Chris Hughes, President, Madison

Chris Hughes is an attorney and partner with Stafford Rosenbaum. A major focus of his practice is land use and real estate law. Chris has served on the Board of Directors of the Natural Heritage Land Trust for several years and continues to serve on their Stewardship Committee. He also serves on Gathering Waters' Land Protection Committee. Chris has presented at a conservation seminar sponsored by GWC in addition to co-presenting on conservation easements with Gathering Waters staff at several continuing legal education seminars for attorneys.

Rita Hayen, Vice President, River Hills

Ms. Hayen has spent her career in the ever-evolving world of energy production and transmition. In 2010, she accepted a position for TRC Solutions developing new business primarily focused on hydroelectric power generation and other renewables. Before that, She was the Environmental Department Manager for American Transmission Company, where she oversaw environmental function for ATC and worked closely with stakeholders and regulatory agencies to identify collaborative and innovative ways to address environmental protection. Prior to ATC, Rita worked for We Energies for 19 years in several roles including power plant engineering and corporate planning. Rita has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and an Executive MBA from UW- Milwaukee. Rita and her husband, Walter Boeshaar, enjoy gardening and the process of restoring a portion of their yard with swales, rain gardens and native prairie plantings. In her spare time, Rita pursues her first love – art. She paints, draws, weaves and makes jewelry.

Joy Stieglitz Gottschalk, Secretary, Madison

Joy Stieglitz Gottschalk is a Principal Planner and Brownfields Redevelopment Specialist at Vandewalle & Associates where her work focuses on urban infill redevelopment planning and implementation for clients throughout the Upper Midwest. Joy received her Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning with land use and environmental planning concentrations from the University of Wisconsin. In addition to her involvement with numerous local and national environmental associations, Joy and her husband, Rob Gottschalk, are founding members of Gathering Waters Conservancy's Land Legacy Society.

Eric Schumann, Treasurer, Racine

A businessman his whole career, Eric is the President and owner of Potala Corporation in Racine, WI. He is the past-president of Merit Gear and FAI, Inc. His connection to Gathering Waters Conservancy has grown from his service on the board of the Caledonia Conservancy, of which he is currently the president. Eric is new to our board, but we’ve been benefiting from his fiscal savvy for over a year as he has been a member of Gathering Waters’ finance committee. He is an equestrian, a fitness buff and lists investments among his hobbies.

Darrell Bazzell, Past President, Madison

Darrell is the Vice-Chancellor of Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to his position at the University, Darrell served as Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Before becoming Secretary, Darrell was Deputy Secretary and headed the DNR's Office of Planning Analysis. Darrell also served as Assistant Administrator for the Agricultural Resource Management Division and Director of the Plant Industry Bureau at the State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Bill Berry, Stevens Point

Bill is a self-employed writer and editor who specializes in communicating about conservation on America’s working lands. His current projects include serving as writer/communications specialist for the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters’ Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin project. Berry writes a regular column for the Capital Times of Madison and contributes regularly to other national and state publications. He resides in Stevens Point with his wife, Nick Schultz, who is also a writer.

Jeffrey Crawford, Milwaukee

Jeffrey Crawford has served as the Attorney General for the Forest County Potawatomi Community in Milwaukee since 1997: he is also a member of the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe. His previous professional life was in Minneapolis where he was an associate at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, then an attorney for General Mills. More recently, he served Wisconsin as a member of the board of the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming and is a board member of the Wisconsin Business Council. He is a frequent presenter on environmental topics and was a panelist for the 2010 Marquette University Law School Public Service conference on water law and a water ethic for Wisconsin.

Peter Dohr, Madison

Peter is a Partner at DeWitt, Ross, & Stevens where he specializes in real estate and land use. An avid outdoorsman and nature enthusiast, Peter is restoring a prairie on 100 acres of wooded land in Waushara County, which he is also considering permanently protecting with a conservation easement.

Kristine Euclide, Madison

Kristine Euclide has been Vice President/General Counsel of Madison Gas and Electric Company (MGE) since 2001 and is also a MGE Foundation Director. Kris has over thirty years legal experience, focusing on energy, environmental and local government law matters. From 1997 to 1999, Kris served as Executive Assistant to Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. Kris has also long been active in many professional and civic activities at a state and local level. Married with two adult children, Kris and her husband, Doug, have long been supporters of energy efficiency and protecting natural resources and received national, state and local recognition in the late 1970s for building one of Wisconsin’s first solar-heated, highly energy-efficient homes.

Nelson French, Duluth

Nelson is the Lake Superior-Lower St. Louis River Great Lakes Unit Supervisor at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Nelson has devoted his entire career to conservation in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Prior to his return to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, he served as the Executive Director of Kinnickinnic River Land Trust, State Director of The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota, Executive Director of Friends of the Minnesota Valley, and Director of Legislative Affairs at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Not surprisingly, Nelson is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys visiting the North Shore of Lake Superior and Lake Vermilion. His hobbies include bird watching, canoeing, fishing, hiking, cross country skiing and swimming and listing to Bob Dylan perform live.

Kimberly Gleffe, Milwaukee

Kimberly Gleffe is currently Executive Director of the River Revitalization Foundation and has earned degrees in Psychology, Sociology and a Masters in Cultural Foundations of Education. Currently focused on serving the conservation community especially the Milwaukee River, she has devoted her entire career to the nonprofit sector, and is certified in nonprofit management. Her interests include travel, film, birding, and kayaking.

Alice Godfrey, Avoca

Alice was raised in a family very involved in conservation issues and active in a large land trust in Massachusetts. After moving to Chicago in 1979, Alice and her husband, Rick, bought some land in Avoca, Wisconsin in 1986 which they planned to conserve. She went on to join the Driftless Area Land Conservancy in Dodgeville in its infancy and served on its Board for just over three years before joining the Gathering Waters Conservancy's Board. Alice and her husband have two college-age children and split their time between Avoca, WI, and Oak Park, IL.

Shawn Graff, Slinger

Shawn Graff currently serves as the Executive Director of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust and has over 24 years of experience in areas of historic preservation, fundraising and non-profit management. He has served as Executive Director of the Pabst Mansion and Wisconsin Heritage's in Milwaukee, Curator of Education for the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, and Assistant Director of the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Art Gallery. Shawn is involved in several Wisconsin organizations, including serving as Chairperson of the Slinger Preservation Committee and Past President of the Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation.

Arthur Harrington, Milwaukee

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1972, Arthur J. Harrington received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1975. Mr. Harrington has since practiced environmental law for close to two decades. He is the inaugural past chair of the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and a past president of the Milwaukee Bar Association. In addition, Mr. Harrington has served on the board of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust and as President of the Milwaukee Public Library board.

Terry Hatch, Mahomet, IL

Mr. Hatch is a recently retired pediatrician who worked in private practice and in academic medicine at University of Illinois and Southern Illinois Medical Schools. A life-long resident of central Illinois, Terry his wife DiAnne and their family have grown attached to their forest and cottage in Iron County. They have donated conservation easements on 140 acres of lake front and working forest to the Northwoods Land Trust. They enjoy fishing, hunting and various outdoor activities throughout the year, and strongly support land conservation here and in Costa Rica.

Ellen Kwiatkowski, Bayfield

Ellen has been Executive Director of the Bayfield Regional Conservancy since 2008. Prior to her life in Bayfield, her conservation career has taken her all over the hemisphere. For 10 years she held a variety of positions at The Nature Conservancy in the Latin American Division and most recently as Director of Conservation Programs for Delaware Chapter. Ellen has been a valuable advocate for Wisconsin working lands conservation and serves on the PACE council, the citizen body advising DATCP on Wisconsin’s new agricultural conservation easement grant program. Ellen lives in Bayfield where she and her husband Eric own and manage an organic blueberry farm, Blue Vista Farm, which is protected through the Town of Bayfield’s Farmland Preservation Program.

Randall Lawton, De Pere

Randall is the Board president of C.A. Lawton Co., a 131 year-old family-owned industrial machinery and components manufacturing company, located in De Pere, WI. He served as CEO of the company for 35 years. Randall is also active as a Board member for numerous non-profit organizations, including Community Partnership for Children, Bay Area Community Council, NEW Curative Rehabilitation Center, SEEDs for De Pere, American Foundry Society Research Board – the list goes on! Randall is an outdoor enthusiast who owns, and has protected, land on Moonlight Bay in Door County.

Thomas Mitchell, Madison

Thomas Mitchell is an Associate Professor and the University of Wisconsin Law School. He has researched extensively how land tenure systems impact poor and minority communities. With a research team including real estate economists and a GIS expert, he is currently working on a Ford Foundation-funded book on the economic, civic and social impacts of black land loss in the rural South. At UW-Law he directs the Community Development Externship program, placing law students with public interest firms and organizations located in poor communities to offer legal services to community development initiatives. He also served on the American Bar Association’s Property Preservation Task Force and as vice president of the board of directors of Farmers’ Legal Action Group. Professor Mitchell has provided several legal interns for Gathering Waters in recent years, including two working with us this fall.

Tia Nelson, Madison

Tia Nelson was named Executive Secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands in October 2004. She oversees the management of approximately 78,000 acres of Trust Lands located in northern Wisconsin, the State Trust Fund Loan Program, four Trust Funds valued at over $735 million, and the Original Land Records Program, which includes land survey records dating back to the 1830’s. Ms. Nelson was previously with The Nature Conservancy for seventeen years. Beginning in 1994 she led The Nature Conservancy’s climate change program where she played a key leadership role in climate change policy and in developing forest protection and restoration as a climate change mitigation strategy. She received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Leadership Award in 2000. Ms. Nelson was appointed by Governor Doyle in April 2007 to co-chair the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming.

Ben Niemann, Hayward

An emeritus Professor in the UW's Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Niemann has a long standing interest in applying the power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for natural resource conservation. This GIS work was instrumental in helping establish the Lower Wisconsin Riverway. He was a co-founder of the Wisconsin Land Information Program and served three terms on its Board. Ben's most recent contribution is a co-authored ebook entitled "Citizen Planners: Shaping Communities with Spatial Tools." He is presently on the Board of the Couderay Waters Regional Land Trust and the Town of Round Lake Planning Commission. He helped coordinate the Moose Lake Legacy Initiative and participated in the preparation of the Town of Round Lake Comprehensive Land Use Plan. He was recently appointed by the County Board to represent citizen interests as part of the Sawyer County Land Information Program. Ben lives on Moose Lake with his wife Sue and Ajax, their Wirehaired Pointing Griffon where they collectively pursue the lakes walleyes and muskies in addition to waterfowl and wild rice on neighboring rivers and Ruffed Grouse in the adjacent public forests. They also enjoy snow shoeing across the lake and forests as well as canoeing, sculling, and kayaking on their lake and its neighboring public trust waters.