Meet The Staff

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 is the Business Manager for Backwoods Home Magazine, and she writes a cooking column, Lenie in the kitchen, in which she shares her families favorite recipes. One of the proofreaders 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. Twenty years later, she still enjoys taking care of the details of the magazine business.

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 also enjoys volunteering as the accompanist for the local schools' choirs.

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 three children, she took over as Managing Editor.

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 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 grown boys. Her hobbies include reading for pleasure and gardening.

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.

They have a combined family of 6 children, who are all doing well and happy in life. They now have 6 grandchildren.

Ellen's hobbies include long walks on the beach with Serge looking for agates and shells, and playing in the dirt and plants.

Lorraine is now our on-call person, answering phones, data base entry, helping with shipping and receiving, or wherever else she is needed. She has worked for us at the advertising manager for 5 years after a 28- year career in banking.

She and her husband, Wayne, enjoy living in a small town, camping, hiking, fishing, gardening, and having fun with the kids and grandkids. As an on-call person there will be more time to enjoy all the things retired people do.

Rhoda started working at BHM in 2003 on a temporary basis, typing Backwoods Home Cooking. Now she works here full-time doing a variety of tasks. She was a teacher in her former life, and really enjoys the laid-back, friendly atmosphere of our office.

Rhoda enjoys playing flute in our local symphony, kayaking with her husband, hunting for agates on the beach, and walking with friends.

Heather answers phones, takes customer orders, helps with shipping and receiving, runs credit cards, and anything else that's needed.

After working for the school district for more than 10 years as a teachers' aide, she is loving the comfortable stress-free atmosphere in our office.

Heather was raised in Myrtle Point, Oregon, and has lived in Gold Beach for 21 years with her husband and three boys. Her favorite things to do are boating up river, camping, and spending time with her family.

Jeff is the Marketing Manager for BHM. Born and raised in Gold Beach, Oregon (where BHM is published) Ferguson is a proud American of Scots-Irish descent who lives in a great little cabin 5 miles up the "Wild & Scenic" Rogue River. His family has been in the area since 1912.

After college and a 15-year-career with a large, nationally-known company, Jeff returned "home" to Gold Beach and spent the next 15 years working in hospitality & tourism.

Jeff enjoys being outdoors working on his property, hiking, fishing, kayaking, and exploring the southern Oregon Coast. He says, "Everything I like to do is right out my back door."

Interestingly, Jeff "grew up" in the building that is now home to Backwoods Home Magazine. His father owned the men's clothing store that was located in the building for many years.

Al Boulley came to southwest Oregon in 2009, with his awesome wife Anne & her two kids. They all hail from Michigan and don't miss the snow one bit!

As a young child, Al was curious about the games his uncle created on the infamous "TRS-80". Fast forward through 35 years of computing, 20 of those professionally. His interests also include math, science, athletics, and philosophy.

While attending Central Michigan University he used an Apple Macintosh for the first time, and has preferred Mac OS over MS Windows ever since. Al is definitely a "brainiac", yet also capable with the English language. Someday, he'll be a published writer. maybe even for BHM!

Sammy Duffy, Ilene and Dave's son, is working for Backwoods Home Magazine through a work-experience program offered at Gold Beach High School. Sammy has been instrumental in publishing the Kindle edition of Backwoods Home Magazine. Sam also edits video for our You Tube channel and works in BHM's booth at Self-reliance shows.

Toby has been working for Backwoods Home Magazine since January 2011. He works in Shipping and Receiving, answers the phone, and has also been working with Sam editing video. Toby has worked with Sam and Dave in the BHM booth at the Self Reliance Expo in Denver Colorado, put on by Red Shed Media. Toby is also attending Southwestern Oregon Community College.

Jessie began working at Backwoods Home after graduating college and loved it so much she just couldn't stop.

When not attempting to train for a half-marathon or cook her way through Jackie Clay's cookbook, she converts back issues and books for e-publishing on the Kindle and other devices.

She loves to read, write poetry, and rummage through garage sales and thrift stores. She currently lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her stunningly handsome husband.

She attributes all she is to her inspiring, magnificent mother, Rhoda Elisabeth Denning, the First.

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.

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.

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.