holds a BA in History from Oxford University.

Carl is a natural storyteller who has worked on a variety of productions from local news programs to nationally broadcast documentaries.  Acting as a writer, producer, director or all three, he has chased tornadoes, climbed mountains and interviewed inmates.

Carl’s work has been seen on numerous networks including Discovery, National Geographic, A&E, the Travel Channel and Oxygen.  He has also produced for LinkedIn and taught writing and producing for MasterClass.

Fittingly for Saving the City, Carl has been to all 50 states and much of Canada.

Nicole has a MA in film and video from American University and BA in Communications from Howard University.

Sandra, who is helping with strategic planning and fundraising, is President of Personal Cities, a smart city company focused on city identity and placemaking, social inclusion and equity, climate actions and the acceleration of digital technology investments to support innovation and entrepreneurs. She is a longtime champion of creative collaboration between the public and private sectors. Sandra has worked worldwide with city leaders and smart city companies for over 25 years, including at the Smart Cities Council, Bloomberg Government, Ridge Global and Sprint/Nextel Communications.

Jamie is an expert in all things technical and has been advising the Saving the City team on a number of matters. He also shoots and edits, having worked on projects spanning the globe.

Mad Dog is a writer, web developer, and musician. He wrote a humor column for 14 years, has had three books published, created and marketed novelty gift items including Croc O’ Shirt, Earl the Dead Cat, and the Silent Vigil Foam Rubber Wind Chimes, and has taken innumerable other twists and turns in his jagged career path.

A big thank you to all who helped the launch the production pre-Covid:

Blair Gershkow, Lisa Landers, Stacy Waters, Joan Saffa, Rob Weiss, and Alex Safron.