[cobirds] Thanks, Todd!

Cobirders,

 

I wanted to extend my thanks,  on behalf of the entire CFO Board of Directors,  to Todd Deininger for his admirable leadership as Cobirds Moderator over the past many years.  Todd has worked hard moderating Cobirds as list manager for at least 5 years now—since 2011 or earlier.  Over that time Cobirds has continued as one of the top internet birding services in the country with somewhere around 1,500 subscribers.  Herding that many cats is not easy!

 

Historical records of internet interactions are surprisingly hard to track down.  I can determine that Cobirds turned 20 years old a few months ago because I can find an email with directions to join from June 1995.  Cobirds was one of the very first state-wide listserves springing from the initial WWW site, BIRDCHAT (yes it was all caps) in the mid-1990s.  The late Wally Collins, Alan Versaw and I saw this path to the future of birding and set up Cobirds at that time and it became a model of internet birding. 

 

At first it was a listserve through the University of Colorado Boulder.  (As an aside, I can point out that here at CU Boulder we have a faculty member, Lori Emerson, who is world renowned as an expert in Media Archeology—something that we wish we had been more careful about years down the road!)  In the early 2000s, Alan and I passed on Cobirds to the Colorado Field Ornithologists where the service was managed by Rachel Hopper until the very late 2000s.  That is about when Todd took over.

 

Todd is stepping down at this time in order to enjoy more time in the field.  CFO President, Doug Faulkner as well as board members Lisa Edwards and Mark Peterson will try to handle duties until a new moderator is named.  But I would like to really pay due respects to Todd for the services he has rendered.  He has been like a referee whose excellent work you never notice while it is taking place.

 

Thanks, Todd

 

Bill Kaempfer

CFO Past President

(Oh, and I better hadn’t forget)

Boulder, Colorado