Board of Directors

  • EMERITUS BOARD MEMBER

    Board Member Since 1992

    Jack is a founding Board member of the APWC (1992). He has a B.S. in Agriculture Science from Texas Technological College and a M.S. in Resource Planning from the University of Oregon. He is a former member of the Governor’s Healthy Streams Partnership, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, and a former member Oregon Board of Forestry. Jack is also a member of the Knitting Circle (SOFRC) Board, Cantrall Buckley Park Board, and the Green Leaf Industries Board. He is a small woodland owner and farmer and lives in the Applegate Valley.

  • SECRETARY & TREASURER

    Board Member Since 2012

    Barbara is a retired professor of women's studies and American studies. She lives part of the year in Japan where she coordinated the Peace as a Global Language Conference. She headed the Engaged Pedagogy Association and is active in feminist and environmental groups there. Barbara wrote a book on alternative communities in southern Oregon. She is an Applegate Valley landowner, and lives up Humbug Creek.

  • BOARD CHAIR

    Board Member Since 2005

    Geoff is a member of the Applegate Sustainable Aggregate Project Team, and a Rogue Basin Coordinating Council member. He is an outdoorsman highly interested in assisting with habitat restoration efforts for our local fisheries. He has a degree in Public Administration from Ohio University. Geoff is a Vietnam Era Veteran, and a 33 year IBEW. He is a retired electrician and an Applegate Valley landowner who lives up Humbug Creek.

  • EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER

    Board Member Since 2013

    A mother, a writer, an educator and a homesteader. Kirsten and her husband moved their young family to the mountains of Southern Oregon, where they have lived for the last 15 years. She became passionate about food from the ground up. The obsession became planting fruit trees, raising dairy animals, growing vegetables and preserving the harvests—all while homeschooling. She has published articles in magazines, is a contributing writer to a radio series, maintains a blog (Fermentista.us), and she is a co-author (with her husband) of a forthcoming book on fermented vegetables from Storey Publishing. She is on the board of the Friends of the Applegate Library, the Advisory Committee for Small Farms with OSU Jackson County Extension and spends time at community meetings participating in the Adaptive Management Area work that is done with the BLM. Before all this she received a BA in Education from the University of Arizona.

  • EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER

    Board Member Since 2019

    An Applegate Valley and Klamath Basin forestland owner with over 30 years of experience in forestry management. David uses his B.S. in Forest Management and M.S. in Forest Pathology from Michigan State University as a base to expand his expertise in insects and disease, tree improvement/genetics, silviculture/ecology, reforestation, and tree physiology. He is currently a part-time forestry consultant, consulting locally and in 10 other countries after retiring from a 30-year career with BLM Ashland Resource Area and Medford Seed Orchards. His hobbies include flyfishing, woodworking, and winemaking.

  • EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER

    Board Member Since 2020

    Janis is a fourth generation Oregonian who grew up on a Century farm in the Northern foothills of the Tualatin Valley. She loved the outdoors and natural world from a young age, and escaped to the forested part of the farm whenever possible. After graduating in Forestry at OSU in 1975 she began her career with USFS in southern Oregon at Star Ranger Station, then did Outdoor School-Resources teaching for several school districts throughout Oregon. She next raised 3 children with her husband, and began a career for Jackson County Library System; volunteering, then branch supervising, programming for babies through young adults, training, and presenting at JCLS staff days, workshops, and OLA conferences until 2019.

    She returned to volunteering because of her heart’s desire to work in the community to mentor and inspire others to respect and care for rural communities. She also wanted to honor, respect, preserve and sustain the unique and diverse ecosystems in the watershed. Janis currently participates in the SMART program for the Rogue Valley and is a member of the Applegate Valley Garden Club. She leads development of a Monarch Butterfly Way station with educational opportunities and service work with 6th-8th graders at Cantrall Buckley Park. Janis is also on the board of directors for the Friends of Ruch Library and A Greater Applegate, and serves as Chair for the Park Enhancement Program at Cantrall Buckley. Janis is Chair of APWC’s Cultural Committee. She enjoys gardening, hikes, family time, drumming, and expressing the natural world full of life and color through beading, multi-media art, and drawing.

  • Board Member Since 2008

    Mel is a retired (2008) Fire Management Officer for the USDA Forest Service, Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. As the Fire Management Officer, he led the District Fire and Fuels program, was a member of the Forest Safety Committee, a member of the Region 6 equipment Committee and Course Coordinator & Lead Instructor for the Southwest Oregon training area. He was also a former team member of the ORCA Type II Incident Management as Operations Section Chief and Safety Officer. He is a part-time faculty member at the Rogue Community College. Mel is involved in the Fire Science Program and is a member of the Applegate Fire Learning Network. He owned the WD Fire and Forestry LLC, but is now retired. Mel lives in Grants Pass, Oregon.

  • Board Member Since 2013

    Alan retired after 30 years of teaching - mainly Ecology, Conservation Biology, and Science Process - at Southeast Missouri State university in Cape Girardeau. He conducted research in education, conservation, restoration, management and ecology in Bottomland Hardwood Forests of SE Missouri and Tropical Mist Forest in Northwestern Costa Rica. Alan is the author/co-author of over 100 publications in ecology, conservation, restoration, education, and environmental issues. He relocated to the Applegate Valley in 2012, and teaches “Climate Change and the Rogue Valley” as a ten week SOU/Osher Lifelong Learning Institute course. He is also the co-facilitator of the Southern Oregon Climate Action Now.

  • Board Member Since 2019

    Heidi was born in the South of Brazil in a very German setting-like town, and has been living in the US for over thirty years. She’s very happy to be part of this wonderful community by being a member of the Jacksonville Applegate Rotary Club, OSU Land Stewardship, OSU Jackson County Master Gardener and WHOW (Women Helping Other Women) groups. Her passion is the care and love for our environment, our soil and our food.

  • Board Member Since 2021

    Chas has worked with the Williams Creek Watershed Council for over twenty years as Project Manager since graduating from University of Oregon with a MS in geology. Chas worked with the Applegate River Watershed Council for two years on the basin wide monitoring program and now holds a position on the APWC Board. He completed the East Fork Sediment Study and road inventory while implementing projects to reduce erosion in three major erosive sites. He developed, collected data, and completed a detailed groundwater study of Williams Valley measuring wells, stream flow, and compiling maps to show surface water and groundwater connections, designed to find solutions to low stream flow in summer months. Chas helped complete a detailed geologic map and analysis of the Williams Watershed published in the Groundwater Analysis of 2005. In 2003 he initiated the East Fork Williams Creek Instream Restoration projects for three years and completed working with 15 landowners and placed over 300 logs in 50 instream salmon habit structures. He then initiated the West Fork Williams Creek projects and worked for five years to place logs and boulders at over 35 sites using over 500 logs and boulders. He planned and helped design a large boulder weir at the Bryant Elder irrigation diversion, and constructed log and boulder habitat restoration and erosion control structures upstream and downstream of diversion site. This boulder weir now stands as an example of what can be done with boulders to replace and improve push up dams and improve habitat on stream channels.

    The Williams Creek Watershed Council has invested over $800,000 to accomplish salmon restoration within the 52,800 acre watershed. Most of these funds were used restoring streams within lower elevation sections of the watershed. The US BLM manages the higher elevation areas which consist of approximately 50% of the watershed. The priority restoration needs within the watershed were 1) high summer water temperature, 2) lack of woody debris, pools, and stream complexity, 3) fish barriers and 4), low summer water flows.

    WCWC has completed what may be 50% of the high priority sites for salmon restoration within the Williams Watershed, which is only 10% of the entire Applegate River Watershed.

  • Board Member Since 2022

    Mary has been a board member since 2022 and an important member of the APWC Cultural Committee since 2020. She is retired from 35 years in Theatre Arts and Arts Education. Mary is a member of the Jackson County Cultural Coalition, the past chair and board member of Gold Hill Can-Do, an advisor to the Cantrell-Buckley Park committee, an active member of the Applegate Partnership Cultural Committee, and active in several groups supporting Indigenous Peoples causes.

    Mary is a descendant of the pioneer Buckley family who homesteaded in the Applegate Valley in 1854.