Northern Alaska Environmental Center

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Arctic Action

Yukon Flats Land Trade EIS public comment Re-opens

Yukon Flats Land Swap Public Hearing TUESDAY MARCH 4!

White Mountains and Beaver Creek Wild River threatened by Road, Pipeline

Boreal Briefs

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Denali Watch

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Global Warming

Polar Bears listed as threatened species!!

Energy Talking Points - Know your options

How to reduce the cost of energy - please attend!

Local Lists

Energy Efficiency Help now!

Action Alert! Take Governor Palin's Survey.

Camp Habitat Benefit: 2007 Tex Mex Dinner & Latin Music Jam!

Mining Memos

Alaska's Plunge into the Mining Boom

Court Rules in Favor of Clean Water: Kensington Mine’s Tailings Plan Illegal

Court Re-Affirms Injunction to Protect Clean Water at Kensington Mine

Northern Line

What is Wilderness really?

Energy Odds and Ends

Forest Facts – Boreal Carbon Credits

Press Releases

Teshekpuk Lake Court Victory

Lord John Browne: Fix this Mess of spills and Leaks on Alaska's North Slope

It's time, temperature to plug in (Guest Opinion in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

Staff

David van den Berg (Executive Director) graduated college and came to Alaska in 1989 to help clean up oil from the Exxon Valdez. He then moved to Fairbanks to intern for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. He joined the Center's staff in 1991-93 and again 1995-96. He is a partner in a wilderness guiding company that operates throughout the Brooks Range and Alaska's North Slope.

Sara Elzey (Assistant Director & Controller) Born in Alaska and raised in Fairbanks, Sara earned a B.S. in Psychology and an MBA in Business Administration from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. She joined the Center in 2001. And avid skijorer, she likes winter more than summer, but enjoys outdoor activities in all seasons. Her favorite activity is flying around the local skijoring trails behind her three Alaskan Huskies, Shadow, Myst & Ayla.

Lori Hanemann (Local Issues Coordinator) came to Alaska in 1996, and spent her first five years of Alaskan life in the arctic town of Bettles. There, she worked in the tourism industry, and enjoyed skiing and exploring the Brooks Range. She's originally from Washington, where she graduated college and worked as a geriatric nutritionist. Lori moved to Fairbanks in 2001, where she lives with her two kids and four dogs. She began as a volunteer at the Center in 2006, and joined the staff in 2007. She enjoys playing with her kids, writing, geocaching, reading, camping, and being on any river.

Erinn Hatter (Camp Habitat Summer Camps Director) hails from Pennsylvania where she earned her B.S. and M.A. in Fine Art and Visual Arts Education in 2005. She first came to Fairbanks in 2007 to enjoy the endless days of summer on an opportunistic whim, after spending two years teaching art in New York City. After readjusting from the initial culture shock that goes along with moving from a four story walk-up in Manhattan to a dry cabin in Goldstream Valley, she realized she just couldn’t stay away from Alaska for long. She is very excited to be back, and even more so to be spending this summer in Fairbanks as Camp Director. Erinn hopes to bring those memorable summer programs to the youth of Fairbanks with the same success as her predecessor, Jenny Day, and in her free time take advantage of all that the community has to offer. Erinn makes prints on reused paper, paintings on old canvases, and stories of real life on the web.

Pamela A. Miller (Arctic Coordinator) Pamela A. Miller (Arctic Coordinator) has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from The Evergreen State College and M.S. in Journalism from the University of Oregon. She came to Alaska about 25 years ago to study fish at Denali National Park. For eight years she served the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, six of them in Fairbanks, Alaska. As wildlife biologist for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge she studied bird habitats on the coastal plain and was a field monitor of seismic oil exploration. She reviewed the impacts of oil development projects in Prudhoe Bay for the Fairbanks FWS field office. She worked for The Wilderness Society as Assistant Regional Director in Anchorage and Alaska Program Director in Washington DC and chaired the Alaska Coalition working nationwide to protect the Arctic Refuge. In 1996 she opened Arctic Connections, a small business focused on Arctic oil impact research and wilderness guiding for non-profit organizations and media. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio where she played the flute, rode bicyles, and learned to dance. Pam joined NAEC in January, 2006.

Kaarle Strailey (Research Associate) Kaarle moved to Fairbanks in 2004 to study climate change impacts as a research assistant at UAF after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, with B.A.s in Environmental Sciences and Earth and Planetary Science. He started volunteering at the Center in 2005, and has had some contract positions here as well. He enjoys doing anything that gets him out into the wilds.

Laenne Thompson (Communications, Development & Education Director) has worked for several years in the field of youth development at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Ypsilanti MI. She was first a staff member in 1991 and later directed the model summer youth camp (1998 - 1999, 2004 - 2006), the High/Scope Institute for IDEAS. Concurrently, Laenne developed, designed & delivered numerous training modules to hundreds of youth and adult participants from school and community-based after-school programs. She recently completed work on the three-year validation study of the Youth Program Quality Assessment, a tool used to promote youth development best pratices in youth serving organizations. Laenne completed two years of undergraduate course work at Wesleyan University 1989-91 in Middletown CT and one year at Sarah Lawrence College in Florence, Italy in 1991-92. She received a B.S. from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan in 2001. Laenne's interests include organic farming, cooking, photography, electronic music, foreign films, modern art, camping, hiking and dogs. Laenne joined the Northern Center in March 2006.

Zak Richter (Mining Coordinator) Zak first arrived in Alaska in the summer of 1992 to participate in a chemistry internship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has a B.S. in Biology from Alma College, MI and a M.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Northern Iowa. His Thesis work addressed the bioavailability of oil to microorganisms in marine intertidal sediments. Zak has worked in the environmental field since moving to Fairbanks in 1996. He enjoys Alaskan winters and has been known to run with dogs on occasion. Zak joined the Northern Center in January 2008.

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Northern Alaska Environmental Center Board

The board's general responsibilities are to: plan for the organization’s future; support strategic plan development and evaluate its execution, approve annual operating plan, evaluate programs and operations regularly; act as fiscal oversight; ensure adequate resources to achieve the organization’s mission; evaluate and implement fund raising programs; ensure that the organization’s programs and services appropriately address the majority of our member’s environmental interests; represent and promote the organization to the membership, general public, governments, foundations and other key stakeholder groups; promote collaborative action with other organizations; respect and treat politely all other individuals and organizations even though they may have vastly divergent viewpoints from our own; develop board membership; select and support the Executive Director; approve personnel policies; and encourage and support volunteer involvement. The board formed several committees to carry out its work; Executive, Governance, Issues, Education/Outreach, Finance/Fundraising, and Facilities.

Officer positions and committiees are listed for each board member in parentheses after their names.

Dan Adams (Governance, Issues, and Finance Committees) has a B.A. in Health Communications from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is an RN and a Certified Healthcare Quality Manager working for Tanana Chiefs Conference since 1994. He was a member of the Alaska Native Health Board Epidemiology Center Advisory Board member for 6 years. A resident of Alaska since 1969, Dan joined the Board of Directors in 2002.

Marjorie Cole (Secretary; Executive and Education Committees) has an M.A. in English from UAF and an M.L.S. from the University of Washington. After 15 years as a teacher and librarian (including 6 months as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 7 Librarian) she now writes full time. Her stories, poems, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and her novel "Correcting the Landscape" received the 2004 Bellwether Prize.

Nicole J. Fliss, M.D., (President; Executive, Governance, and Finance Committees) graduated from University of Michigan Medical School in 1995 and went on to complete her Family Practice Residency in Marquette, Michigan, July 1998. She then entered Air Force active duty to repay a scholarship for med school. This brought her to Alaska. Now out of the service, she focuses her career on reproductive health care and substance abuse treatment. Her free time is spent in the garden, on the dog trail or the river. Her first visit to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was via a self-guided rafting trip down the Kongakut River in June 2002 where she witnessed the Porcupine Caribou herd migration off the Coastal Plain. She joined the NAEC Board in June 2005.

Roger Kaye (Issues Committee) first joined the Center in the late 1970s. He trapped in the bush for several years and in 1978, began working for the Fish & Wildlife Service in the Upper Yukon, Koyukuk, and Yukon Delta areas. For the last 21 years he has been a wilderness specialist and airplane pilot at the Arctic Refuge. A Ph.D. in Wilderness Studies, he has taught Wilderness Management and Environmental Psychology at UAF, and writes about the history, values, and protection of wilderness.

Jeff Merkel (Governance and Education Committees) has been a Northern Center Board member since 2002. He was a Lutheran minister for 25 years in New York City, Philadelphia, and at Holden Village in Washington State before he moved to Alaska. Here he has directed a Community Collaboration of 100 stakeholders (sponsored by Alaska Center for the Environment) on development in South Side Denali, freelanced for Alaska Conservation Foundation, and the Alaska Rainforest Campaign. Jeff joined the board in 2002. He’s presently a stay-at-home dad for his son (with Marin Kuizenga), Matteo, born in 2005.

Karl Monetti, VMD (Issues Committee) has a B.S. in Biology from Moravian College and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in 1969. He was born in Irvington, New Jersey and lived nearby in Maplewood, NJ, a suburb of Newark, until age 11, when he moved to western New Jersey near Delaware Water Gap. There he was instantly thrust into a natural environment and was left to his own devices for the next 6 years, learning first hand how to enjoy, live in, get along with and nurture nature. A brief stint in the Boy Scouts taught him a bunch of good knots and how to build better fires. He learned to play guitar from an aunt at age 12 and has been playing ever since. Remodelling (as in tearing apart and rebuilding, room by room) a 175 year-old farmhouse gave him a good idea of how to build and fix stuff. He has built things (gunstocks then, dog sleds, cabins, later, most recently guitars of his own design), hunted, fished, hiked and canoed ever since. He drove to Alaska May 1971 to visit an old vet school roommate working at Ft Greely. Monetti worked construction as he began his own veterinary practice in and around North Pole. He opened North Pole Veterinary Hospital in August 1971 and sold it August 2006. Karl has been writing letters to editor for the last three years, developing more of a conscience about everything he does in the context of the global picture with a focus on environment. "I find myself now with time and evergy to devote to helping address global warming/climate change/environmental issues in any way I can."

Franz Mueter (Issues Committee) has a M.Sc. in Biological Oceanography and Ph.D. in Fisheries Oceanography from the University of Alaska. Franz was born and raised in Germany. He currently works on marine fisheries issues in the North Pacific with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Franz is an avid mountaineer and enjoys exploring Alaska's wild places by foot, by boat, and on skis. Joined NAEC Board in 1998, left Board in 2000 and rejoined in 2002.

Ritchie Musick (Education Committee) received her B.A. in Zoology at UCLA and went on to earn a Master's degree at UCLA in Educational Curriculum. Ritchie has taught in both California and Alaska for a total of 28 1/2 years before retiring a year ago and taking a position on our Northern Center Board. In 1996 she accompanied her daughter who organized a youth study expedition to the Arctic Wildlife Refuge which became the subject of a documentary film titled "Arctic Quest".

Michael O'Brien (Treasurer; Executive, Issues and Finance Committee) has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montana, a M.A. in the Liberal Arts from St. John's College, and a masters degree in environmental law and law degree from Vermont Law School. He moved to Alaska in 1997 and was trail coordinator for Kenai Fjords National Park in Seward, Alaska. He is now a Fairbanks Public Defender and enjoys the outdoors on ski, foot and boat.

Carl Roland (Issues Committee) is a botanist by training and temperament and has collected wild plants on several continents for various scientific studies. He earned a M.Sc. degree in botany from U.A.F. and currently works as a Plant Ecologist for Denali National Park. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys throwing pots, playing soccer, skiing, boating, fiddling around with guitars, and making small doodads out of bits of string. Carl joined the Northern center Board in Dec. 2006.

Bill Schneider (Vice President; Executive, Education and Issues Committees) Bill Schneider is a cultural anthropologist by training and runs the oral history program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is particularly interested in examples of wise stewardship by people who live in rural and urban Alaska and hopes that, as a board member, he will be able to document and bring some of these examples to the public's attention.

Mary Shields (Education and Finance Committees) is a musher, author, and local business owner. She was the first woman to finish the 1,049 mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race. In international racing, she and her team ran in the Yukon Quest and the Hope Race from Alaska to Siberia. She has owned and run "Tails of the Trail," a local tourism business, since 1984. She has also written five books and been the subject of a PBS documentary.

Trey Simmons (Issues and Finance Committees) is an Aquatic Ecologist for the National Park Service, Central Alaska Network, where he is developing and implementing a long-term ecological monitoring program for the streams and rivers of Denali National Park and Preserve, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve to detect the effects of climate change on aquatic ecosystems. He holds an M.S. in molecular genetics from the University of California, San Francisco and will earn his Ph.D. in ecology in May 2008) from Utah State University. He has a special interest in large carnivore ecology and predator-prey interactions. He joined the Board in 2008.