When Steve Whitney was invited to join the Bullitt staff in 2000, he perceived an unprecedented opportunity to serve the environmental community and protect the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. His fourteen years with The Wilderness Society as director of its National Parks Program, Northwest Regional Director, and Deputy Vice President for Regional Conservation built on the time he had already spent in Washington D.C. as a public lands activist and lobbyist.

Steve has also served as a natural resource specialist with the National Parks Conservation Association, as Legislative Aide to then-Representative Leon Panetta, and as a board member of several non-profit organizations including Earth Ministry, Washington Environmental Council, and the Cascade Youth Symphony.

He is the immediate past President of the board of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, a national association of environmental foundations.

Steve grew up with an appreciation of wilderness and traces his career choices to the time he spent with his parents in Yosemite National Park. A parent himself, he proudly acknowledges the achievements of two talented daughters. He is a cyclist, and when not traversing trails under towering trees, Steve tends his own miniature bonsai forest.