Sonoma County Environmentalist of the Year Awards, 2007, were awarded by the Sonoma County Conservation Council at the March Annual Dinner and Fundraiser. This year the two co-winners of the Environmentalist of the Year Award were Anne Hudgins and Suzanne Doyle, both from the Sonoma Group of the Sierra Club. Winners from the Sierra Club in previous years have been Keith Kaulum, Margaret Pennington and Peter Ashcroft.

Suzanne Doyle has been an active Sierra Club member for 10 years, since moving to Sonoma County in 1996, and is now co-chair of the Sonoma Group Conservation Committee. Hiking and camping in the eastern Sierra as a teenager began her love of nature and wilderness. Suzanne has a long-standing interest in sustainability and energy conservation, strengthened by work in the energy-efficient buildings group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and a career in solid-state physics research. The last 15 years, spent raising children, have led to Suzanne's involvement in community gardening and work on the crucial issue of sustainably-produced, healthy and accessible food. Suzanne has worked consistently and effectively on behalf of the Environment this past year (and many other years!).

Anne Hudgins has worked tirelessly on environmental issues in Sonoma County for many years. She is an active volunteer on the SMART Rail and Trail ballot measure campaign and was helpful and active in bringing the Sierra Club on board. Anne chaired the Sierra Club Sonoma Group for the past two years, is currently Vice Chair and is co-chair of the Conservation Committee. She tabled for Sierra Club for six weeks at the Rialto Theatre during the run of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", handing out flyers on climate protection and collecting signatures for Assembly Bill 32. Anne is also co-chair of Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa, a docent at Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen, and teaches a Sustainable Gardening class at SRJC. She is also working on a master's thesis called "Ethicology" at SSU, about the interconnectedness of Ethics and Ecology. The environmental community can always count on Anne to show up at public meetings and speak up for the environment.