The WALPA Board of Directors is pleased to announce its slate of candidates for the 2013 Board elections. Elections are held at each year’s conference in the fall; the current election will fill positions to be vacated at the October 2013 WALPA Conference in Vancouver (see related article). WALPA seeks a Board of Directors that balances regions and backgrounds including individuals representing agencies, consultants, educators and lake residents.
If you are interested in running for office in 2014, please contact any member of the Board of Directors during the coming Board year. The WALPA Board consists of the President-elect, President, Past-president, Secretary, Treasurer, ten Directors, and an alternate Director.
Board members who will continue to serve until the 2014 WALPA conference are:
President: Chris Knutson
Past-president: Jim Gawel
Treasurer: Josh Wozniak
Directors: Jonathan Frodge, Susanne Marten, Jeff Tepper and Tom Woolf
Positions to be filled in October 2013 include President-elect, Secretary (two-year term), and six Directors (each elected for a two-year term).
Meet the candidates
President-elect
Ellen Preece
Ellen received her B.S. in Environmental and Resource Economics from the University of New Hampshire in 2002. After completing a year of AmeriCorps service and working as a hydrology technician for the U.S. Forest Service, Ellen returned to school to study freshwater science. Ellen completed her M.S. in Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University in 2010. Currently she is pursuing a Ph.D. at WSU, where her research focuses on the accumulation of cyanobacteria toxins in fish species consumed by humans. In addition to her own research, Ellen also works in the WSU limnology lab monitoring the water quality of several lakes in Eastern Washington. Working with local Indian tribes, lake communities and lake managers, Ellen helps sample lake water for nutrient analysis and is also responsible for enumerating and identifying phytoplankton collected from these lakes. The information she collects is used to help make restoration decisions and maintain good water quality in Eastern Washington lakes. In her free time, Ellen enjoys cooking, hiking, biking and traveling.
Secretary
Jeremy Jenkins
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Jeremy grew up among thousands of lakes and forest lands. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, he received Bachelors of Science degrees in Geographic Information Sciences and Geoscience – Environmental Analysis. More recently, he completed a Master’s of Science degree in Geography at the University of Idaho in Moscow, with concentrations in Climate Change, Water Resources, and GIS Modeling. Jeremy has worked in both terrestrial and aquatic science, focusing on forest microclimates with the U.S. Forest Service, and stream surveying and lake management with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, in Coeur d’Alene. Currently, he is Lake and Water Resource Manager at the Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District. Jeremy loves to explore new places with his two dogs, backpack and mountain bike, to collect maps, and to experience the diverse lakes of the Pacific Northwest. He is passionate about working collaboratively to find science-based solutions to our growing list of environmental issues.
Directors
Randy Hadland
Randy Hadland is currently the Northwest Regional Manager for YSI. He graduated from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with a degree in ecological and environmental biology and a minor in chemistry. Before his time at UNLV, Randy attended the University of San Francisco in their marine biology program. Randy’s first position was as a biologist at the Mirage Dolphin Habitat. His focus for the five years he worked with the Mirage was water quality and animal husbandry. The next six years of his career was spent as Aquatic Biologist for the City of Las Vegas. This position was focused on water quality, and Randy led the Lake Mead monitoring program, which included studying the reservoir and all its tributaries. The size of Lake Mead and its high-profile role as both a popular recreational destination and an end point for treated wastewater effluent (supplying drinking water for millions of people in Nevada, California and Arizona) amplified water quality concerns. This position involved Randy in a large total maximum daily loading (TMDL) program for phosphorous and ammonia; Lake Mead is also one of the few reservoirs to have a direct water quality standard for chlorophyll. Other duties in Las Vegas included modeling projects, studying harmful algal blooms, and identifying aquatic invasives. In the summer of 2006, Randy and his family moved from the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas to the glorious Pacific Northwest and Randy joined YSI. He now has more than 16 years of experience as an aquatic biologist. His position at YSI involves him in all facets of water quality and quantity, including learning to use multiparameter instruments and acoustic Doppler devices for hydrologic studies, customer sales and support, and conducting water quality and flow measurement studies to support customers.
Frank Wilhelm
Frank Wilhelm is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho, in beautiful Moscow. Frank has been interested in the outdoors and biology since he played near and in streams and ponds in his neighborhood as a kid. Frank combined that love for the watery outdoors with a rigorous science education that now sees him teaching limnology and researching aquatic ecosystems. Frank joined the University of Idaho in 2007 after six years at Southern Illinois University where he also taught limnology and undertook lake restoration research. That was preceded by a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in New Zealand, and a Ph.D. at the University of Alberta focused on high alpine lake research in the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks. Frank’s interests include food web dynamics, cyanobacteria, cave ecosystems and the restoration of lake water quality for future generations. Personal interests include being outside near, on, or in water, fishing, building and using small watercraft, biking, hiking and snowshoeing.
Amy Martin
Amy is the Wetland Specialist with the Colville Confederated Tribes. She is working to develop a sustainable wetland monitoring program for the Reservation that tracks acreage, water quality and multiple cultural resources. The information will be used by multiple natural resource programs during project development, and will help prioritize protection and restoration efforts. Amy received her M.S. from WSU in Natural Resource Science. Her experience includes laboratory nutrient measurement, water quality sampling, macroinvertebrate identification and IBI analysis, food web assessment and plant identification. In her free time Amy enjoys cooking, hiking, cross country skiing and exploring northeastern Washington.
Siana Wong
Siana is a recent M.S. graduate student in the Environmental Science-Freshwater Ecology program at Western Washington University. She conducted her graduate research on phytoplankton in mountain lakes of the North Cascades under direction of her advisor, Dr. Robin Matthews, and defended her thesis in June 2012. Before graduate school, Siana worked from 2007-2011 at The Nature Conservancy in the Klamath Basin, Oregon, as the water quality monitoring technician/specialist for a large wetlands restoration project on Upper Klamath Lake. She also spent three years doing seasonal field work for the National Park Service in fisheries and aquatic sciences at Yellowstone, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, and Crater Lake National Parks. Siana received her B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Oklahoma.
Isabel Ragland
Isabel is the Water Quality Coordinator for the Stream Team Program with Pierce Conservation District. She has worked for Pierce Conservation District since 1999, coordinating the stream and lake volunteer monitoring program and other special projects, assisting with habitat restoration projects, macroinvertebrate sampling, and stormwater education activities and outreach. Isabel has an M.S. in Zoology from Auburn University.
Karl Bruun
Karl has been an Environmental Scientist with the Microbiology section at the King County Environmental Laboratory, Department of Natural Resources since 1990. He has served as the technical coordinator for Quantitative Phytoplankton Analysis, DOE Algae Control Project, Water Reuse, Marine Ambient and Beaches, Lakes, Streams, Trouble Call, Shellfish, CSO, and Freshwater Swim Beaches. In 2008 he established an independent contractor algae analysis laboratory and has done work on sites in Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New York, the Columbia River, Manitoba, Alberta, Panama and the Philippines. His interests include freshwater and marine algal taxonomy and establishing digital photomicroscopy libraries of the algae present in the lakes, streams, ponds and ditches of western Washington, along with marine locals in Puget Sound. He holds AAS degrees in Medical Laboratory Technology and Environmental Technology. When not working, Karl enjoys relaxing on the golf course.
