2008 - Mark Kinders
Mark Kinders has been director of Public Affairs since 1985. His responsibilities include managing media relations, serving as the liaison between the University and Legislature, Congressional relations, maintaining community and business relations, and providing oversight to Sports Information and Photography Services. He also is the information and media liaison between the University and the Kansas City Chiefs, which holds its Summer Training Camp at UW-RF.
Kinders is a past president of the bi-state St. Croix Valley Regional Tourism Alliance, a nationally recognized marketing collaborative of 20 communities in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He also served on the Professional Development Committee of the Wisconsin Governor's Council on Tourism. His activities in the hospitality and tourism industry led to his recognition as a 2004 Wisconsin Idea Fellow by the UW System Board of Regents.
Kinders is engaged in public higher education advocacy nationally, serving a second term as the Chair of the Advisory Council for Communications and Public Affairs to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The council’s purpose is advise AASCU on its work with Congress, the administration and the public to promote the essential role of public higher education in society and of the responsibilities and contributions of AASCU’s 430 public colleges, universities and higher education systems nationwide.
In his public service activities, he is a member of the U.S. Military Academies Selection Boards for U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind.
Prior to joining the University, Kinders held editing and reporting positions with Lee Enterprises newspapers, including the Decatur Herald & Review in Illinois and the Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota. He also served as a correspondent for the Southwest News Herald in his hometown of Chicago.
Kinders holds a B.S. in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, an M.A. in history from UW-River Falls, and an MPA in public affairs through the Executive Program of the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. While at the U of M he was named a finalist for a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1968 to 1972. (He delivered the UWRF Veterans Day speeches in 2005 and 2006). Kinders is married to Linda Bowlby-Kinders, a graphic designer (designer of the St. Croix Valley Regional Tourism Alliance graphics.) They have three sons: Christian, Casey (a Marine delployed in 2007-08 to Iraq) and Matthew, daughter-in-law Mindy, and granddaughter Katie.
