Tom Stienstra

Stienstra grew up in Palo Alto, California, where he graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1972.[5] He received his degree in journalism from San Jose State University.[6]

Stienstra published his first story at age 8, "Searching for a Lost Friend", in the Palo Alto Times,[7] which hired him as sports reporter after his graduation.[6] In 1979, when the Palo Alto Times merged with the Redwood City Tribune to become the Peninsula Times Tribune, Stienstra was promoted to sports columnist.[6] In 1980, he was hired to write about the outdoors for the San Francisco Examiner,[8] which at the time operated jointly with the Chronicle. He is now classified as the "Outdoor Writer Emeritus" for the San Francisco Chronicle.[9]

Since 2000, Stienstra has produced and broadcast a radio feature for KCBS in San Francisco, and appears frequently as a live guest expert; that appearance is presently on hold as he recovers from cancer. [10] He hosted the TV show The Great Outdoors for CBS-CW networks[11] and in 2017 hosted and co-produced with Jim Schlosser a national PBS special, The Mighty T -- The Tuolumne River, from Glacier to Golden Gate.[12]

Stienstra survived a hatchet attack when he was 21, which gave him insights into post-traumatic stress disorder as well as the healing and fulfillment of being in the outdoors.[23]

In 2015, he married Denese Stienstra, with whom he has two stepsons;[11] they live in Siskiyou County. In August 2021 he was diagnosed with metastasized melanoma and underwent brain surgery.[1]

After years of extreme sun exposure, x-rays found melanoma cancer throughout most of Stienstra's body. Stanford Professor of Neurosurgery, Dr. Steven Chang, and a team of 15 specialists, would complete six craniotomies to remove brain tumors, set up a blood drain in his head, remove additional fluids, and perform CyberKnife stereotactic radio-surgery procedures to six additional small tumors, targeting radiation at any cancer cells they could find. That was followed by Dr. Sunil Reddy, a cutaneous oncology specialist, who directed and scheduled immunology infusions every two to three weeks to jump-start Stienstra's immune system and attack the cancer that had grown in his lungs, liver, lymph nodes and many other area in his body. In June of 2023, he completed a 4-hour surgery at Stanford that removed necrotic material and tested it as cancer free. Stienstra now works out daily to recover his fitness and is among a handful of similar cancer patients in America who has survived the affair. The SF Chronicle published a 5,000-word plus story about his some of his close calls in the outdoors and he recent cancer showdowns.[24]

• Official website