About Steve

In a 29-year career at The Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest newspaper, Steve wrote extensively on nature, outdoor recreation, adventure travel, the green movement, agriculture, energy and the natural sciences. He is a former political writer and politics editor at The Courant, and covered the governor of Connecticut for five years.

Steve has written hundreds of articles on rivers and river issues. He’s paddled most of New England’s best-known rivers in a canoe or kayak, and once canoed the 410-mile-long Connecticut River from its source on the Canadian border south to Long Island Sound over a 5-week period, camping on the riverbank along the way and producing a widely-acclaimed 17-part series of articles for The Courant.

During his newspaper career he received more than three dozen awards from various professional organizations for distinguished journalism.  In March, 2010, the University of Connecticut’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources named him the first recipient of its Outstanding Environmental Leadership Award for career-long contributions on behalf of Connecticut’s natural resources. In 2014, Steve was the recipient of the Bud Foster Award, given each year by the Connecticut River Conservancy to an individual who demonstrates “outstanding devotion, service and accomplishment” in efforts to restore and protect the Connecticut River.

Steve continues to write about nature, environmental history and outdoor recreation and is working on a book-length project, a complete guide to adventures in the Connecticut outdoors.

His interests include hiking, kayaking and canoeing, bicycling, birding, snowshoeing, yoga, gardening, photography, art and reading.

Steve edited and wrote the introduction to Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year, a book that was published in 2005 by the University of Massachusetts Press and which was named an “Outstanding Title for 2006” by the Public Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians. It remains in print.

Steve is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the New England Travel Writers Network, the Farmington Land Trust, and the Thoreau Society. He is a founder and former president of the Capitol Bird Club in Connecticut.

Steve is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a B. A. in English literature. He received certification as a yoga teacher from the Kripalu School of Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, MA.

He and his wife, Susan, have two adult children; a daughter, Allison, and a son, Scott. Allison and her husband Sean Sterner have two children, Cy and Anderson, and they live in Newtown, Connecticut. Scott and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Grant, live in Mountain Brook, Alabama. They have a son, Henry.