ARTISTS

Walt Bilofsky, Photographer: 

Walt and his wife Nancy have traveled to over 70 countries.  His travel photographs, taken with pocketable digital cameras, have been published professionally.

A founder of the Novato, CA software publishing company The Software Toolworks (later renamed Mindscape), Walt was co-author in the mid-1980s of the original pioneering software products Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and The Chessmaster, current versions of which are still sold today.  He wrote the freeware tide prediction program Tide Tool, which was used by thousands of Palm handheld owners all over the world.

A powerboater on San Francisco Bay, Walt is a past Commodore and current Webmaster of the Tiburon Yacht Club and holds a Master’s License from the U.S. Coast Guard.  A licensed radio amateur since the age of 16, he holds the highest class of amateur license and a FCC commercial radiotelegraph operator’s license.

He is president of the Treasure Island Museum Association, which seeks to reopen the museum as part of the forthcoming redevelopment of the island in San Francisco Bay.

A past president and 30-year Board member of the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, and a past Chair of the Smoke-Free Marin Coalition, Walt received a 2003 Bay Area Clean Air Champion award from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Walt has a solar panel installation on his Tiburon home and drives a Plug-in Prius.  He built a computer model of the effect of utility rates which was used by a solar coalition in negotiating rate modifications before the California Public Utilities Commission.

He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Cornell University and holds graduate degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering from M.I.T.

John CW Carroll, Graphic Artist:

With over 45 years of experience in design, publishing and  communications, Mr. Carroll is the recipient of numerous awards,  including Best Books Award (AIGA, 1976), Best Cover Award (Art  Directions, 1977), two awards for illustration (Society of Illustrators, 1978), eight nominations and four Louis Prang Awards (Greeting  Card Association, 1988-1991).

He was a founder of Artists in Print, Inc., the non-profit San  Francisco Graphics Guild (1974). He served as a member of the board of directors of the Treasure Island Museum Association  from 1993 to 2010, and as the board president from 1997 to 2009.

Since 1993, Mr. Carroll has been design director in the Communications  Department of Gladstone Institutes, a biomedical research organization  affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.