About Me

I’m fortunate to have had two rewarding careers during my 40-year professional life. From 2008 to 2022, I was the chief executive officer of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, leading a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and representing the interests of farmers and ranchers in the last great agricultural landscape on the Southern California coast. And from 1983 to 2008, I was a reporter, editor and columnist for the Ventura County Star, a daily newspaper. During those years, my commentaries on land-use policy, natural resources and environmental issues were distributed by Scripps Howard News Service and published in numerous magazines and newspapers throughout the United States, including the Sacramento Bee, San Diego Union-Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Denver Post and Seattle Times.

I’m the recipient of numerous journalism fellowships and awards for my reporting, which took me all over the country but mostly focused on the West. (You can read more details about me in my bio below.) I retired at the start of 2022, and have returned to doing what I most enjoyed during my professional career: traveling around this big, beautiful country of ours, and telling stories in words and photographs about what I encounter. Only now I’m on the road with my partner, Leslie Leavens, and we are traveling in a customized camper van we have dubbed “Next Chapter.”

Professional Biography

From 2008 to 2022, John Krist was the chief executive officer of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, the region’s oldest and largest agricultural association. As CEO, he was responsible for managing the nonprofit organization’s staff, daily operations and finances. He recommended policy to the organization’s Board of Directors, implemented board directives, and represented the interests of the membership at legislative and regulatory hearings. He also served as the organization’s liaison with the news media, as well as with numerous community organizations and groups.

Before joining the Farm Bureau, he was a journalist for more than 24 years, working as an editor, reporter and columnist for the Ventura County Star, a daily newspaper in Southern California. His commentaries on land-use policy, natural resources and environmental issues have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers throughout the United States, including the Sacramento Bee, San Diego Union-Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Denver Post and Seattle Times.

Mr. Krist is a former contributing editor for California Planning & Development Report, a statewide newsletter for land-use and policy experts, and has written for Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Association.

Mr. Krist was the 1997 winner of the Pulliam Editorial Writing Fellowship, awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists, which supported his nationwide study of collaborative resolutions to conflict over natural resources and land use. His 1998 report on that research, “Seeking Common Ground,” won a Best of the West Award in natural resources and environmental reporting, and received honorable mention in competition for the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, regarded in the profession as the Pulitzer Prize of environmental reporting. For his work on that project, he was recognized with an Environmental Leadership Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A former editorial writer and city editor, Mr. Krist is also the winner of awards for reporting and editing from United Press International and Scripps Howard Newspapers, which in 2002 inducted him into its Editorial Hall of Fame. In 2003, his yearlong multimedia series on the Lewis and Clark expedition bicentennial, “Voyage of Rediscovery,” won first place in the EPpy Awards competition sponsored by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek magazines, and a Digital Edge Award from the Newspaper Association of America.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association awarded him first place for environmental or ag resource reporting in 2002 for his series of stories about mercury contamination and in 2005 for his series about water in the West. In 2006, his series of stories about liquefied natural gas imports won second place in the CNPA and Best of the West contests. In 2007, his yearlong series about Ventura County agriculture, “Farming on the Edge,” won first place for environmental or ag resource reporting from CNPA, and third place in the Best of the West contest’s growth and development reporting category.

A past winner of Sierra magazine’s national nature-writing competition, he was awarded a journalism fellowship in 2000 by the National Tropical Botanical Garden to study endangered-species recovery programs, marine biology and other issues related to conservation of tropical biodiversity. In 2001, he was awarded a media fellowship by the University of Minnesota and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education to study forestry and public-lands recreation policy. In 2004, he was awarded a fellowship by the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources to study issues affecting the survival of rural communities economically dependent on natural resources. In 2005, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy awarded him a fellowship to study land-conservation strategies.

Mr. Krist also has served as a lecturer, panelist, moderator and conference organizer. He is the author of three books about California’s parks and wilderness areas, as well as Voyage of Rediscovery, based on his experiences retracing the Lewis and Clark trail. He also has contributed to books on urban renewal and wildfire policy. His most recently published book is Living Legacy: The Story of Ventura County Agriculture.

Mr. Krist holds a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he graduated in 1980 with high honors. Accepted into the doctoral program in anthropology at UCSB, where he was editor in chief of the campus newspaper, he was awarded a Regents’ Fellowship and completed three years of graduate study before leaving to pursue a career in journalism. He lives in Ojai, Calif.