Neil Heinen

Neil Heinen is the former Editorial Director for WISC TV and Madison Magazine. Heinen has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly the National Conference of Editorial Writers) including serving as president in 2007, and is a past president of the AOJ Foundation. He received the organization’s highest honor of Life Membership in 2013. He is a member of the clinical faculty of the Kettering Foundation, and for 15 years was a member of the adjunct faculty of Edgewood College.

Heinen has won numerous professional and community awards including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Humanitarian Award, Robert H. Wills Freedom of Information Award, the Urban League of Greater Madison Community Champion President’s Award, The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute Difference Maker Award and the National Association for Community Leadership Distinguished Leadership Award. He was born in Milwaukee in 1951, is the oldest of eleven children, and is a graduate of Marquette University High School in Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He lives in Madison with his wife Nancy, and their dog Macaroon.