Meet the Staff

Dave Duffy Dave Duffy is the founder, publisher, and editor of Backwoods Home Magazine. He built his own home in a remote area of the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon while launching the magazine, and that served as BHM's first office. Since the home was 10 miles from the nearest electric utility pole, Duffy installed a photovoltaic system to produce sun-generated electricity to run the computers and printers to publish the magazine. Born in Boston, Duffy spent his first 29 years there, where he worked as a journalist for several daily newspapers. He then moved to Nevada and California, working as a journalist for newspapers and later as a writer and editor for the Department of Defense. Unhappy with working for others and living near cities, he spent several years of vacations and long weekends building his hideaway in southern Oregon. He eventually fled the rat race for the woods. In 1989, he started Backwoods Home Magazine to help others do the same.

Ilene Duffy Ilene Duffy is the Business Manager for Backwoods Home Magazine, and she also has written articles and book and video reviews. As the main proofreader for each issue, she is responsible for the remarkably low number of typographical errors that appear in BHM. Ilene formerly worked as a bilingual kindergarten and first grade teacher for nine years in California. She gave up teaching to become BHM's Business Manager shortly after she married the magazine's publisher, Dave Duffy. She says the biggest benefit of working with the magazine is the freedom it offers her to work at home so she can be with her three young sons, and to raise her family in a quiet, country setting. Since the magazine has moved to Gold Beach in Oregon she has become a fresh and salt water fishing enthusiast, catching and cooking king salmon from the Rogue River and catching and cooking the many bottom fish from near the Gold Beach Reef, located a few miles offshore. She buries the fish carcasses in her big garden to help her vegetables grow.

Annie Tuttle Annie Tuttle, grew up with Backwoods Home Magazine. As publisher Dave Duffy's daughter, she began working with the magazine at age 6 by helping to stuff envelopes for mailings to potential subscribers. At age 7 she wrote her first small article for the magazine, and at age 13 originated the magazine's "Where I live" column for teenage readers. Since then she has worked in every aspect of the magazine, including writing and editing articles, working in the mailroom, tending the magazine's booth at the many trade shows we do around the country, and setting articles in the desktop publishing program used for final copy. In 2008, now married and with two children, she took over as Managing Editor.

John Silveira John Silveira is the Senior Editor of BHM and has written for it since Issue #1. Silveira grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. He says his father, in order to teach him how to shoot with accuracy, would give him one 22-caliber bullet a day and send him out hunting small game. He became a deadly accurate shot. He has known BHM publisher Dave Duffy ever since they met, back in the 1960's, at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. Silveira is a mathematician by training and a historian by avocation, but his heart has always been in writing. Most of his days are spent sleeping at the office, but when he's awake, he has been able to bring the mathematician's keen eye for accuracy to his writing to create authentic and very popular historical articles for the magazine. His articles are often used in homeschooling curriculums. John drinks a lot and suffers from raging insomnia. He spends most of his nights awake watching infomercials and plotting the overthrow of the government of France where he intends to reinstall the monarchy and have himself declared king.

Lisa Nourse Lisa Nourse is the Editorial Coordinator at Backwoods Home Magazine. Her duties include sending out contracts for and monitoring the status of articles, ensuring writers are paid, helping to set articles, and making corrections as needed. She also does research and generally tries to keep the editorial department running in a smooth and efficient manner. She was born and raised on the Oregon Coast. She and her husband have two teenage boys. Her hobbies include reading for pleasure and gardening.

Don Childers Don Childers has been BHM’s artist since the first issue was produced in 1989, and was, in fact, the first person Dave asked to work with him. Don worked for free on the first several issues, laboring well into the night with Dave on many occasions as they sought ways to illustrate articles. Don had previously been a very successful aerospace artist whose paintings of the latest in military planes, ships, and missiles hung on the walls of generals, admirals, and various U.S. Navy offices. Dave and Don met at Vitro Laboratories in Southern California where both were employed updating various Navy technical manuals. Both possessed Secret clearances and Vitro sometimes teamed the pair up to work on particularly sensitive projects. Don now lives in Colorado where, in his late seventies, he is only partially retired and still draws and paints illustrations and covers for the magazine. He corresponds with the magazine via internet and phone.

Jim Van Camp Jim was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 4, 1942. He is Backwoods Home Magazine's all around handy guy, able to work at whatever task he is assigned. Jim was raised in the San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles, California. He escaped from L.A. with his wife and moved to Gold Beach in 1990 where he started a coffee roasting business called One Horse Coffee. He has been a writer, house painter, boat maintenance person and hardware store manager.

Ellen Mellon Ellen, our database operator, started working with Backwoods Home Magazine in August 2004. Ellen and her husband Serge retired to Gold Beach in May 2000, after working in the health care industry for 25 years. They were both looking for a less demanding lifestyle. They have a combined family of 6 children, who are all doing well and happy in life. Ellen’s hobbies include long walks on the beach with Serge looking for agates and shells, and playing in the dirt and plants.

Lorraine Adams Lorraine is the advertising manager, working with both the display and classified ads. She also backs up on the database, takes phone orders, helps with shipping, or whatever needs to be done. She retired from a 28-year career in banking. She says, “I love the more relaxed working environment and the great bunch I work with.” She and her husband, Wayne, enjoy living in a small town, camping, hiking, fishing, gardening, and having fun with the kids and grandkids.

Rhoda Denning Rhoda started working at BHM in 2003 on a temporary basis, typing Backwoods Home Cooking. Now she's here all the time answering phones, filing, running credit cards, filing, opening mail, filing, typing, filing, and whatever else anyone needs done. She was a teacher in her former life, and really enjoys the laid-back friendly atmosphere of the BHM office. Rhoda moved to Gold Beach from Phoenix, AZ ten years ago with her husband, a school administrator. Her two girls are both off to college so she’s adjusting to an empty nest. She enjoys playing flute, kayaking, hunting for agates, collecting presidential political campaign buttons, and walking with friends. She also scours garage sales and thrift stores for treasures.

Haley Kessel Haley started working part-time at Backwoods Home Magazine in 2008 answering the phones, running credit cards, downloading orders, helping with the database, typing, filing, and packing orders. She loves working in the office with everyone here and says, "it’s very fun!" Haley moved to Gold Beach almost three years ago from Spokane, Washington. Her boyfriend grew up here and when they came to visit his family for a month, they never left! She enjoys going to the beach and looking for agates, taking the dogs up creek to go swimming, snowboarding, gardening, and just being outside. She is also the manager/formulator at an Organic Skin Care shop.

Jacob Duffy Jacob Duffy is one of Backwoods Home Magazine’s Administrative Assistants. He can almost always be found working in the packing department and occasionally (but not so much anymore) be found asking Ramona Spada a question about what to do with a certain order. He is the eldest of the publisher’s three sons and the younger brother of the Managing Editor. Jacob is currently attending Gold Beach High School from where he opted to take a work experience class at Backwoods Home Magazine as part of his school curriculum. He walks over to the office every school day at second period and after school whenever he is needed.

Oliver Del Signore Born and raised in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, Oliver Del Signore occasionally takes time away from his duties as the Webmaster of Backwoods Home Magazine's popular web site to write an article or book review for the magazine. In addition to being a webmaster and writing, his career has included stints as a jewelry salesman, maintenance supervisor, pizza maker, Real Estate broker, carpenter, rental agent, and painter. When not glued to the keyboard updating BHM's web site, he uses his woodworking skills to build custom tables and cabinets. Oliver and his wife Martha have two grown children and the grey hairs to prove it. His hobbies include finding a quiet place to relax for five minutes and thinking up new ways to say no when his kids ask for money. He enjoys good humor, good science fiction, and, now and then, a good bottle of wine.

Muriel Sutherland Administrative Assistant Muriel Sutherland started working for BHM on a part-time basis in 1999. She enjoyed working with Dave and Lenie and the staff and said that it made her retirement years interesting. Muriel passed away in (2007) and we miss her terribly.