Steve Liesman
Founder
CNBC's Sr. Economics Reporter
Steve Liesman, founder of Save a Million Bass, has been a fisherman and a conservationist for several decades. He’s currently on the Board of Directors of Riverkeeper, which safeguards the drinking water for 9 million people in the Hudson River watershed. Steve is among the leaders in Riverkeeper’s efforts to promote striped bass habitat in the Hudson, which is a major striper spawning area. Among his other efforts, Steve has worked with the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and the Fisherman’s Conservation Association. He has been practicing catch and release as a striped bass fly fisherman for almost 30 years.
His home waters are the Long Island Sound and Cape Cod and he has fished throughout the East Coast, the Western US, and in Florida, the Bahamas and Russia.
In his day job, Steve is the senior economics reporter for CNBC and was awarded an Emmy for his reporting on the Financial Crisis. He had previously won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Russia working for the Wall Street Journal.
Joe Liesman
Co-Founder
Joe Liesman grew up fishing for striped bass in the Cape Cod Bay and Long Island sound. Joe graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota and received a BA in Environmental Studies. While there, he focused his studies on environmental history, climate policy and climate science, American Wilderness, and sustainability. Joe's thesis project, Plastic Art and Activism, looked into how artists are using recycled ocean plastic to create art to raise awareness about ocean pollution. Joe spent two summers interning at Riverkeeper, where he worked on their water quality and storm surge teams conducting research. After graduating, Joe worked as a Field Technician for Trout Unlimited on the Delaware River in the Catskill mountains, where he assessed trout habitat and collected stream and trout migration data.
Logan Williams
Web and Graphic Designer
Founder of Moonrise Outdoors
Logan Williams grew up in Fairfield County, CT but fished in the summer for striped bass and bluefish in Buzzards Bay, MA. After graduating with a Finance and Accounting degree from Elon University in North Carolina, and accepting a job offer in NYC he discovered that his home waters of Long Island Sound had a completely unique and enticing inshore light tackle fishery in the Norwalk Islands, CT. Fly fishing in the salt quickly became an obsession and as they say, 'once you start fly fishing, no other fishing is good enough.'
Steve was connected to Logan by a local CT guide, Mike Platt, that was familiar with Logan's web and media work. Shortly after, Logan was hired as the designer for the Save a Million Bass website and stickers. Enjoying the project and its goals, he has helped Save A Million Bass evolve the website, strategize, and plan outreach in a volunteer capacity.
Steve was connected to Logan by a local CT guide, Mike Platt, that was familiar with Logan's web and media work. Shortly after, Logan was hired as the designer for the Save a Million Bass website and stickers. Enjoying the project and its goals, he has helped Save A Million Bass evolve the website, strategize, and plan outreach in a volunteer capacity.
Matthew Best
Habitat Restoration Manager
Riverkeeper
Matthew joined Riverkeeper as the Habitat Restoration Manager in 2023. Matthew graduated from SUNY Oneonta with a master’s degree in biology and a thesis focused on the life history of the American shad. He also attended SUNY Cobleskill to obtain his bachelor’s degree in fisheries and aquaculture. Matthew’s background in fisheries is mostly focused on migratory fishes such as sturgeon, herring and shad.
Prior to starting with Riverkeeper, Matthew has held various positions with organizations such as NOAA, where he helped develop a coastwide River Herring Habitat Conservation Plan. Additionally, he worked as a technician on the NYSDEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit to monitor our important migratory fish species such as Atlantic sturgeon, shortnose sturgeon, striped bass, American eel, river herring and American shad.
With Riverkeeper, Matthew is working on dam removals to restore habitat connectivity for these important migratory fishes within the Hudson Valley. When not working on dam removals, Matthew is an avid hiker and can be found in the Catskills, Adirondacks or White Mountains working on bagging peaks.
