Dan Herz is a San Francisco-based Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, and director with over 30 years of experience in visual storytelling. His career began as an intern on the beloved and long-running SF Bay Area television show, Bay Area Backroads. Captivated by the show, its people, and the production process, Herz spent the next 15 years traveling, learning the craft of storytelling, and working on all aspects of the show, ultimately becoming its Executive Producer.

After his tenure at Bay Area Backroads, Herz worked on a variety of productions for NBC, PBS, and the Discovery Channel, including a writer/producer role on a documentary, featuring an 86-year-old female kung fu master, filmed in the Wudang Mountains of China.

Outside of his professional endeavors, Herz is an avid outdoor enthusiast. He spends much of his free time surfing, skiing, biking, windsurfing, and rock climbing, drawing inspiration from his adventures in nature.

He currently owns and operates NIAD Productions, a full-service production company named after a notable one-day ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan, he completed in 2005.

Herz currently co-hosts, writes, produces, edits, and shoots Open Road, a weekly television series, broadcast on NBC, profiling environmentally themed stories in and around Northern California.