Board of Directors

Alaric (Al) Sample – Chair

President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Pinchot Institute for Conservation Washington, D.C.

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Dr. V. Alaric (Al) Sample is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. He is also President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Washington, DC, where he was President and chief executive officer 1995-2015. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters in 2000. Sample is the author of numerous books, research papers, and articles on topics in national and international environmental and natural resource policy. His current research is focused on the integration of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience into the evolving institutional, legal, and policy framework for natural resource management. His most recent book is Forest Conservation in the Anthropocene: Science, Policy, and Practice, with R. Patrick Bixler and Char Miller (University Press of Colorado, 2016). Sample earned his doctorate in natural resource policy and economics at Yale University, for which he received the National Wildlife Federation Environmental Conservation Fellowship for excellence in graduate research. He holds an MBA and a Master of Forestry both from Yale, and a Bachelor of Science in forest resource management from the University of Montana.

Kathy Holian - Vice Chair

County Commissioner Santa Fe, New Mexico

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During Kathy’s tenure, the County adopted a new Sustainable Growth Management Plan (SGMP) to reduce sprawl development, ensure sufficient future water resources, and protect the natural environment. Land use code was rewritten, implementing the goals of the SGMP while establishing zoning for the first time in Sante Fe County. Kathy has championed initiatives to further sustainability, promoting renewable energy development, encouraging more local agriculture toward food security, increasing recycling, and advancing land restoration activities for land health and to reduce wildfire danger. Kathy has organized numerous community meetings on the topics of fire safety, water use and public safety to foster greater understanding of these issues. She has also served on several regional boards and committees. Kathy’s B.A. is from the University of California, Berkeley, in Physics. She was a computational physicist for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Kathy and her husband are implementing a restoration plan for the 800 acres they own on the Glorieta Mesa in the Santa Fe area. They have addressed soil erosion and water runoff, created stock ponds for wildlife, and are continuing to thin out the piñon juniper and ponderosa forests overgrown from years of fire suppression.

Amber Ellering - Secretary

Forest Policy and Planning Supervisor Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources St. Paul, MN

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Amber’s more than twelve years of experience includes leading a team of professionals responsible for forest planning across DNR administered lands, policy analysis, and strategic planning. She helps shape her agency's participation in federal regulatory action and initiatives, and support of state level legislative affairs. Previously a forester in northern Minnesota, Amber also mentors students, enjoys travel, and sleeping in a tent. She served on the Guild’s Membership and Policy Council for six years before joining the board.

Kaärsten Turner Dalby – Treasurer

Vice President of Ecological Services, The Forestland Group, LLC Conifer, Colorado

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In this forest investment firm specializing in native forest management, Kaärsten leads efforts to generate increased revenues from a diversity of ecological services including sales of carbon credits, working forest conservation easements, leasing of wind-energy rights, and the monetization of non-timber attributes associated with forestland ownership. She also oversees TFG’s domestic and international forest sustainability commitments and manages the firm’s certification program. Kaärsten is also involved in the development and implementation of forest management plans. She has worked with several domestic and international conservation organizations on public and private land conservation issues and enjoys creative problem solving to meet multiple stakeholder objectives.

Her influences include conservation writers and leaders, the wide-open landscapes of the west, the steep slopes of the Appalachian hardwood forests, and the land of the long white cloud (New Zealand). She lives in Conifer, Colorado, and her two boys keep her running, laughing and cleaning up messes.

Kaärsten has a BA from Smith College in English, an MS in Resource Conservation from the University of Montana School of Forestry, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. Kaärsten is a director in several of TFG’s investment interests and serves on the Board of Directors for the World Forestry Center. With the Guild since 1998, she served two terms on the Membership and Policy Council prior to the board.

Sally Bogdanovitch

Professor of Forestry, Paul Smith’s College

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Sally Bogdanovitch has been a Professor of Forestry at Paul Smith’s College since 1993. In addition to being a long-time Guild member, Sally is a certified forester through the Society of American Foresters (SAF) and was named a Fellow of SAF in recognition of her sustained leadership and exemplary advancement of the forestry profession.

She serves on the Board of Advisors for the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont and for the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (aka The Wild Center). She is a board member and recent past Vice President for the Empire State Forest Products Association. Sally also has been a board member for The Center of Northern Woodlands Education which publishes the Northern Woodlands magazine. She is a member of the Adirondack Community Trust and a natural resources consultant.

Sally earned her Bachelor of Science in forest management from the University of Vermont and her Master of Forestry from Yale University.

Bill Bradley

Senior partner, Eversheds-Sutherland (US) LLP law firm New York City

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Seth T. Cohen

Cohen Law Firm, LLC, Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Seth T. Cohen is an attorney whose legal career has focused, in part, on environmental protection. He led the State of New Mexico’s successful effort to prevent construction of a proposed 1500-megawatt coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico. He also won a landmark New Mexico Supreme Court case, preventing a controversial land swap of over 14,000 acres of New Mexico State Trust Lands.

Seth has a BA from Amherst College and a JD from Stanford Law School. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and spends as much time as possible in the alpine forests of the Southern Rockies. He is a past board member of Conservation Voters New Mexico.

John Fenderson

Nashville, Tennessee

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John was the Environmental Affairs/Public Outreach Coordinator for the Tennessee Division of Forestry. He also worked for Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy, and The U.S. Forest Service in California and Alaska. John has coauthored papers on: Carbon Sequestration Principles for the Southeast; Valuing a Forested Viewshed. He is an avid sailor, backpacker, waterfowl hunter, flyfisher, and wooden boat builder. John is a graduate of Tennessee State University where he also received a M.S. in Forest Economics and Policy.

John Galvan

Tribal Forester, Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico

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John Galvan is the tribal Forester for the Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico. John earned his Bachelor of Science in forestry at Northern Arizona University. He served as both 1st and 2nd Lieutenant Governor under the Pueblo of Jemez Tribal Government and has worked under the US Forest Service in various technician positions.

Currently, he is responsible for managing the forestry operations including reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires, promoting overall forest health, protecting forest resources including water and wildlife, coordinating wildfire response, and building program capacity and partnerships to enhance the Pueblo’s ability to protect and to enhance their forest resources.

John has long served as a valuable collaborator with the Guild, representing the Pueblo in the Southwest Jemez Mountain Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project and supporting the Guild’s Forest Stewards Youth Corps crew at Jemez Pueblo.

Peter Hayes

President of Hyla Woods. Portland, Oregon

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Peter and Pam Hayes are 5th generation loggers whose philosophy embraces the public trust, not just personal wealth.

Peter Hayes and his family own and care for working forests in the northern Oregon Coast. Their restoration forestry business, Hyla Woods, experiments with models of forestry and grower-consumer partnership that lead to enriched forests and sustained people. The Hyla Woods forests are in the Nehalem and Tualatin watersheds. Since first settling on the Clatsop Plains in the 1840s, the family has been active in trying to shape a culture that is as wonderful as this landscape. Peter’s recent involvements include serving on the Oregon Board of Forestry and leadership of the Build Local Alliance.

Peter has hosted Guild field days and is actively supporting the Guild’s foresters for the birds project with his time and money.

Robert J. Hrubes

Executive Vice-President of SCS Global Services Emeryville, California

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Dr. Hrubes has principal responsibility for the natural resource certification programs of this private business specializing in third-party certification of environmental, forestry and food safety claims. This includes forest management and chain-of-custody programs.

Dr. Hrubes is a registered professional forester and resource economist with 40 years of experience in the private and public sectors, and an internationally recognized expert in natural resources management and environmental certification. He was managing principal of Natural Resource Associates, a forestry and resource economics consulting firm, where he specialized in wildland management planning, sustainable forestry analysis, resource economics analysis, operations research analysis and forest management. Prior 1988, Dr. Hrubes worked for the USDA Forest Service for 14 years, including work as Principal Forest Economist/Operations Research Analyst at the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station.

Richard Morrill

Northern Forest Conservation Services, LLC Greensboro, Vermont

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Rick is a forester and helped form this family-run consulting company, providing comprehensive land management and conservation services to landowners, land trusts, and public agencies in the northern forest region and northeastern US. Rick holds a Master of Forestry from the University of Maine and a BA in Environmental Studies from Bates College. Rick served as the Baxter State Park Resource Manager, overseeing forest management activities in the Scientific Forest Management Area, an FSC-certified, 30,000-acre demonstration forest in Northern Maine. He has also worked as a forester with the University Forests at UMaine Orono. Rick is a licensed Maine forester, and a member and certified forester of the Society of American Foresters (SAF). He has been on our board since 2007 and served as chair from 2012 to 2017.

Mary Snieckus

Natural Resource Policy Associates, Silver Spring, MD

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Mary Snieckus currently works with the USDA Forest Service in Washington, DC. She leads the public rule making process to address management of roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest, often referred to as the Alaska Roadless Rule. Prior to this, she served for almost 3 years as deputy chief of staff for the agency. She rejoined the Forest Service in 2014 to lead the Ecosystem Services and Markets program in the State and Private branch of the agency. A Wisconsin native, she holds a BS in Forestry from UW-Madison, and an MS in Forest Policy from the University of New Hampshire. In addition to her public service, Mary worked with non-governmental organization focused on forest and land stewardship: she managed the conservation incentives and markets program with the American Forest Foundation, consulted on forestry issues and natural resource policy with conservation organizations around the country, and was the first Executive Director of the Forest Stewards Guild. Mary also worked with communities and businesses as a rural development specialist with the State and Private Forestry branch of the US Forest Service in New England, and began her forestry career on the Tongass National Forest in Thorne Bay, AK.

"It is exciting to be part of the Guild and to work with a team of diverse backgrounds at the local and national level while providing guidance in all social, economic, and ecological aspects considering the past, present, and future stewards of mother earth."

John Galvan

"The Guild mission and principles have served as a personal and professional compass for me since I attended my first meeting over 15 years ago.  No other organization captures the nuanced realities of forest management and seeks the middle ground between the competing perspectives of industry and traditional preservation.  The Guild represents the future of forest conservation."

Rick Morrill

Designation

"The Guild's purpose and members remind me why I was drawn to a career in nature resources - they make me happy. I want to help us have a bigger influence so more people find their way to work with us and share that inspiration to respectfully improve forest conditions so they continue to support healthy ecosystems and people."

Mary Snieckus

“I serve the Forest Stewards Guild because it is a hub of creativity, and a fascinating community centered on a worthwhile mission.”

Amber Ellering

Secretary

“I am impressed with the Board members’ commitment to ecologically sound forest management practices. I strive to contribute to the Board’s consideration of business and legal issues that arise in a non-profit context.”

Bill Bradley

"The Guild's mission of promoting sustainability in forest management is made all the more important as our forests face increasing stress due to climate change."

Seth T Cohan

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