Naomi S. Boak
Naomi Boak is an accomplished television executive and producer/ director known for creating innovative and audience-grabbing media. She is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning executive producer who has created, developed and produced successful projects for broadcast television, digital and major corporations for over 25 years. She combines strategic thinking with creative and efficient execution. This year Naomi followed her passion about Alaska brown bears to become the media ranger at Katmai National Park in Alaska. The culmination of her season of managing, producing and writing social media for the park was Fat Bear Week (a March Madness-style competition to name the Katmai’s fattest bear). Fat Bear Week’s Facebook post reach for one week was 3 million and nearly 200,000 people voted on Katmai’s Facebook page.. Naomi was interviewed by countless media outlets and the successful social media event was covered by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Times of London, Reuters, USA Today, The Lost Angeles Times, NPR, CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, etc. You get the idea. She also produced all things brown bears for explore.org and the park this season. She was the park ranger who produced, wrote and appeared on Explore’s live broadcasts to 10 million viewers. Her six year passion for the live streaming bear cams on Explore led her to this position. Before striking out on her own as a producer/director, development and brand consultant, Naomi served on the national production team at Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) as senior executive producer. In that role, she developed primetime PBS specials and series from concept and fundraising through completion, promotion and distribution. Throughout her career she has directed talent, both professional and non-professional, using her many years of training as an actor and director to produce stellar performances. She has also mentored internal and external teams to excel in their respective fields. Naomi’s ability to be a catalyst for innovation is grounded in her wide-ranging and extensive experience. She was executive producer of the Primetime Emmy Award-winning documentary, The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s. She also created web sites, nationwide community outreach initiatives and social media campaigns, as well as managing PR campaigns and sponsor relationships. At TPT she helped raise over $7 million to fund projects. Prior to her PBS work, Naomi was senior producer for a presidential campaign, wrote and produced Emmy Award-winning primetime children’s specials for CBS and was show runner for the daily comedy show Snap Judgment on CourtTV. She led television production and public television sponsorship worldwide for the IBM Corporation and was executive producer and director of new programming for the Lifetime Medical Television Network. Before that she led the production team at the Merrill Lynch Video Network, directing and advising senior management. This year she was consultant to the Executive Director of MCC Theater Company in NYC. The 32 year old Off Broadway company is experiencing unprecedented growth and change, including moving into a brand new 2 theater facility. I advised the Executive Director on how to adapt to that growth and change. For many years, Naomi worked with her Labrador Retrievers as a therapy dog team.Their work included accompanying grieving families to Ground Zero immediately following 9/11 and helping children with cerebral palsy work toward therapeutic goals. Naomi received an A.B. in anthropology from Stanford University and did graduate work at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.