Journalist who helped guide innovative center is honored for work championing the Central Valley.

David H. Hosley, a force for building community throughout a remarkable career spanning broadcast journalism, influential civic organizations, and the University of California, is the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Center for Regional Change (CRC) at UC Davis.

“David has long been a champion of regions and regionalism,” said CRC director Jonathan London. “Regions hang in that middle place that crosses boundaries and jurisdictions, and they need people of vision who are bold in speaking to that vision. David has been an exemplar, someone who has been a powerful voice for the Central Valley and who has enriched the Center for Regional Change with his insights and mentorship.”

Dr. Hosley served for 10 years as president and general manager of KVIE, a public television station in Sacramento with viewers throughout a large swath of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Over his career with the station he was instrumental in developing programs such as the “New Valley,” a series on the future of the Central Valley, and “California Connected,” which promoted citizen engagement. His journalism career also included work at other public stations in the Bay Area, as well as working as producer, reporter, and anchor at news radio stations in San Francisco, New York, and Miami.

Most recently, Hosley served at the University of California, Merced, as the founding executive director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, and as vice chancellor for University Relations. Previously, Hosley served as president of the Great Valley Center, a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 to promote the economic, social, and environmental well-being of California’s Central Valley. Hosley has also served as a trustee of the UC Davis Foundation and as chair of the Dean’s Advisory Council in the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES).

The Center for Regional Change, created in 2007 as a CA&ES initiative, produces innovative research to support just, sustainable, prosperous, and equitable regional change in California and beyond. While serving as chair of the Dean’s Advisory Council, Hosley was asked to join a planning committee to help guide the fledgling center. Hosley and his wife, gayle yamada, an award-winning journalist, have been generous donors to the CRC.

“David helped shape the engaged stance of the center,” Professor London said. “He brought the broader, regional leadership, and regional engagement perspective and helped encode those values from the beginning.”

The center has since matured into an active nexus for campus researchers and community leaders to engage in a broad range of research and outreach projects that are shifting social policies and creating economic opportunities for many disadvantaged communities in the Central Valley and elsewhere in the state.

Hosley says broadcast journalism helped him develop a regional perspective. “Whether I was a reporter or an anchorman or a news director or a general manager of a public television station, it made me think in a different way from most people,” he said. “So now to be able to see that ‘regional thinking’ in action is not something that is fragile anymore, but active and robust is really pretty exciting. I am so grateful that I had a seat at the table when this was being created.”

Media contact(s):

• John Stumbos, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, (530) 754-4979, jdstumbos@ucdavis.edu
• Jonathan London, UC Davis Center for Regional Change, (530) 752-2733, jklondon@ucdavis.edu