- Greg MacGillivray – Chairman of the Board
- Christopher Palmer – President
- David Brobeck, Jr. – Director

Greg MacGillivray – Chairman of the Board

Heralded as a “poet of motion” by the Los Angeles Times, Greg MacGillivray has been producing and directing award-winning films for more than 40 years.  He co-founded his Laguna Beach-based company, MacGillivray Freeman Films, in 1963 and today has more than fifty films to his credit, including thirty-two 15/70mm giant screen productions.  

Since the 1976 production of his first IMAX® theatre film, To Fly!, which he co-produced and directed with his partner, the late Jim Freeman, Greg has dedicated his company to the giant screen motion picture format and has produced some of the most popular and enduring films in the genre. 

His achievements in the film industry are many.  Greg has received two Academy Award® nominations for Best Documentary Short Subject:  the first in 1995 for The Living Sea and the second in 2000 for Dolphins.  In 1996, To Fly!, was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry, America's film archive, where it joined such classics as Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind and Citizen Kane as one of the most important films in American filmmaking. Five years later, To Fly! was inducted into the IMAX® Hall of Fame. In 1998, the company's dramatic film about climbing the world's tallest peak, Everest, broke industry attendance records and today remains the highest grossing giant screen film of all time.   Most recently, Greg received a 2005 Special Achievement in Film Award from the Giant Screen Theater Association for the production of Mystery of the Nile.

Before turning to IMAX® theatre films, Greg had success working in Hollywood, directing and photographing for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and filming for the Academy Award®-nominees Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Towering Inferno.

Greg has received numerous awards for his pioneering contributions to the giant screen industry.  In 2002, the Giant Screen Theater Association honored Greg as one of five most important contributors to the success of the large format industry over the last twenty-five years.  The same year, Greg accepted the Bradford Washburn Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Museum of Science in Boston, for his contribution to science education.  He joins an illustrious group of previous honorees that includes Jacques Cousteau, Walter Cronkite, Sylvia Earle, Jane Goodall and Carl Sagan. 

Greg serves on the board of advisors for four non-profit organizations: The Dolphin Institute of Hawaii, The Great Park in Orange County, The Ocean Institute in Dana Point, and UCLA’s Reef Check in Los Angeles.

Christopher Palmer – President

Chris Palmer joined MacGillivray Freeman Films in 2004 initially as Vice President of Special Projects to develop film projects and to spearhead the company’s new Educational Foundation.  He was later named President of the Foundation. In addition to his work with MacGillivray Freeman, Chris is also Distinguished Film Producer in Residence and Director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.  Chris founded the Center in 2004.

Chris has spent 25 years producing more than 300 hours of original programming for prime time television and the large format film industry. His films have been broadcast on the Disney Channel, TBS Superstation, Animal Planet, Home and Garden Television, The Travel Channel, The Outdoor Life Network, the Public Broadcasting System and in the global system of IMAX theaters.

Along with film production, Chris gives speeches and workshops all over the country on the subject of natural history films, individual productivity and success, and fundraising.  He is writing a book called Staying Alive: Adventures In Wildlife Filmmaking, and another about a different kind of wildlife—his three daughters, and how to be an effective father. 

In 1994, Chris founded the non-profit National Wildlife Productions (a division of the National Wildlife Federation, the largest conservation organization in the U.S.) and served as President and CEO for ten years.  In 1983, he founded National Audubon Society Productions and served as President and CEO for eleven years.  He also serves as CEO of VideoTakes Inc., a film production company focusing on environmental films and new media.

Chris and his colleagues have won many awards, including two Emmys and an Oscar® nomination.  His movies, music videos, documentaries and computer software have all focused on documenting threatened species and habitats exposing damaging commercial enterprises and practices while celebrating environmental success stories. Chris has worked with many celebrities in his films, including Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Ted Turner and Ted Danson.  In 1994, Palmer was honored with the Frank G. Wells Award from the Environmental Media Association for “contributing to environmental protection year after year.”

Chris serves on the boards of nine not-for-profit organizations all related to environmental filmmaking, including the Natural Resources Council of America, the International Wildlife Media Center and Film Festival, the Media Group, BearTrek,  the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, DC, the Philanthropy Network, the Population Media Center, Green Planet Films, and the MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation.

Before Chris became a producer of environmental films, he was a naval officer, an engineer, a business consultant, an energy analyst, Chief Energy Advisor to a senior U.S. Senator, a political appointee in President Jimmy Carter’s Environmental Protection Agency, and an environmental lobbyist.  Chris grew up in England and immigrated to the U.S. in 1972.  He has three degrees and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.  He is also a husband and a father of three daughters.

David Brobeck, Jr. – Director

David Brobeck has been practicing law for 35 years and is a founding partner in the Orange County law firm of Beam, Brobeck & West, LLP.  A graduate of the University of Southern California and California Western University School of Law, David is an active trial attorney specializing in professional liability, governmental tort litigation, and general personal injury cases.  He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel, the State Bar of California, and the Orange County and American Bar Associations.  He has also served as a Judge Pro Tem of the Orange County Superior Court, and an instructor/lecturer for various continuing legal education programs for trial lawyers. 

In his spare time, David is an avid nature photographer and wildlife enthusiast.  His passion for preserving the natural environment and animal populations began when he worked during his law school years as a bus driver/guide at the San Diego Zoo.  His friendship with Greg MacGillivray and his enthusiasm for Greg’s many film projects began in 1963.