Nicholas G. Penniman IV is a resident of Naples, Florida and Baltimore, Maryland, and former publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Penniman has been deeply involved in environmental advocacy work; he served as chair of American Rivers in Washington, D.C., and chair of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples. He is past chairman of the Washington University Interdisciplinary Environmental Law Clinic, past chairman of Forest Park Forever, served a four-year term as a member of the Collier County Environmental Advisory Council, is currently on the county Coastal Advisory Committee, and is a registered Florida Master Naturalist. Penniman is a graduate of Princeton University, and did graduate work at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and at Washington University in St. Louis where he received an M.A. in American Culture Studies in 1999.