Staff & Board

Staff

Lesley Adams, Program Director, Rogue Riverkeeper
Forrest English, Water Quality Coordinator, Rogue Riverkeeper
Lisa Force, Associate Director
Shane Jimerfield, Siskiyou Wild Rivers Director
Dave Levine, Administrative Director
Rich Nawa, Staff Ecologist
Gary Powell, Door Canvasser
George Sexton, Conservation Director
Stephanie Tidwell, Executive Director
Joseph Vaile, Campaign Director
Monica Vaughan, Grassroots Organizer

Board of Directors

Susan Jane Brown
Shannon Clery
Liz Crosson
Shelley Elkovich, Board President
Joseph Flaherty
Tracy Harding
Grey Hecht
Bob Hunter
David Johns
Stuart O'Neill, Board Secretary
Gene Rhough
Laurel Samson
Laurel Sutherlin

Staff

Lesley Adams

Rogue Riverkeeper Director, lesley at rogueriverkeeper.org

Lesley received a B.S. in Environmental Studies and Biology at Southern Oregon University, where she also served as Co-Director of the Ecology Center of the Siskiyous. She has sat on the Board of Directors of the Lomakatsi Restoration Project and the grantmaking committee of the MRG Foundation.  Lesley was KS Wild's Outreach Director for five years and coordinated various activities, including community organizing, volunteer coordination and graphic design. In October 2008 she began developing KS Wild's Rogue Riverkeeper program, which provides public oversight of Clean Water Act implementation and a voice for water quality and salmon in the Rogue Basin and other coastal watersheds.

Forrest English

Water Quality Coordinator, forrest at rogueriverkeeper.org

Forrest is a lifelong resident of Southern Oregon and has spent most of his professional life working around water.  In addition to years of grassroots environmental organizing around the country, he has been a commercial fisherman, canoe guide, field biologist, heavy equipment operator, and a foreman in charge of stream and wetland restoration crews.  Forrest has run equipment or crews on dam removals, reconnecting diverted creeks, cleaning up miles of silted-in spawning beds and worked on numerous wetland delineation and mitigation projects.  He brings over a decade of hands on experience working with water to Rogue Riverkeeper's water quality program.

Lisa Force

Associate Director, lisa at kswild.org

Lisa’s background in environmental work includes hydropower plant decommissioning, public lands grazing reform, battling ORV abuses, forest restoration work, T&E species advocacy, and extensive work on the Colorado River and the Mexican delta.  Lisa has built national coalitions, negotiated with agencies, educated elected officials and organized national media tours.  She has authored numerous articles and been featured on National Geographic television, BBC and NPR.  Before joining KS Wild, Lisa worked for the Center for Biological Diversity, Living Rivers and the Grand Canyon Trust. Lisa holds a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University and Masters degrees from the University of Texas at El Paso.  Lisa served on the National Board of Directors for the Sierra Club.

Shane Jimerfield

Siskiyou Wild Rivers Director, shane at kswild.org

Shane joined the KS Wild staff in the Siskiyou Project merger. He was the executive director of Siskiyou Project for four years, and prior to that he spent twelve years as a biodiversity activist with the Center for Biological Diversity. Shane has a degree in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Arizona. He is an avid rafter, hiker and lover of the wild. As the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Campaign director he will continue the advocacy for protecting and restoring the Siskiyou Wild Rivers region. He also serves on the board of EarthShare Oregon.

David Levine

Administrative Director, dave at kswild.org 

Dave has lived in southern Oregon for fifteen years.  A 1981 graduate of Yale University, he has long been committed to environmental conservation and sustainable land use.  He comes to KS Wild after more than a decade running his own furniture-making business.  This experience has helped him to streamline the bookkeeping and administrative duties at KS Wild. Dave is also a talented organic farmer.

Rich Nawa

Staff Ecologist, rich at kswild.org

Prior to joining KS Wild in 2011, Rich was staff ecologist at the Siskiyou Project for 18 years. Rich is a salmon and stream expert. He provides our conservation programs with aquatic science support and works to reign in mining that often damages stream ecosystems.  Rich enjoys leading salmon hikes and teaching Salmon Snorkeling at the Siskiyou Field Institute.  He has a bachelors and masters degree in zoology from Southern Illinois University and assisted with salmon research on the southern Oregon coast as a graduate research assistant at Oregon State University.  Rich began his career as a wildlife biologist with BLM in Nevada.

Gary Powell

Canvasser, gary at kswild.org

Gary has a degree in Broadcast Communications from Southern Oregon University. He lived in Mexico and Central America for three and a half years where he studied at the University of Guanajuato, Mexico, taught English, and worked as an Occupational Therapist in a TB hospital. Gary is in his second year as a teachers assistant subbing with the Talent Phoenix School District. He is in his fourth year of volunteering in the SMART (Start making a reader today) program at Talent Elementary School.  His passions are organic gardening and love for nature.

George Sexton

Conservation Director, gs at kswild.org

George has a JD, with a certificate in natural resources and environmental law, from Lewis and Clark Law School. He holds a BA in political science from Reed College. George has worked to protect forests and watersheds in the Pacific Northwest for the last fifteen years. His efforts have ended the old-growth logging program on several National Forests, established 9th Circuit case law protecting Late-Successional Reserves from salvage logging, and facilitated small-diameter fuels projects and prescribed burning on hundreds of thousands of acres.

Stephanie Tidwell

Executive Director, stephanie at kswild.org

Stephanie has a M.A. in journalism and a graduate certificate in environmental policy from the University of Colorado School of Mass Communications. She has a B.A. in applied anthropology from Appalachian State University. Prior to coming to KS Wild, she served as Executive Director for the Utah Environmental Congress, which does work similar to that of KS Wild throughout the state of Utah. She has also worked on wildlife conservation and sustainable living campaigns for many years and served on the Board of Directors of the Klamath Riverkeeper.

Joseph Vaile

Campaign Director, joseph at kswild.org

Joseph oversees KS Wild’s campaign and species work, petitioning species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, coordinating our restoration and collaborative work, and advocating for Wilderness protection.  He is a member of the Oregon Sierra Club ExCom, the Lomakatsi Restoration Project Board of Directors, and heworks with several community organizations. Joseph is a cum laude graduate of Edgewood College and has done graduate coursework in biology and GIS mapping at Southern Oregon University.  Before joining KS Wild, Joseph worked at the Medford District BLM as a Wildlife Biologist.

Monica Vaughan

Grassroots Organizer, monica at kswild.org

Monica is a skilled grassroots organizer with a passion for building relationships between impacted communities and potential advocates, politicians, and the media. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Oregon in Communication & Society, and has trained with the New Organizing Institute and Wellstone Action. As an activist and organizer against liquefied natural gas infrastructure development in Oregon, Monica has played a key role in building a diverse coalition and gaining public support for the campaign over the last four years.

Board of Directors

Susan Jane Brown

Staff Attorney, Western Environmental Law Center, Portland, OR
Susan Jane is a renowned environmental attorney. She has served as Congressman Peter DeFazio's Natural Resources Counsel, as a Professor and Staff Attorney for the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center at the Lewis and Clark School of Law, and as Executive Director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force. Susan Jane is credited with stopping old-growth logging in the Southern Washington Cascades and has also served as the lead attorney on several of KS Wild’s successful litigation efforts.

Shannon Clery

Botanist, Ashland, OR
Shannon is a botanist, naturalist and educator who has lived in the Klamath-Siskiyous for seven years and served on the KS Wild Board of Directors for four years. Her graduate work at Southern Oregon University involved a botanical inventory and conservation project in the threatened Condrey Mountain Roadless Area on the Siskiyou Crest, which contributed to advocacy work being done by KS Wild.

Liz Crosson

Associate Attorney, Lawyers for Clean Water, Inc., Santa Monica, CA
In addition to being a naturalist, avid birder, and Klamath-Siskiyou enthusiast, Liz is an Associate Attorney with Lawyers for Clean Water, Inc. in Santa Monica, CA. She works on litigation aimed to eliminate pollution and prevent degradation of California's aquatic and coastal ecosystems. Liz gained environmental advocacy experience working for several non-profits in Oregon and California, including KS Wild. Liz has an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from Lewis and Clark Law School.

Shelley Elkovich, Board President

Research Assistant, OSU Extension Small Farms Program, Community activist, Ashland, OR
Shelley, her partner and their two children have made Ashland their home since 2000. The Klamath Siskiyous are the family's unschooling "classroom," and they enjoy birding and backpacking. Shelley is an organic gardener, sometime writer and avid crafter. She is an active community member who enjoys including her kids in creative, grass-roots organizing that models justice, compassion, and a love of wild places. Locally, she has been instrumental in forest protection campaigns, starting a new community garden, stopping the Mt. Ashland Ski Expansion, and ACLU litigation defending free speech.   Her current paid work projects include researching and preparing courses on a variety of agronomic and farm management topics and participating in the design of a new farm incubator program for new and limited resource farmers and farm workers.

Joseph Flaherty

Elementary school teacher, O'Brien, OR
An avid snowboarder, Joseph Flaherty got involved in the work of KS Wild in 2000 in support of the campaign to protect the Mount Ashland watershed.  He also spent part of a summer sitting in an old Douglas Fir hoping to stop the Peak Timber Sale in the upper Rogue basin. Joseph worked for KS Wild for a while as a door-to-door canvasser raising awareness of local forest issues.  While a college student at Southern Oregon University, he edited and published the campus paper known as "The Soapbox".  Recently, he moved to the Illinois Valley where he works as a primary school teacher.  He continues to ride his snowboard, but now he has to hike for his turns in the wild western Siskiyou.

Tracy Harding

Executive Director, Rogue Valley Farm to School; Program Assistant, OSU Extension Small Farms Program, Ashland, OR
Tracy and her family have lived in Ashland since 2001.  She is a skilled community organizer and active civic participant. She has served on City commissions and organized community events like the annual Ashland Community Bike Swap and the Car Free Day celebrations. Tracy directs Rogue Valley Farm to School in their work in Jackson & Josephine Counties, cultivating healthy kids, environmental stewardship, farm relationships and the local economy. She helped to bring The Ashland Saturday Growers Market into being and serves on the Rogue Farm Corps Curriculum Advisory committee. Tracy joined the Small Farms Program team at the OSU Extension in 2008.

Grey Hecht

Philanthropist and green builder, Talent, OR
Grey and his family have lived in southern Oregon since 1997. He is president of the Sangham Foundation, an organic farmer, and owner of a green construction firm. Grey has a B.A. in environmental studies from Southern Oregon University. He brings a wealth of experience to the board in the form of non-profit oversight, ecosystem restoration, and philanthropic relations.

Bob Hunter

Attorney, Eagle Point, OR
Bob has over 30 years of board experience from serving on several non-profit environmental organization boards, and was a founding board member of WaterWatch of Oregon and the Oregon Water Trust.  After 20 years as a partner in a private law practice, he served as a senior staff attorney for WaterWatch, a river conservation organization, for 13 years.  He co-drafted Oregon's landmark instream water rights bill, and was WaterWatch's lead staff person on the removal of Savage Rapids and Gold Ray Dams.  He has a B.S. degree in Zoology and a J.D. degree from the University of Michigan, and is an avid flyfisher, birder, backpacker, backcountry skier, and rafter.

David Johns

David has a J.D. from Columbia University Law School. He teaches law and politics in the School of Government at Portland State University. David has been involved in large-scale conservation for over twenty years and was a founder of the Wildlands Project and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. He has published and spoken widely on the relationship of politics, science and advocacy, and is author of A New Conservation Politics: Power, Organization Building and Effectiveness. David received the 2007 Denver Zoological Foundation Conservation Award for his contributions to large-scale conservation efforts and his writing. David has been a Board member of Siskiyou Project since 1997.

Stuart O’Neill, Board Secretary

Executive Director, Rogue Farm Corps, Ashland, OR
Stuart has lived in the Klamath-Siskiyou region for 15 years. His studies in geology at Southern Oregon University, along with a brief stint doing riparian surveys with the Medford BLM, introduced him to the wildlands of this region. Stuart is the Executive Director of Rogue Farm Corps, a non-profit providing entry-level training in sustainable agriculture. He is a founding member of the Oxygen Collective and has worked as a community organizer on behalf of peace, social, economic, and environmental justice for the past decade.

Gene Rhough

Attorney, Brooklyn, NY
Gene is a corporate and intellectual property lawyer focused on digital entertainment, and is currently the VP of Global Digital & New Media at MTV Networks. His practice has included many well-known digital content companies, including Napster, Warner Music Group and Apple Computer, as well as a number of non-profits, including the Rainforest Action Network, the San Francisco Design Museum and Precita Eyes Mural Arts Association. He has an undergraduate degree from M.I.T. and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Laurel Samson

City Manager, City of Grants Pass, OR
Laurel has over twenty years in municipal government serving as Community Development Director, Assistant City Manager and currently as City Manager.  Her experience includes managing people, developing public policy, working with community organizations, creating and presenting budgets, managing capital projects and visioning and goals development and implementation.  She received her Bachelors degree in Biology from California State University, Sonoma, and her Masters degree in Business from Northeastern University, Boston.  In addition to working with Siskiyou Project for nearly ten years, she has worked with several other non-profit organizations in the Grants Pass and
Boston areas.

Laurel Sutherlin

Communications Director, Rainforest Action Network, San Francisco, CA
Laurel has more than a decade’s experience mobilizing communities, coordinating campaigns and building the movement for forest advocacy. He is a trained naturalist and environmental educator who specializes in inspiring people to protect the biodiversity surrounding them. Laurel was KS Wild’s Grassroots Organizer from 2008-2011 and spent two years on the KS Wild Board of Directors prior to his employment. He currently is the International Forests Communications Director for the Rainforest Action Network. He has a BA in ecology, natural history and environmental education from Prescott College.