CONTRIBUTORS TO THE CODEX OF THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
Nathan Allan, M.S.
Nathan Allan has spent his career working for the conservation of endangered species in the southwest U.S., beginning with an undergraduate degree from Abilene Christian University and a master’s degree from the University of Arizona. Nathan has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Texas for the past 25 years at both the field and regional offices. He strives to develop innovations to enhance the implementation of the Endangered Species Act as a senior biologist, decision analyst, and group facilitator.
Lowell E. Baier, J.D.
Lowell E. Baier received his B.A. in economics and political science from Valparaiso University in 1961 and completed his law degree in 1964 at the Indiana University School of Law where he earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. After graduation he practiced law in Washington D.C., where he’s devoted his career to his lifelong passion for protecting the country’s natural resources and wildlife conservation. Baier holds an honorary Doctor of Law and Letters (LL.D.) degree awarded in 2010, a Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) awarded in 2015, and a Doctor of Public Service awarded in 2019. From 2018-20, Baier was enrolled at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and completed course work and his dissertation for a Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental History. Thereafter he published his dissertation entitled Federalism, Preemption, and the Nationalization of American Wildlife Management: The Dynamic Balance Between State and Federal Authority.
Baier has been recognized many times for his extraordinary public service at the local level, and for his conservation work nationally. Since 1975, Baier has been active in the Boone and Crockett Club, America’s oldest wildlife conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887, and is its first President Emeritus. A well-known advisor to elected officials and educators on environmental and conservation issues, Baier took the lead in drafting President George H.W. Bush’s wildlife conservation agenda in 1989, and has been an advisor and counselor to all successive presidential administrations. He was Rockville, Maryland’s Citizen of the Year in 1986. In 2008, he was named Conservationist of the Year by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. In 2010 Outdoor Life magazine selected Baier as the Conservationist of the Year, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies similarly recognized him in 2013. In 2016, the National Wildlife Federation awarded him their highest honor, the Jay N. “Ding” Darling Conservation Award for a lifetime of conservation service. In 2018 he was one of four judges chosen to select the 2019 Duck Stamp image by the Department of Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Indiana University School of Law presented him with its Distinguished Service Award in 2007, and in 2014 he was inducted into the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows, the highest honor the School can bestow on an alumnus. In 2015 Indiana University awarded him the degree Doctor of Humane Letters; thereafter, the law school building at Indiana University was named Baier Hall in his honor, also in 2015. In 2021, he was awarded the University’s Bicentennial Medal.
In addition to authoring numerous articles and monographs over the past 60 years, Baier is the author of five award winning books: Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act: Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle over America’s Lands, Endangered Species, and Critical Habitats; Saving Species on Private Lands: Unlocking Incentives to Conserve Wildlife and Their Habitats; Federalism, Preemption, and the Nationalization of American Wildlife Management: The Dynamic Balance Between State and Federal Authority; The Codex of the Endangered Species Act: The Last Fifty Years, Volume I; and co-edited The Codex of the Endangered Species Act: The Next Fifty Years, Volume II.
Michael Brennan, J.D.
Mike Brennan has practiced environmental and natural resources law since 1983. He is a nationally-recognized practitioner in matters involving the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, other federal and state wildlife laws, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). He has broad experience in wildlife and natural resource conservation throughout the United States. He directs the Wildlife Conservation and Mitigation Program for Texas A&M University, is a Professor of Practice at Texas A&M University and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wyoming’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Ruckelshaus Institute, and is an emeritus member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers.
Mike’s work at the Wildlife Conservation and Mitigation Program focuses on the development of innovative conservation strategies for the resolution of complex at-risk species conflicts founded on the highest quality science, creative and innovative policy development, and fidelity to the legal and regulatory programs relevant to species conservation.
Sara Brodnax, MEM
Sara Brodnax is the Director of Public Lands Policy at the National Audubon Society. Her work is focused on public lands management including the conservation of greater sage-grouse and important habitat for birds.
Sara worked previously as an independent consultant offering perspective and expertise on conservation and policy issues including ecosystem services and market-based solutions. Prior to consulting, she was the Senior Manager for State Policy and Partnerships, Ecosystems at the Environmental Defense Fund. At EDF, Sara collaborated with experts and on-the-ground partners to develop and implement mechanisms and policies to advance conservation and stewardship of working lands and species.
Prior to EDF, Sara worked as the Director of Analysis at the Clark Group, a DC-based environmental consulting group.
Sara graduated from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and received a Master's of Environmental Management from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment.
Bob Budd, M.S.
Bob Budd is the Executive Director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, a program established to enhance wildlife habitats and the natural resource heritage of Wyoming.
Prior to helping launch the WWNRT program, Budd was manager of Red Canyon Ranch, and Director of Land Management for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming.
In his work there, he was credited with developing and maintaining large-scale ecological processes, while maintaining economic production on a working cattle ranch. Before his tenure with TNC, Bob spent 15 years with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, ten as Executive Director.
Bob Budd has a Master of Science degree in Range Management, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Agricultural Business and Animal Science, all from the University of Wyoming. He is also trained in Holistic Resource Management, and is a Certified Professional in Rangeland Management.
He is a past-president of the International Society for Range Management and the Wyoming Chapter of the Wildlife Society. He has facilitated development of management plans for the Big Sandy River, Sage-grouse, and Bighorn Sheep in Wyoming.
James F. Bullock, Jr., M.S.
As Senior Vice President Forest Sustainability for Resource Management Service, LLC (RMS), Jimmy oversees sustainable forestry and environmental policy and programs and advocacy on forestry issues for RMS-managed timberlands in the United States. He also has responsibility for forest certification and audit programs and leads environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives for RMS-managed timberlands globally. Jimmy earned his B.S. degree in Forestry from Mississippi State University in 1980 and his M.S. degree in Wildlife Ecology from Mississippi State in 1982. A Certified Wildlife Biologist, Mississippi Registered Forester and Society of American Foresters Certified Forester, Jimmy is on the Board of Directors for the National Conservation Leadership Institute, the Catch-A-Dream Foundation, The Wildlife Management Institute, the Mississippi Wildlife Federation, the Forest Landowner’s Association and the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy. Jimmy is a Professional Member of the Boone and Crockett Club.
In 1994, Jimmy was presented the prestigious American Forest and Paper Association’s Forest Stewardship Award for his leadership role in conservation of the Louisiana Black Bear. In 2017 Jimmy was honored as recipient of the Quality Deer Management Association’s Joe Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award and the Wildlife Management Institute’s George Bird Grinnell Award for Distinguished Service to Natural Resources Conservation, both of which are the highest individual honors bestowed by the respective organizations. Jimmy was recently honored as the 2019 College of Forest Resources Alumni Fellow at Mississippi State University.
Cindy K. Dohner, M.S.
Cindy Dohner is an independent environmental consultant with extensive experience in comprehensive natural resource conservation providing support to Federal and State Fish and Wildlife Agencies, private landowners, NGOs, and industry. She is a strong business professional with experience in landscape and watershed conservation, building partnerships, species conservation, and assisting landowners to solve large scale conservation issues. She is currently working with Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, DoD’s Natural Resource Program, the National Alliance of Forest Owners, and Resource Management Service, LLC. She has extensive environmental experience from working for three State Agencies, three Federal agencies, industry, and in the private sector.
She worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 25 years, and before her retirement in August 2017, she served as the Regional Director of Southeast Region. She provided vision, leadership, and oversight for activities in 10 States and the Caribbean and oversaw the management of 130 national wildlife refuges, 24 national fish hatcheries and fishery offices, and 16 Ecological Services offices with more than 1500 employees. Additionally, from April 2010 through August 2017, she served as the Department of Interior's Authorized Official for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill NRDAR, the lead for DOI on the RESTORE Act Council, and oversaw the Service’s activities related to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, all of which are part of the restoration effort. She worked for the Service in a variety of roles within the Fisheries and Endangered Species Programs and at Headquarters and the Regions for 24 years.
Ms. Dohner is the recipient of the 2017 C.W. Watson Award, the most prestigious award given in the Southeast and presented to the career individual who made the greatest contribution to wildlife or fish conservation during the previous year or years. She is the first woman to receive this recognition since the initiation of the C. W. Watson Award in 1964.
She earned her B.S. in Marine Biology from Millersville University, and a M.S. in Fisheries and Aquaculture from the University of Rhode Island.
Ken Elowe, Ph.D.
Ken Elowe received his B.A. degree in Biology from Bowdoin College in 1978, and his M.S. (1983) and Ph.D. (1987) in Wildlife Biology from the Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. After graduating, he joined the Utah Division of Wildlife and then the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife as their bear and furbearer biologist, Wildlife Division Director, and then Director of Fish and Wildlife Resources in 1997, a position he held until 2010. During that time, he helped lead state negotiations with collaborating large forest landowners to secure conservation easements on over 2.5 million acres of forestland in Maine and led the development of a collaborative program for landscape habitat conservation called Beginning with Habitat.
Ken also worked between 2003 and 2010 with the United Nations leading a cooperative, landscape-level rangeland restoration program in Jordan on 15 million acres following Gulf War damage to grazing lands. In 2010, Ken became the Assistant Regional Director for Science Applications in the Northeast Region of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), where he helped lead the national formation of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) and chaired the North Atlantic LCC with 13 state agencies and over 40 member organizations. In 2019, Ken retired from FWS and is currently working with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) and FWS helping develop collaborative landscape conservation efforts in the four major regions of the United States. He helped form and currently staffs the national Landscape Conservation Joint Task Force between AFWA and FWS leaders to promote leadership, communication, coordination and greater success of collaborative, landscape-scale conservation.
Murray Feldman, J.D.
Murray Feldman is a partner in the Boise, Idaho, office of Holland & Hart LLP. He represents state and local governments, landowners, project developers, and others in Endangered Species Act litigation and administrative proceedings on species listing, critical habitat designation, consultation, habitat conservation planning, and related issues. He has worked on ESA matters throughout the Pacific Northwest, Intermountain West, Alabama, and Michigan, with a variety of species including the polar bear, ribbon seal, Steller sea lion, bearded seal, beluga whale, Snake River chinook salmon, Moapa dace, Sacramento Mountains thistle, desert tortoise, and piping plover. His practice includes litigation and regulatory compliance work on National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, public lands, and climate change issues. He also represents parents under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Murray is the co-editor of Idaho Wilderness Considered (2016) and is a Trustee of the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, an MS degree from the University of Idaho College of Natural Resources, and a BS from the U.C. Berkeley College of Natural Resources.
Robert L. Fischman, J.D.
Robert L. Fischman is the George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He researches public land management, endangered species recovery, federalism, adaptive conservation, climate change, and environmental impact analysis. His scholarship has been repeatedly recognized by his peers as among the very best published in environmental law (in 9 of the past 20 years). In addition to law reviews, his articles have appeared in such refereed journals as BioScience and Conservation Biology. He is a founding board officer of the Conservation Law Center, Inc., which operates Maurer School of Law’s conservation law clinic. In addition to testifying before Congress, his public service includes work as a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. The American Law Institute elected him membership in 2019. His many publications are compiled at I.U. Repository, Google Scholar, and SSRN.
Brenna R. Forester, Ph.D.
Brenna Forester is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program, where she provides science support for Endangered Species Act listing and recovery work. Trained as a landscape ecologist and conservation geneticist, her research focuses on leveraging genetic and genomic data to inform conservation management of at-risk species.
Angela K. Fuller, Ph.D.
Angela Fuller is the Leader of the U.S. Geological Survey New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and a Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at Cornell University. She engages state, provincial, federal, NGO, and international government partners in research to inform conservation and management. Her research focuses on spatial ecology and decision science, integrating ecology, social science, conservation biology, and quantitative modeling to influence the way species and landscapes are managed. In addition, she helps develop and applies new statistical models focused on abundance and occurrence. Her research spans diverse regions from the United States, Canada, Nepal, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Indonesia, and South Africa. A full list of her publications can be found here: https://blogs.cornell.edu/fullerlab/publications/. She teaches a graduate-level course in decision science at Cornell. Dr. Fuller is a fellow of the Wildlife Society and serves in several science advisory roles including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission and Bear Specialist Group. She received her PhD degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Maine.
Curt Griffin, Ph.D.
Curt has been working to conserve wildlife for over 40 years. As a Professor of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he has dedicated his life to conserving endangered species and teaching and training professionals in wildlife conservation. His research and conservation efforts have spanned five continents, from his work with elephants in the savannas of Southern and East Africa and the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, endangered hawks in the Galapagos and Hawaiian islands, seabirds from Alaska to Hawaii to Maine, sea turtles in the North Atlantic and Caribbean, and wetlands conservation in Eastern Europe, South Africa and the U.S. His conservation efforts extend from protecting open space in his small New England community, to helping state and federal agencies protect endangered species and wetlands, to helping other countries develop their biodiversity conservation programs. Curt’s current research efforts with his grad students are focused on the ecology and conservation of African elephants, sea turtles, and whale sharks, and assessing the effects of climate change and offshore wind energy facilities on wildlife.
Tanya Lama, Ph.D.
Tanya Lama is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology focused on mammalian evolutionary and conservation genomics. Her research explores the genetic mechanisms underlying unique mammalian adaptations and factors influencing population persistence in natural and human-altered environments.
Ya-Wei (Jake) Li, J.D.
Jake Li is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs within EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, where he works on a wide variety of pesticide issues. One of Jake’s priorities is to help EPA achieve its endangered species protection goals related to pesticide decisions. Immediately before joining EPA, Jake worked for over a decade in the nonprofit sector on natural resource conservation and chemical regulatory issues. Jake has also represented the regulated community as an environmental lawyer at Latham & Watkins. At EPA, Jake strives to bring his insights from working with the private sector and environmental groups to find practical, fair, efficient, and durable solutions to how EPA regulates pesticide and other chemicals. Jake has published widely on wildlife conservation issues and is the coeditor of Endangered Species Act: Law, Policy, and Perspectives (3rd ed, 2021).
Timothy Male, Ph.D.
Dr. Timothy Male founded the Environmental Policy Innovation Center in 2017, a nonprofit focused on policy ideas that will lead to faster progress for wildlife and water conservation, climate resilience, and equity. Prior to launching this startup, he served as an Associate Director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2014-2017, covering wildfire, drought, endangered species, wildlife trafficking and ecosystem conservation priorities. He has also served as Vice President for Conservation Policy at Defenders of Wildlife, a Director at National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Co-Director of agriculture policy at Environmental Defense Fund. He holds degrees in science from Yale University and the University of Hawaii. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Science magazine and a diversity of peer-reviewed journals. He has received a German Marshall Fund Memorial Fellowship and AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship (declined). He also ran for office and won, serving three terms as a city councilmember in Takoma Park, Maryland and leading the successful effort for that city to become the first in the country to lower its voting age to 16.
Conor McGowan, Ph.D.
Conor McGowan is a Research Wildlife Biologist in the U.S. Geological Survey Cooperative Research Unit Program and a Courtesy Associate Professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida. He has had a strong drive for wildlife conservation from an early age. In 1989 he completed his first science fair project in middle school exploring the ESA, profiling the Bald Eagle and he feels privileged to now be actively working on endangered species conservation. He pursued an education in biology and wildlife science, completing a BS at Wake Forest University, an MS at N.C. State University and a Ph.D. and the University of Missouri. He then worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center before joining the U.S.G.S. Coop Unit Program.
John Organ, Ph.D.
John F. Organ serves on the 7-person Fisheries and Wildlife Board for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, appointed by Governor Charles Baker. He is the former Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units (Coop Units), and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Michigan State University, and Universidad Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile, where he served under a Fulbright grant. He is a Certified Wildlife Biologist and Past President, Fellow, and Honorary Member of The Wildlife Society. He earned a Ph.D. in wildlife and fisheries biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a Professional Member of the Boone and Crockett Club and is the Science and Education Editor for their magazine Fair Chase. From 2005 to 2014 he was Chief of the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program for the Northeast Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and served in various other positions with the USFWS beginning in 1979.
He was awarded the George Bird Grinnell Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Conservation from the Wildlife Management Institute in 2014, the Meritorious Service Award from the Department of the Interior in 2018, and the Aldo Leopold Memorial Medal from The Wildlife Society in 2020. During his tenure with the USFWS he administered Section 6 endangered species grants to the 13 northeast states and was co-principal investigator for research on the threatened Canada lynx in Maine. While serving as chief of the Coop Units, over 80 research projects on threatened and endangered species were conducted by the program’s scientists. He is the co-author of more than 100 journal articles and book chapters, and co-author and editor of 4 books.
Dale Ratliff, J.D.
Dale Ratliff is an Associate at Williams Weese Pepple & Ferguson in Denver, Colorado. Dale’s practice focuses on environmental and administrative law, with a particular emphasis on natural resource projects on public lands. Dale has represented wind-energy developers, ski areas, property developers, and others in matters arising under the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and regularly assists clients in matters arising under public-lands statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Dale is a graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law where he finished first in his class. Before law school, Dale worked as a fly-fishing guide in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, Chilean Patagonia, and Southwestern Alaska.
Shawn J. Riley, Ph.D.
Shawn Riley is the Parrish Storrs Lovejoy Professor of Wildlife Management in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University (MSU) where he holds assignments in research, outreach, and teaching. He is a scientist in the Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management, a long-term partnership between MSU and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. In 2022, he was awarded the MSU Alumni Distinguished Professor Award. Dr. Riley is a Fellow in The Wildlife Society and currently serves as a Senior Fulbright Fellow and Specialist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He earned a PhD from Cornell University, and BS and MS degrees from Montana State University. In the 12 years between his studies at Cornell and Montana State, Shawn was a wildlife biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, working mainly on big game and large carnivores. His recent research focuses mostly on human-wildlife interactions, how those interactions affect human attitudes and behaviors toward wildlife, and how to effectively integrate insights from social science in decisions about wildlife conservation. His outreach seeks to improve capacity of resource agencies to make more effective decisions. Dr. Riley’s annual classroom teaching has been a required upper-division course, Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife. He is a coauthor of more than 100 journal articles and the TWS-Johns Hopkins book, Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management used in 58 courses across North America and Europe.
Gregory Schildwachter, Ph.D.
Dr. Greg Schildwachter is a professional conservationist advising clients on policy, leadership and strategy, and philanthropy in conservation at Watershed Results in Washington, D.C. He is experienced in issues of local, statewide, and federal scale and familiar with many communities and habitats in the U.S. He began his career as a wildlife biologist. In a 30-year career, Greg began from a focus on wildlife and forests that has expanded into many topic areas, including water, wetlands, grasslands, and ocean life. His recent work involves bighorn sheep, wolves, several endangered species, invasive species, conservation economics, community conservation, sharks, hunting heritage, and conservation leadership.
He has worked in technical, managerial, and political assignments – including work for a governor, a senator, and a president. Greg earned a PhD in the Boone and Crockett research program at the University of Montana, an M.S. from the University of Tennessee, and an BSFR (wildlife biology) from the University of Georgia. He completed a fellowship at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana; and, worked at the Ocelot Recovery Program at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute in Kingsville, Texas, among many other field assignments.
Christopher E. Segal, J.D.
Christopher E. Segal works as a Senior Research Associate for Lowell E. Baier, focusing on wildlife and natural resources law, policy, and advocacy. His work has included drafting legislation, preparing Congressional testimony, advocating for public lands, and research and writing for books and law review articles. He helped research the 2016 book Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act: Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle over America's Lands, Endangered Species, and Critical Habitats, and helped research and write 2020’s Saving Species on Private Lands: Unlocking Incentives to Conserve Wildlife and Their Habitats. He most recently helped research, write, and edit The Codex of the Endangered Species Act, Volume I: The Last Fifty Years, and helped edit The Codex of the Endangered Species Act, Volume II: The Next Fifty Years. He earned a J.D. from Georgetown University in 2010 and a B.A. in history, with honors, from Swarthmore College in 2005.
David R. Smith, Ph.D.
Dave Smith is a quantitative ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey where his work focuses on decision analysis in natural resource management and environmental conservation. He earned a BS in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State and an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Forest Resources from University of Georgia. Dave regularly facilitates and consults with groups as they face difficult decisions and teaches courses in decision analysis. He co-edited two books: The Biology and Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs and Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resource Management.
Temple Stoellinger, J.D.
Temple Stoellinger is an associate professor and Wyoming Excellence Chair at the University of Wyoming with a dual appointment in the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the College of Law. Professor Stoellinger coordinates the Haub School’s JD/MA program in Environment and Natural Resources and teaches wildlife law, environmental and natural resources law and policy, public land law, and a course on the National Environmental Policy Act. Her scholarship integrates thinking from the fields of law, economics, policy, and more to explore relevant approaches for decision-making around wildlife, land, energy, and other valued natural resources. Before joining the University of Wyoming, Professor Stoellinger served as a natural resource advisor to Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, worked as legal counsel for Shell International B.V., and served as natural resource counsel for the Wyoming County Commissioners Association.
Tate Watkins, M.A.
Tate Watkins is a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, a conservation research institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets. His writing, which focuses on the intersection of economics and conservation, has appeared in many academic and popular publications.
Douglas P. Wheeler, J.D.
Douglas P. Wheeler is a senior counsel at Hogan Lovells US LLP and is the senior member of the firm’s energy and natural resources practice groups in its Washington office. Mr. Wheeler provides counsel to corporate, institutional, and individual clients on natural resource and land use issues, including Endangered Species Act and CITES compliance, habitat mitigation and banking, water and wetlands management, sustainable forestry, historic preservation, and markets for ecosystem services. He has worked exclusively with natural resources and environmental issues in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors since joining the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1969, where he served as assistant legislative council and deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
He has since served as a senior executive of non-profit conservation and environmental organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation (executive director, 1977-1980), the American Farmland Trust (president, 1980-1985), the Sierra Club (executive director, 1985-1987), and the World Wildlife Fund (vice president, 1987-1991). Before joining Hogan & Hartson in 1999, he served for eight years as California’s secretary for resources, where he developed nationally recognized strategies, including Natural Communities Conservation Planning, to effectively manage the state’s natural resources in an era of rapid growth and development. He serves on the boards of the Conservation Lands Foundation and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University and is a member of the president’s advisory council of the American Farmland Trust. He is also an emeritus member of the board of advisors at the Duke University School of Law. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and the Duke University School of Law.
Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams has been called "a citizen writer," a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. "So here is my question," she asks, "what might a different kind of power look like, feel like, and can power be redistributed equitably even beyond our own species?" Williams, like her writing, cannot be categorized. She has testified before Congress on women’s health issues, been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda. Known for her impassioned and lyrical prose, Terry Tempest Williams is the author of the environmental literature classic, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World, was published in 2008 by Pantheon Books. She is a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. Her new book is The Story of My Heart by Richard Jeffries, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams (Torrey House Press), in which she and Brooke Williams expand upon the 1883 book by Richard Jeffries. Her most recent book is The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book was published in June, 2016, to coincide with and honor the centennial of the National Park Service. In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award given by The Center for the American West. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction. In 2009, Terry Tempest Williams was featured in Ken Burns' PBS series on the national parks. She is also the recipient of the 2010 David R. Brower Conservation Award for activism. The Community of Christ International Peace Award was presented in 2011 to Terry Tempest Williams in recognition of significant peacemaking vision, advocacy and action. In 2014, on the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. Terry Tempest Williams is the Provostial Scholar at Dartmouth College. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, and numerous anthologies worldwide as a crucial voice for ecological consciousness and social change. In 2015, She and her husband, Brooke Williams, purchased BLM oil and gas leases in Utah as conservation buyers. They divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
David Willms, J.D.
David Willms is an attorney with an extensive background in wildlife and land conservation issues. He received both a BS degree in Wildlife Management and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Wyoming. For nearly two decades, David has worked in the public and private sector engaged in issues involving federally listed and at-risk species. He served as a Senior Assistant Attorney for the State of Wyoming, where he represented the State Engineer’s Office and Game and Fish Department on legal matters in Wyoming and throughout the country. In private practice, he represented state wildlife agencies, landowners, and others on a host of species related issues. He later served as a natural resources policy advisor to former Wyoming Governor Matthew H. Mead, and currently works for the National Wildlife Federation. He completed a Cambridge University Robert W. Wilson Fellowship in Environmental Leadership, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. He resides in Cheyenne, Wyoming with his wife and three children, and enjoys spending his free time exploring our public lands.
Jonathan Wood, J.D.
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center, a conservation research institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets. An attorney, Jonathan has extensive experience in Endangered Species Act and natural resource issues, including representing forest landowners at the Supreme Court of the United States in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. His research, which focuses on how policy could better encourage cooperation and voluntary collaboration rather than conflict, has been featured in many academic journals and popular press outlets.
