Loren Bird Rattler
Blackfeet Tribe, lbirdrattler@blackfeetnation.com Loren currently serves as the Project Manager for the development of the Blackfeet Nation's Agriculture Resource Management Plan (ARMP), a plan that will create policy in agriculture, land, conservation, holistic management practices, water resource management, as well as agriculture and livestock regulation for both the Blackfeet Tribe and the United States governments.
Loren has more than twenty years of public and private sector experience in organizational development, strategic planning, policy development, project management, and civic engagement. He is a former National Field Director for the Native Vote Initiative for the National Congress of American Indians, a Public Program Specialist for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, both in Washington, DC. He was the inaugural Executive Director for two non-profits, Western Native Voice and Montana Native Vote both based in Billings, MT. He was also a program manager for the United States Department of Defenses' Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program based in Arlington, VA for Keres Consulting. Loren has received the President's Medal for Social Embeddedness from the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law at the Arizona State University and has been a guest lecturer for the Kennedy School of Government and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. Most recently, Loren has presented at the National Forum for Large Landscape Conservation and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations, both on indigenous and holistic approaches to natural and agriculture resource management and climate adaptation. Loren grew up on his family's ranch forty miles south of Browning on the traditional homelands of the Blackfeet Nation. |
Andrea Brennan
Anglican Church of Canada, barefootbellringer@gmail.com Andrea was ordained an Anglican priest in London, Ontario in 2007. In January 2016, she drove across Canada to the bustling wonderland known as the Elk Valley the last week of January, arriving in her new charge of Christ Church, Fernie. A self-described lover of God, Andrea strives to show love in the world to all she meets. She is interested in the critical work of the Roundtable, especially through the lens of the Fifth Mark of Mission of the Anglican Church of Canada: To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth. When not working at spreading God's love and changing the world one heart at a time, Andrea can be found hiking, snowshoeing, singing, writing or napping, though usually not at the same time.
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Mike Bruised Head
Blood Tribe, mikebh@bloodtribe.or |
Len Broberg
University of Montana, len.broberg@mso.umt.edu |
Mike Bruised Head (or in the Blackfoot language, Ninna Piksii) serves on the Blood Tribe Council and acts as Chairman of the Kainai Ecological Protection Agency (KEPA). From 1994 – 2011, Mike was employed with the Kainai Board of Education as a high school teacher, vice principal, and high school principal. He has presented papers on Indigenous topics at several World Indigenous People's Conferences on Education, including those in Australia, Hawaii, and Peru. Mike has participated in cultural and environment documentaries, as well as many Blackfoot ceremonies. He speaks fluent Blackfoot. Mike received his BA/B.ED from the University of Lethbridge and his Masters from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
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Len Broberg combines his nine years experience in the practice of law with his training in conservation biology to teach and research in the area of biodiversity conservation and environmental policy/law with focus on the Crown of the Continent region of the US and Canada. For the past fifteen years he has been a co-leader of the Trans-boundary Planning, Policy and Management Initiative with Dr. Michael Quinn of the University of Calgary, Faculty of Environmental Design, a graduate research and education initiative spanning the borders of Montana, USA and Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. He is a professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana.
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Rich Janssen
Department Head of Natural Resources, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, richjcskt@gmail.com |
Laura is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Nature-Link Institute, a 501c3 non-profit founded in 2005 with a mission of “reconnecting people to the environment through research, education and advocacy.” Laura is also currently working for the Blackfeet Nation on a SAMSHA Native Connections Grant entitled Culture and Hope and as an Indigenous Conservation Coordinator. Within these diverse roles Laura has had the privilege of working with rural mountain communities around the world including the Himalayas of India, the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile, and of course here in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Laura believes that human and landscape health are inextricably connected, and has committed herself to working at this sometimes-messy juncture for the betterment of all living beings. Laura has a PhD in Forestry and Conservation Sciences, a MS in Recreation Administration, and an BS in Geography. When she is not working Laura enjoys spending time with her husband, and two incredible daughters and a plethora of four legged friends. She can be found enjoying our amazing landscape though hiking, running, skiing, horseback riding or just being present in this incredible place.
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Rich Janssen Jr. is an enrolled Pend O’Reille Tribal Member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. He has spent his entire career with the Tribes, the last five as the Department Head of Natural Resources, which includes over 143 employees within the Divisions of Environmental Protection, Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation, and Water. Mr. Janssen has an undergraduate degree from the University of Montana (Missoula) 1993, and a Masters of Business Administration from Gonzaga University (2007). Mr. Janssen is married with two grown children, and his Bulldog “Dottie.”
Please find more information at www.cskt.org. |
Emily is employed at Heart of the Rockies Initiative, where she coordinates efforts within the High Divide Collaborative. She is also a part the advisory council for the Montana Forest Collaborative Network. Emily has a graduate certificate in Natural Resource Conflict Resolution from the University of Montana and a B.S. in Zoology from Humboldt State University. She has spent the last 10 years working in the Rocky Mountains as a fisheries technician, horse packer and park ranger.
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Born and raised between Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico in a cattle ranching and outdoors family, Clifford developed an appreciation for the landscape both as a resource, and as a playground. Having played/coached competitive team sports up through university (where he also got a BA in Philosophy), he developed a keen sense of group dynamics. Moving to MT to serve as an Americorps Crew Leader for the MT Conservation Corps, he stepped onto a path that wove together his ideals with meaningful work on the ground. Since the Fall of 2003, Clifford has made his home in the Flathead Valley where he's been the Regional Director for the MT Conservation Corps' Northern Rockies Regional office, dispatching motivated crews of service-minded young folks as resources for land management agencies and community organizations throughout NW Montana. He's participated in Leadership Flathead, served on the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation and Foy's to Blacktail Trails boards, as well as MT FWP's Region 1 Citizen's Advisory Committee, and is excited to join the Crown Roundtable Leadership Team. Together with his social-worker wife, Clifford is (hopefully) raising three stewards of community and the environment, in the shadow of the Crown of the Continent.
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Shawn Johnson
Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy shawn.johnson@umontana.edu, (406) 381-2904 |
Dave Morris
University of Montana ds.morris@yahoo.com |
Shawn is Managing Director at the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy at the University of Montana. For the past ten years, he has helped advance a joint effort between the Center and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy on regional collaboration and large landscape conservation. The joint effort explores questions of policy, leadership, and governance at regional or landscape scales, where there is often a mismatch between the scale of an existing challenge or opportunity and that of existing organizations and jurisdictions. In May 2011, Shawn helped organize and convene a group of large landscape conservation practitioners that led to a new network of practitioners throughout North America who are working to improve community and conservation outcomes at the large landscape scale -- the Network for Landscape Conservation. Shawn is co-author, with Matthew McKinney of Working Across Boundaries: People, Nature, and Regions (Lincoln Institute, 2009). He also contributed to Large Landscape Conservation, A Strategic Framework for Policy and Action (Lincoln Institute, 2010) and Remarkable Beyond Borders: People and Landscapes in the Crown of the Continent (Sonoran Institute, 2010). Prior to his work at the Center, Shawn earned a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and spent three years as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Max Baucus.
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Originally from Spokane, WA, Dave graduated from Evergreen State College with a degree in Environmental Studies, and then earned his M.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. Dave has lived in the Crown since 1999 and has instructed University level field courses here for most of that time. Among the organizations he has worked for in this region are the Wild Rockies Field Institute, Northwest Connections, Yellowstone to Yukon, Ecology Project International, Round River Conservation Studies, University of Montana Wilderness Institute, and the Mansfield Center. Dave loves engaging students in the reality of ecological, cultural and natural resource issues, and seeks to further that work with the Crown Roundtable.
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Jeff Mow first came to Montana in 1979 and spent four summers working for the USGS doing geologic mapping in the Flint Creek, Anaconda Pintler, and Sapphire Ranges of Montana. Subsequent visits occurred in 1988 during the Red Bench Fire in the North Fork and again in 2010 where he helped facilitate a scenario planning workshop for the Crown Manager’s Partnership in Whitefish. Jeff has been the Glacier National Park superintendent since August of 2013.
Most of Jeff’s 26-year career with the National Park Service (NPS) has been in Alaska. He has had eight duty stations with the NPS over the course of 22 years, most recently he had assignments as the superintendent of Kenai Fjords National Park and the acting superintendent of Denali National Park and Preserve. Jeff has served on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and with the NPS Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs. His additional experiences have included: 1) DOI Incident Commander on the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 2) investigator on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska, and 3) Policy Advisor to the fledgling NPS Climate Change Response Program. Jeff lives in Whitefish Montana with his family and they are all passionate about winter sports including all types of skiing and skating. In the “off-season” they enjoy biking, hiking, camping, and paddling. |
Nic Milligan grew up in Fernie, BC, where he lives with his wife and two children. Nic has spent most of his life living, working and playing in the Elk Valley in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. He currently works for Teck Resources as the Manager, Community and Aboriginal Affairs (Coal).
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Ann Schwend
State of Montana, aschwend@mt.gov |
As a natural resource scientist, Ann has spent over 25 years working to connect science and people. Since 2008, she has worked as a Water Resource Planner with the MT Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) in the Upper Missouri Basin, which includes both the Greater Yellowstone and the Crown of the Continent regions. She is currently leading the state’s efforts to build drought resilience in the Missouri Headwaters Basin as part of the National Drought Resilience Partnership (NDRP). She is passionate about empowering communities to build upon local knowledge and strengthen their capacity to tackle natural resource issues in their own watersheds and across broader landscapes.
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Melly Reuling, a senior conservation advisor at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) has worked on a wide variety of conservation and natural resource projects in both East Africa and the North America. Her work in large landscapes started in Tanzania and Kenya where she conducted research on elephant corridors and migration routes around and between Kenya and Tanzania. Her research led to the initiation of community conservation projects adjacent to national parks to find solutions to human-wildlife conflict. After living in East Africa for more than 20 years she relocated to Bozeman, Montana with her family. In Montana she has worked on white bark pine and climate change issues, as well as wildlife corridor and migration projects. Melly comes from a ranching and farming family and combines an understanding of the landscape and the people who rely on it with a love of wildlife and wild places. At CLLC she works protecting the natural values of large landscapes by addressing threats such as climate change and habitat fragmentation.
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John T. Shannon
Retired USDA Forest Service |
Shaun McGrath
Montana Department of Environmental Quality |
John earned bachelor of science degrees in forest management and outdoor recreation management from North Carolina State University, a master of forestry degree from Duke University, and a law degree, with honors, from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Employed by the USDA Forest Service, he is the Deputy Director for State and Private Forestry for the Northern and Intermountain Regions. Earlier John enjoyed a long career with the Arkansas Forestry Commission, including 18 years as State Forester. He practiced law for five years. John lives in Missoula, Montana. He has two adult children, and is blessed with four grandchildren.
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Shaun McGrath was appointed as Director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality by Governor Steve Bullock in November 2018. Prior to his current position, McGrath served as Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Region 8 in Denver. During the first two years of the Obama Administration, he was the Deputy Director for the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs acting as a liaison between the White House and the nation's governors. He spent 14 years as a Program Director at the bipartisan Western Governors' Association, managing WGA’s Water, Drought, Climate Adaptation, and Wildlife Corridors Programs. His career started in Kansas as a Governor’s Fellow under Governor Mike Hayden, that led to an appointment as Trade Manager for the Kansas Department of Commerce’s European Office in Stuttgart, Germany. McGrath was the Mayor of Boulder, Colorado, from 2007-2009, and was elected twice to the Boulder City Council. McGrath has a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Kansas, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and German from Kansas State University. His interest in serving on the Crown of the Continent Roundtable will be informed in part by work he has been a part of in the past, including building drought resilience across large landscape scales, and managing WGA’s wildlife corridors project.
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Gerald Wagner
Blackfeet Nation Environmental Director, National Tribal Caucus Vice-Chair gwagner@3rivers.net |
Jim is an award-winning, professionally certified wildlife biologist who has worked for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks for the last 25 years. He received an undergraduate degree in biology with an emphasis on marine biology from San Diego State and Florida State universities and his graduate degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University in Bozeman. Jim studied mountain lion ecology for his Master's Degree on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front and has focused on mountain lion and other wildlife conservation issues in various roles ever since. As a wildlife biologist in central Montana, Jim managed and conserved big game populations ranging from pronghorn antelope and black bear to mountain goats, worked with private agricultural landowners on wildlife tolerance issues, implemented local wildlife research projects and developed new conservation easements, wildlife management areas and other habitat conservation projects. Later as the FWP Wildlife Program Manager, Jim supervised a talented group of research and wildlife management biologists, developed grizzly bear monitoring and research programs, initiated western Montana’s first wolf conservation program, and provided program support and leadership on wildlife habitat conservation projects. Jim was the elected Vice President for the Wild Felid Research and Management Association from 2009-2012. Most recently as the Regional Supervisor for western Montana, Jim provided leadership and support for wildlife, fisheries and enforcement and administration divisions. Jim is also a past President of the Montana-Patagonia Chapter of the Partners of the Americas. He has been working with wildlife biologists in Chile and Argentina on a variety of wildlife conservation projects. In October of 2018, Patagonia published his new book, Path of the Puma, which shares some of those adventures and the story of mountain lion conservation in the Americas.
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Sara has a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College and a Masters in Range Ecology from Colorado State University. She started her career working for the National Park Service as an interpretive Park Ranger at a Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado. She worked as a Fish and Game Officer for Colorado State Parks. Sara started with the Forest Service in 1989 on the Wallow-Whitman NF in eastern Oregon working as an Ecologist. In 1990, she took a Rangeland Management Specialist/Ecologist position on Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sara moved back to Colorado in 1999 and worked as a Natural Resource Staff Assistant on the South Platte Ranger District on the Pike National Forest. From 2002 to 2009 she was District Ranger on the South Park Ranger District on the Pike National Forest in Fairplay, Colorado. In 2009, she was hired as Renewable Resource Staff Officer on the Pike San Isabel National Forest, Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands. Sara has been serving as the Deputy Forest Supervisor on the Helena-Lewis and Clark NF since January 2017.
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