Meet the Team

Alan Airth is a member of the Board of Directors at Mars, Incorporated. He is chairman of the Board Digital Sub-Committee and the Board Advisor Search Committee, as well as serving on the Audit and the Benefits Funding & Investment Oversight Committees.

Prior to joining the Mars board in 2016, Alan was a successful commercial real estate executive. He has extensive experience in asset management, property investment, and executive leadership with a variety of national firms as both manager and owner. Alan was a trusted advisor to Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank during the 2008-2012 great recession. He served on the SoCal Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties Board of Directors for 10 years holding multiple leadership roles including President of the organization.

He serves on the American Prairie Board of Directors and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation Board. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America, and a lifetime member of the National Eagle Scout Association. He holds a Fellowship with the National Association of Corporate Directors and is a member of the Private Directors Association. Alan has a Bachelor’s degree in finance and real estate from the University of Arizona and earned his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

Alison is the CEO of American Prairie. She has led the organization as CEO since February 2018 and had various leadership and management roles with the organization since 2007, including communications, marketing and branding, institutional partnerships and philanthropy. Ms. Fox holds an MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, where she focused on marketing and nonprofit management, and a BA in History from Dartmouth College. She is a member of the Big Sky Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization, Inc. (YPO) and the Advisory Board of William & Mary’s Institute for Integrative Conservation.

A seasoned technology and impact executive, Bill Hilf’s career spans more than 20 years leading complex business, product development, and philanthropic initiatives for global organizations such as Microsoft, HP, and IBM as well as a variety of start-ups in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Hilf currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Vale Group, formerly known as Vulcan LLC, the project management firm founded in 1986 by philanthropists Jody Allen and the late Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Hilf leads the company’s three focus areas comprising award-winning, sustainable real estate development, a diverse range of asset and project management supporting the Paul G. Allen Estate and Trust, and strategic advising to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and its portfolio of charitable investments in wildlife conservation, ocean health, vibrant communities, and the arts.

Hilf serves as board chair of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), is a board member for Woodland Park Zoo, and sits on the advisory board for Humanity 2.0. In addition, he is on the board of Grumeti Fund, dedicated to the conservation of the Serengeti, and serves as an advisor to X4Impact, a leading data insights and advisory services company for social innovation in the U.S. He is also founder of High Five Hope, a nonprofit to help homeless children experience greater confidence, leadership, and hope through the power of sports.

Hilf completed his undergraduate studies at California State University-Fullerton and received his master’s degree from Chapman University.

Bob Greenlee is the Chief Operating Officer of Tusk Holdings, a holding company that manages the operations of Tusk Venture Partners, Tusk Strategies, Pericles Group, and Tusk Philanthropies. He also currently serves on the boards of the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition and Institute, and as board secretary/general counsel to the Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation.

Previously Mr. Greenlee served in various positions in Illinois state government, including serving ultimately as Deputy Governor, and as an attorney with Kirkland and Ellis LLP and The Quinlan Firm. Mr. Greenlee holds a BA from Yale University, a JD from the University of Chicago Law School, and a PhD in History of Religions from the University of Chicago.

Mr. Greenlee has a lifelong interest in conservation, and a long record of advocacy on behalf of conservation, environmental and clean tech causes, including work with The Rockefeller Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Good Food Institute, and the Citizens Utility Board.

Danny was born in Wichita, KS, and attended Duke University, graduating with honors in 1989. Danny earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1998 and joined the Private Wealth Management Group of Goldman Sachs in 1998. He was made a vice president in 2001 and has been on the firm’s Leadership Council since 2008. While completing his MBA, Danny was a summer associate at Kansas City Equity Partners, a private venture capital fund. He currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Duke Financial Economics Center in Durham, NC. He also chairs the Investment Committee for the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation in St. Paul, MN.

Mr. Coulter served as Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Advisor at Warburg Pincus, focusing on the firm’s financial services practice from 2005 - 2014.

Mr. Coulter retired in September 2005 as vice chairman of J.P. Morgan & Chase Co. He previously served as Executive Chairman of its investment bank, asset and wealth management, and private equity business. Mr. Coulter was a member of the firm’s three person Office of the Chairman and also its executive committee.

Mr. Coulter came to J.P. Morgan Chase via its July 2000 acquisition of The Beacon Group, a small merchant banking operation. Before joining The Beacon Group, Mr. Coulter was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the BankAmerica Corporation and Bank of America NT & SA. His career at Bank of America was from 1976 to 1998 and covered a wide range of banking activities.

He served on the board of Aeolus Re, MBIA, Webster Bank, Sterling Financial and the Strayer Corporation. He currently is on the board of The Providence Service Corp., Triton International, and Varo Money, Inc. He also serves on the boards of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Asia Society of Northern California, American Prairie Reserve, Third Way, Macaulay Honors College, and IQ2.

He received both his B.S. and his M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and currently serves as a Trustee for Carnegie Mellon.

George joined Kelso in 1985 and is a Senior Advisory Partner and Managing Director. He has served as a director of more than 20 former Kelso affiliated companies and as lead director of two public companies. George earned an M.B.A. from the Stanford GSB in 1982 and a B.A. in Business Administration, summa cum laude, from the University of Puget Sound in 1978. He was a C.P.A. and holds a C.M.A.

He served as American Prairie's Board Chairman from 2013 to 2024 and has been a director since 2008. He is also a director of Rx Green Technologies, Square Roots, Survey.com, and Storefront. George is also an advisory director of Investco and US WorldMeds, and is also an advisor to the Investment Committee of the New York Botanical Garden and the University of Puget Sound. He served from 2010 for 6 years on the Stanford GSB Advisory Council and he was treasurer of the University of Puget Sound Board of Trustees, on which he served from 1989 for 23 years.

A lifelong equestrian, Mrs. Mars is the owner of a working farm that specializes in organic farming and equine training and breeding. The O'Connors (David and Karen), Olympic Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medalists in the sport of Three-day Eventing, have trained and ridden her competition horses at her two locations in The Plains, Virginia, and Ocala, Florida. Mrs. Mars is the retired Vice President of Mars, Inc. – responsible for development of new food products and the marketing strategy of same. A strong supporter of conservation groups concerning land use and the environment. Advocate and supporter of women’s education and their employment in the business community. Historic preservation has long been a passion, and she is actively involved with Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, Library of Congress, Journey Through Hallowed Ground, and the National Archives. A passionate promoter of the arts – Chairman Emeritus of the Washington National Opera, Secretary of the Kennedy Center, a member of the board of trustees of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as well as Vice Chairman of the National Sporting Library & Museum.

Jay and his wife, Karen, reside on their ranch and vineyards outside of Healdsburg, California, 70 miles north of San Francisco, where they grow grapes and produce a modest amount of wine. Jay is a retired technology business executive, having served as Chief Executive Officer of Optical Coating Laboratory in the late 1990s and President and Chief Operating Officer of JDS Uniphase, a fiber optics company, until his retirement in 2001. Prior to his operating roles, Jay also served for 18 years as a management consultant and senior partner with McKinsey & Company. Currently, he remains active as a director of several public companies, a trustee of his independent secondary school in Pennsylvania, and several local community organizations in Sonoma County. Having grown up outside of Philadelphia in a very East Coast family, where “the West” meant Ohio, Jay connected strongly to Montana during a summer job in 1961 working on the Minuteman missile complex in the central part of the state.

Launched in 2005, Mr. Talpins provides strategic direction for Element and is responsible for all major investment decisions for the Fund. Under his leadership, Element’s assets under management have increased from $250M at inception to approximately $14 billion today, and the investors in the Fund include some of the world’s largest pension, endowment and sovereign wealth funds.

Mr. Talpins conducts his philanthropy through the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation, which seeks to create opportunities for children to achieve their full potential, support the long-term prosperity for Israel, and conserve open spaces and wildlife. Mr. Talpins serves on the board of the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy and the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, served on the board of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), and is active in numerous other charities and philanthropic organizations.

Mr. Talpins graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale University with Distinction in Economics and Applied Mathematics (focus in Finance), and presently lives in New York with his wife, Mara, their two children, and family dog.

As a native Montanan, John attended the University of Montana before earning a graphic design degree from the Art Institute in Seattle, Washington, in 1987. In 2000, John founded Banovich Fine Art in Livingston, Montana. Subsequently, in 2012, opened Studio West in Carnation, Washington.

In 2004, John founded the Wildscapes Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3. John’s extensive 30 years of travels revealed his aspiration to share his love for Africa, culminating in the inception of Banovich Wildscapes Travel in 2018 aimed at supporting keystone wildlife landscapes for critical conservation efforts. John is the executive producer of two award-winning documentaries, “The Edge of Existence” and “The Last Horns of Africa”.

In 2022, John became a member of the American Prairie board. Notable, he previously served on the boards of the Society of Animal Artists and the Craighead Institute. He is also a member of the Shikar Safari Club, holds a life membership with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and has been a distinguished member of the Society of Animal Artists since 1995. His accomplishments include receiving the CJ McElroy Award from Safari Club International and being nominated in 2023 for the Beretta Conservation Leadership Award. He has also acted as an Advisory Board Member for the Safari Club International Foundation. John established the “Award for Conservation Excellence – ACE” in 2017 and launched the Lion P.R.I.D.E. Initiative in 2007. He is recognized as an NBC “Cause Celebrity”.

Karen has devoted her energies to preserving America’s last few wild areas, believing land conservation and the preservation of natural habitats are key to providing a meaningful future for our children. Growing up in the wilds of Utah and then living and working in Connecticut and New York have led Karen to American Prairie, which she believes is the most exciting and meaningful land and wildlife conservation project in America today.

Along with serving on the American Prairie National Board of Directors, Karen serves on the boards of the Connecticut Land Conservation Council and The Nature Conservancy of Connecticut, and is actively involved with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and The Garden Clubs of America. Previously, Karen worked at the American Museum of Natural History. She enjoys travel, music, gardening, reading, puzzles, moments in nature, and above all, time with her four boys and husband, Sanjeev.

Karen received a B.A. in government from Harvard University and a M.A. in anthropology from Columbia University.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, an American conservationist, and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. For thirty years, she has been committed to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, inspiring activism, and fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation.

Kristine and her late husband, Douglas Tompkins, have protected approximately 14.8 million acres of parklands in Chile and Argentina through Tompkins Conservation and its partners, making them among the most successful national park-oriented philanthropists in history.

Through Tompkins Conservation and its offspring organizations, Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile, she has helped to create or expand 15 national parks, including two marine national parks, in Argentina and Chile, and works to bring back species that have gone locally or nationally extinct, such as the jaguar, red-and-green macaw, and giant river otters in Northeast Argentina, as well as Darwin’s rheas and extremely endangered huemul deer in Chile.

Kristine served as Patron for Protected Areas for the UN Environmental Programme from 2018-2022. The recipient of numerous honors, she was the first conservationist to be awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. Her 2020 TED Talk "Let's Make the World Wild Again" has been viewed over two million times.

Liliane is a dedicated philanthropist committed to wildlife protection and driving sustainability initiatives. A native of Switzerland, she also has deep roots in the American West. For many years, she was responsible for the family’s bison ranch in Wyoming, where she focused on restoring the pastures, recreating native grasslands and became excited about forming natural open spaces with public access. This endeavor not only promotes sustainable agriculture but also contributes to biodiversity preservation.

Passionate about sustainability, biodiversity and wildlife conservation, Liliane combines her experience in bison ranching with support for academic institutions, providing support for environmental law and education programs, furthering her mission to protect the environment.

In addition to Liliane’s role as a director of American Prairie, she also serves on the Board of Trustees of Pace University and works closely with the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace which has one of the world’s best environmental law programs. She is also a member of the Leadership Council Steering Committee at the Yale School of the Environment and has been serving on the board of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming for more than 15 years.

During her career Liliane gained broad financial expertise, which she now puts to use as the Managing Director of the Haub Family Office. She and her husband Christian have four children and divide their time between the United States and Germany.

Mara’s lifelong passion for wildlife began as a child and she has been actively involved with the Wildlife Conservation Society for almost 20 years, originally as a volunteer at the Central Park Zoo and she currently serves on their Council. She is passionate that educating children to appreciate wildlife is a key to society’s long-term support for the co-existence of humans with wildlife and wild spaces. Over the years, she has also volunteered at various education initiatives including the American Museum of Natural History and local schools. Mara loves experiencing wildlife and various cultures in developing nations, having traveled to over 40 countries.

Mara devotes the majority of her time to raising her two wonderful children and Italian Water Dog in New York. She looks forward to all the family time she spends with nature at their second home in Montana as well as looking forward to the day that large numbers of students from around the country can visit the bison herds and prairie dog towns on American Prairie.

Nancy Mueller’s interest in nature and marine preservation is derived from her worldwide experiences. Growing up in Latham, New York, she majored in biology and then chemistry at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York. Upon graduation, she joined her future husband, Glenn Mueller in Palo Alto, California, where he earned a Stanford MBA and she worked for Syntex Corporation in pharmaceutical chemistry.

Two children later and with a venture capital husband, Nancy started her own business, Nancy’s Specialty Foods, parlaying Nancy’s Quiche, both appetizers and entrees, to national distribution through retail and club store venues. She sold the business after 22 years of exciting entrepreneurism in 1999.

Widowed in 1994 and with a desire to dream, she had a Feadship Superyacht built for round-the-world cruising and SCUBA diving. Ten years later, after touring hundreds of remote islands and countries with friends and family, she sold the vessel and returned to a more normal life.

Nancy serves on the American Prairie National Board of Directors lives in Palo Alto, California, continues to travel extensively, and enjoys spending time in Hawaii.

Quique is a recognized leader with more than 20 years of experience as a founder, operator and investor in enterprise software and service organizations. Before starting Advisr in 2018, he founded Denali Strategy, a multichannel advertising platform and media consulting practice. Prior to that, he has held leadership positions in New York and London at Collective/Visto (acquired by Zeta Global), Digital Broadcasting Group (acquired by Alloy), Independent Television Networks and Operative. Quique is an active investor and serves on the board of several emerging technology businesses and funds. He lives in Bozeman, MT with his wife, daughter and son.

Steven N. Cousins is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Cousins Allied Strategic Advisors, LLC (CASA) that serves clients throughout the country. He was a partner at Armstrong Teasdale, LLP, a 250-person law firm with offices throughout the U.S. Mr. Cousins became Armstrong Teasdale’s first African American lawyer when he joined the firm in 1980. Four years later, he founded and chaired the firm’s first financial restructuring, reorganization and bankruptcy practice – the first associate to start a department at Armstrong Teasdale. In 1987, he became the firm’s first African American partner and one of the few in St. Louis. He served on the firm’s executive committee for 15 years and was one of Armstrong Teasdale’s top rainmakers for twice that long. He has represented global corporate clients such as Peabody Energy and Payless Shoes and high profile clients throughout the country, including a former U.S. Cabinet Member who was vindicated in a Justice Department investigation. He has been listed for 24 years in The Best Lawyers in America, named as a Missouri/Kansas Super Lawyer, and listed in Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the country’s top five bankruptcy lawyers. He is the 2017 recipient of the Martin J. Purcell award from the Missouri Bar Foundation. The award acknowledges an outstanding lawyer that has demonstrated an exceptional degree of competency, integrity, and civility in both professionalism and civic activities. Mr. Cousins received his JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1980 and BA from Yale University in 1977. An active community leader, Mr. Cousins was the general counsel and member on the executive committee of the St. Louis Regional Chamber of Commerce, vice-chairman of St. Louis Children’s Hospital board and is a St. Louis Art Museum trustee. In addition, he was outside general counsel for Concordance, a path-breaking program to reduce recidivism in St. Louis and beyond. He also served on Washington University’s National Council of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement. He served as the initial co-chair of the St. Louis Internship Program, an inner-city youth jobs program, replicated in 38 cities with more than 3,300 alumni. In addition, Mr. Cousins is a co-founder of the St. Louis Public Schools Foundation, served as a member of the University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor’s Council and the national Board of Governors of the Association of Yale Alumni, and was a Webster University trustee.He currently serves on the National Advisory Board of Harvard's prestigious Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Susan Matelich is a philanthropist, gardener, and volunteer. She is a CPR instructor, a crewmember and Treasurer of her local Volunteer Ambulance Corps, holding NY State, National Registry EMT certifications with wilderness training. Susan and her husband George are dedicated to aiding first-generation college and graduate students with scholarships at several universities. In 2008, Susan joined the board of American Prairie, and currently serves on the Governance Committee and is the Chair of the Safety Committee. In the fall of 2015, Susan joined the Board of Trustees of the New York Botanical Garden and serves on their Finance Committee. Born in Alberta, Canada, Susan moved to New York and earned a BS in Marketing, cum laude, from NYU’s Stern School of Business, and enjoyed a career as a commercial fashion model and spokesperson. Susan currently resides in Larchmont, New York, when not fly-fishing with her husband and three adult children and son-in-law in Montana.

Ann, Founder and former President of American Leadership Forum-Silicon Valley (ALF), started the organization on July 1, 1988 and led ALF to April 2000. She continues her involvement with ALF as a Senior Fellow, speaker and advisor.

Subsequently, she has been a consultant to nonprofit organizations. She has participated on numerous boards of directors and advisory boards.

In 2000, Ann was asked by Sean Gerrity, who she worked with in ALF, to join the Board of Directors for American Prairie Foundation (later American Prairie). Soon thereafter, Sean invited her to become the first Chair of the Board. Following 12 years leading ALF, Ann agreed to chair the board for only one year because she wanted more discretionary time. She served on the American Prairie Foundation Board for nine years.

She received a BA in history from the University of Washington in 1962 and an MA in Education from Stanford University in 1964.

Ann lives on the Stanford campus with her husband, Bob DeBusk, a Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at Stanford Medical School. They have a married son, a married daughter and one granddaughter.

Clyde grew up on a farm in Rudyard, Montana, near the Canadian border, where he witnessed the painful and joyful cycles of agricultural life. Clyde is a well-known artist for his western landscapes, which capture the beauty, rhythm, and harmony of each place he paints. His paintings of the West are not theatrical sets intended to reinforce regional mythology, but rather of places that he perceives as already disappearing during his own lifetime.

He was fortunate to be encouraged by his family in the pursuits of art and appreciation of music. Clyde learned early on to work hard and persevere against many kinds of obstacles. Rather than demeaning Clyde’s interests, Clyde’s father, a practical but open-minded farmer, bought his twelve-year-old son’s first painting. Clyde attended Eastern Montana College, in Billings, Montana. He lives outside of Bozeman with his wife, artist Carol Guzman. Clyde became involved in American Prairie with hopes to further connections with artists and writers for inspirational results, and joins the Advisory Board after several years on the Board of Directors.

Elizabeth was an American Prairie Board member from 2002 to 2016, serving as Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee. She first became involved in the project in 2001, just as American Prairie was being formed, and helped in the early years as Acting CFO.

She is a retired risk management executive whose career included senior market and credit risk management positions at Bankers Trust, Deutsche Bank, and Salomon Brothers. She was a Managing Director and Chief Credit Officer at Salomon Brothers from 1993 to 1997 when the firm was acquired by Smith Barney.

She has a BA from Harvard, where she studied French and German, and an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business. After retiring in 1999, she returned to South Strafford, Vermont, where she grew up. She loves living in Vermont and is active locally, serving as one of the Town's Trustees of Public Funds, as well as on the Endowment Committees of several local charities. She is an avid supporter of a number of conservation organizations in Vermont.

Gib Myers is emeritus partner of Mayfield Fund, a private venture capital partnership located in Menlo Park, California and was a Mayfield general partner from 1970 until his retirement in 1998. Since Mayfield’s founding in 1969 until his retirement, the firm invested in more than 350 companies and took approximately 100 companies public. Prior to joining Mayfield, Gib worked for Hewlett-Packard for four years in computer systems. He earned an A.B. degree in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College in 1964 and a M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1966.

Gib is the founder and previous chairman of the Entrepreneurs Foundation (EF), a non-profit with the mission of developing corporate citizenship and philanthropic efforts to benefit the community. Before merging with the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, there were 850 member companies, some 30,000 employees that helped more than 650 community organizations, and over $19 million in contributions that were made to the community. Gib is Vice Chairman of American Prairie after 10 years as Chairman.

Gib is a co-founder of the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Previously, he was a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Board, on the President’s Leadership Council of Dartmouth College, and a senior fellow and board member of the American Leadership Forum.

His personal interests are photography, skiing, golf and travel. Gib and his wife, Susan, live in Atherton and have two sons and a daughter.

Jeff Miller is President of JAMM Ventures, a business consulting company. Prior to establishing his firm, Jeff spent most of his career in operating companies. He was CEO of Documentum, Inc. (DCTM), an enterprise document management software company, from 1993 to 2001, and Chairman of the Board from 1999 to 2003, growing it from 15 employees into a publically traded NASDAQ company with 1,200 employees and revenues over $200 million. Jeff has more than 40 years of high tech experience, in semiconductors, hardware, and software companies, having spent the early years of his career at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, and holding senior marketing and general management executive positions at Adaptec and Cadence Design Systems. From 2002 through 2006, Jeff was a venture partner with Redpoint Ventures, focused on mentoring CEOs of several Redpoint companies, particularly those in the enterprise and infrastructure software markets.

Jeff has served on the Board of Directors of a number of high technology companies. He currently serves on the Board of one public company, ServiceNow (SaaS for IT; NOW NYSE). Jeff also serves on four philanthropic Boards: American Prairie (Emeritus Director); the Golden State Warriors Community Foundation (he is a minority owner of the GS Warriors); and two connected with Santa Clara University, the Board of Trustees and the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, where he Chairs the Advisory Board.

Jeff holds a Masters of Business Administration (1976) and a Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (1973) from Santa Clara University.

Mr. Anderson founded Anderson Global Macro LLC in 2012 and serves as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. He launched the Anderson Global Macro fund in May 2013.

From 2008 to 2011, Mr. Anderson served as Chief Investment Officer for Soros Fund Management and its principal entity, the Quantum Fund. Prior to joining Soros, Mr. Anderson was Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of BlackRock, Inc. Mr. Anderson co-founded BlackRock in 1988. Prior to founding BlackRock, Mr. Anderson worked in fixed income research at The First Boston Corporation and in portfolio management at Criterion Investment Management Company.

Mr. Anderson has served on the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Investors Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He currently serves on the board of Rice University in Houston and American Prairie in Montana. Mr. Anderson earned a BS in economics and finance from Nichols College in 1981, and an MBA from Rice University in 1983.

Sean Gerrity is the Founder of American Prairie and served as its President and as one of three founding board members from 2002 to early 2018.

Throughout 2001, Sean worked with Curt Freese of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and many others to determine an effective approach to the soon-to-be American Prairie project. In early 2002, he became American Prairie’s President. His initial priority was to assemble and slowly build, from scratch, a new, free-standing, Montana-based organization that would convert what had long been a spectacularly creative and ambitious conservation idea — carried forward and promoted by WWF and others — into steady, measurable, on-the-ground action.

American Prairie started with just two full-time employees. Sean and Dakota Meeks, with contracted help from Kayla Gerrity, began building and shaping the new organization’s infrastructure, systems and processes, and marketing and fundraising strategies. Most important was fleshing out and further articulating the holistic, compelling vision that would galvanize human energy and guide the actions of American Prairie and its collaborators over the next 17 years.

In early 2018, Sean passed the CEO role to his long-time colleague and fellow executive team member, Alison Fox. By that time, the organization had grown to 35 staff and 18 board trustees, raised more than $125 million dollars in private funding and had purchased twenty-six properties totaling nearly 400,000 private and leased acres. American Prairie had also built and opened two public campgrounds, Kestrel, and the Danny, Joey and Gigi Enrico Science and Education Center, and had reintroduced bison to the prairie.

By 2018, the National Geographic Society had included American Prairie as one of their most important examples of successful large-scale conservation efforts in the world as part of their Last Wild Places initiative. In addition, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute had officially partnered with American Prairie to lead its core science efforts.

Prior to joining the American Prairie effort, Sean was one of three original founders of Catalyst Consulting in Santa Cruz, California where he worked from 1985 until 2001. Catalyst, a firm specializing in organization development and management training and development, remains in business today and continues to work with clients around the world across a wide range of industries.
Sean grew up primarily in Great Falls, Montana, graduated from Montana State University and also attended the University of Oregon.

His current interests and projects include writing a book about his personal story of leaving private industry to take on the task of starting and building the American Prairie organization, and how he and his team kept the project moving forward during the very challenging early years. The book project is partially funded by the National Geographic Society and is scheduled for publication in early 2022.

He currently enjoys helping with American Prairie’s continued progress in his role as a board member, painting in oils and watercolors, and traveling and exploring the U.S. and the rest of the world with Kayla, his partner of 40 years. Kayla and Sean have a daughter Siri, a son Dylan, and grandson, Lewis.

Sean is a National Geographic Explorer and serves on the Advisory Council for African People and Wildlife, is on the Board of Directors for Namibian-based ORKCA, and the Advisory Council for the Kratt Brother’s Creature Hero Foundation.

Stephenie received her master’s degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Montana in 1984. She has written two books; The Lewis and Clark Companion and Why Sacagawea Deserves the Day Off along with numerous articles on western history. A passion for conservation and resource preservation sparked her ongoing involvement in several non-profit organizations including the Lewis and Clark Trust, American Prairie, and Preserve Montana. Governor Steve Bullock awarded her the Governor’s Humanities Award in February 2019. Stephenie lives in Helena, Montana with her husband John and enjoys paddling in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument every summer.

Susan has been a board member of American Prairie along with her husband Gib since 2002. The opportunity to assemble a huge prairie ecosystem full of wildlife in the 21st century is very compelling and exciting to her. Every time she visits the prairie she enjoys being on the landscape and going to find the bison herd. She and Gib would love to see a herd of 10,000 bison in their lifetime.

Susan has an interest in food sustainability and has been a member of a food investor group through the Philanthropy Workshop in San Francisco. She is also involved with FoodCorps a national nonprofit that connects kids to healthy food in schools. The intersecting issues of food, health, wellness and social justice are important ones to her. Susan is a member of Impact Partners, a social interest film fund that invests primarily in documentaries. IP has supported a number of films at the Sundance Film Festival. She is also on the advisory board of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. In the past she has served on an independent school board, Crystal Springs Uplands School and the Peninsula Bridge, an educational summer experience for underprivileged students. Susan has three children and eight grandchildren. She enjoys travel, golf, skiing, bridge, reading and spending time with her family. Susan holds a BA in German Studies from Stanford University.

Susan is an environmental and arts advocate. Before moving to Montana in 1992 with her family, she lived in Houston, Texas, where she was actively involved with the Contemporary Art Museum, The Menil Foundation, and the Museum of Fine Arts as a board member. Susan currently lives with her husband Roy in Missoula, Montana, and is vice president of SAROC, Inc., a family investment company.

Susan is co-founder/supporter of various non-profit organizations: Pacific Writers’ Connection in Honolulu, Families First in Boston and Missoula, Ohana Makamae, Hana Retreat, The Appleseed Foundation, ArtPix, and the PROP Foundation. She has served on the boards of the Orion Society, American Prairie, and the Charles Engelhard Foundation.

Tim Kelly is Executive Director of EarthHQ, the media arm of the Global Commons Alliance - a collaboration developed by world leading institutions, that brings together scientific, business, government, and nongovernmental organizations to maintain the resilience and stability of Earth’s natural systems.

Previously, Tim was a media executive, Emmy Award-winning film producer, and former President of the National Geographic Society. He also serves as an advisor to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Planet3. In addition, Tim serves on the Board of the African wilderness reserve & safari company Great Plains Conservation Trust, and on the Board of the leading environmental science journalism organization, Mongabay.org.

As President of the National Geographic Society, Tim transitioned the primarily print-based organization to a global multimedia force and engineered the launch of the National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Films, and a wide array of digital media products.

Bill has distinguished himself in diverse fields, including education, development, and entertainment. With enthusiasm and dedication, he has undertaken numerous challenges during his career. One of the greatest was his role as president and chief executive officer of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation, which was charged with raising $257 million from the private sector toward the total cost of $275 million for a world-class performing arts center for Dallas.

A native of Dallas, Bill earned a Bachelor of Music degree from SMU in 1965 and a Master of Education degree from the University of North Texas in 1970. Returning to SMU in 1973, he devoted the next 25 years to a variety of roles, serving for the last seven years as vice president of Development and External Affairs. Bill left SMU in 1998 to become president and CEO of Up With People, headquartered in Denver. Two years later, he returned to Dallas to assume leadership of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation.

A 20-year resident of greater Glasgow, McKean is a journalist covering hunting, outdoor recreation, and conservation beats for a variety of publications. He's served as a newspaper editor across Montana and the Northwest, worked for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and is a former Montana Fish & Wildlife commissioner. The former editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life magazine, McKean is currently Outdoor Life's Hunting and Conservation Editor and serves on the boards of the Mule Deer Foundation and Wild Montana. He coaches Glasgow's track and cross-country teams.

Bill Berg is a retired public land manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System (NWR). His entire career was spent on the National Wildlife Refuge System in Montana and North Dakota. For the last 20 plus years of his career, he was the Deputy Project Leader of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. He also worked at the National Bison Range in the early eighties. Bill has a passion for public lands, good wildlife habitat, quality outdoor recreation, fishing, and hunting. He does wood working, spends time with family, and plays hockey in his spare time. He keeps involved by staying active with a variety of community service groups. His current challenge is trying to manage an exploding vole population, on a one half acre native/tame grass planting , that is destroying his adjacent garden.

Bill’s family has been ranching in Montana since 1956. He and his wife Dana have owned and operated their current ranch in Musselshell County since 1978. They have three children, two boys working in Montana, and a daughter, a fireman paramedic in Connecticut, who plans to return to the family ranch. During the last 40 years, Bill has worked with several local organizations and efforts committed to taking care of land and community. In 2019, he and Dana were the first Montana recipients of the Aldo Leopold Award. Bill participates as a rancher member, and sometimes facilitator, with several working groups in Central Montana, covering nine counties, including the Musselshell Watershed Coalition, Winnett ACES, the CMR Community Working Group, and the Musselshell Valley Community Foundation. Bill has assisted several ranch families with succession planning facilitation.

Bill has a particular interest in figuring out how ranchers and local communities monitor the health of their working landscapes and communities – particularly within the Grassland Biome of North America. Since February of 2016, Bill has facilitated a broad and diverse group of partners, called the Rangeland Monitoring Group (RMG), dedicated to finding an effective means to achieve this objective. Relatedly, he serves on the Planning Committee for the Central Grasslands Roadmap and the Life in the Land Project (lifeintheland.org). Certainly not unrelated, his practice as a Soto Zen Priest, has helped inform and support his appreciation for our shared interdependence and the need to imagine solutions respectful of everyone’s unmet needs.

Clyde grew up on a farm in Rudyard, Montana, near the Canadian border, where he witnessed the painful and joyful cycles of agricultural life. Clyde is a well-known artist for his western landscapes, which capture the beauty, rhythm, and harmony of each place he paints. His paintings of the West are not theatrical sets intended to reinforce regional mythology, but rather of places that he perceives as already disappearing during his own lifetime.

He was fortunate to be encouraged by his family in the pursuits of art and appreciation of music. Clyde learned early on to work hard and persevere against many kinds of obstacles. Rather than demeaning Clyde’s interests, Clyde’s father, a practical but open-minded farmer, bought his twelve-year-old son’s first painting. Clyde attended Eastern Montana College, in Billings, Montana. He lives outside of Bozeman with his wife, artist Carol Guzman. Clyde became involved in American Prairie with hopes to further connections with artists and writers for inspirational results, and joins the Advisory Board after several years on the Board of Directors.

Dave owned and operated the Lewistown News-Argus newspaper for 25 years, and later worked as internal operations manager for a national sporting goods buying group headquartered in Lewistown. He has been active in the community of Lewistown, serving on the school board and city commission, and currently as vice chair of a campaign to raise $15 million for a comprehensive cancer care center at Central Montana Medical Center.

An Army veteran, Byerly has been involved with a number of community and economic development efforts. He and his wife, Donna, are active in First Presbyterian Church in Lewistown, where she serves as interim music director and he as chair of the finance committee. They have three children and are grateful for the foundation of community and lifestyle that Central Montana, its schools and people, have provided for their family.

I was born (1950) and raised in Boise, Idaho. I retired in 2016 after a forty-two-year federal civil service career. Thirty-two years were with the National Park Service where I held various park and regional positions. The last fourteen years of my career, I served as Superintendent at Mount Rainier National Park, Interim Superintendent at Yosemite NP, and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, and from 2011 until I retired in 2016, I served as Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. During this time, I also served as a National Park Service Senior Executive, a member of the National Leadership Council, along with the NPS Director, guiding NPS policy. As a senior executive, I served on various committees and boards, including the board approving all construction projects for the NPS.

I graduated in 1972 from the University of Idaho with a BS in Biology and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force. In 1974, I earned a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Idaho.

I am married to my wife Barbara, celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. We have three children. All our children and their spouses and eight grandchildren live in Livingston, Montana.
Since retiring in 2016, I have been fishing, hiking, floating, hunting, golfing and engaging in all aspects of being a good, retired husband, father, and grandparent.

Dorothy grew up in Bozeman, Montana, received her BA from Colorado College in 1969, and her JD from American University in 1983. At the age of 23, Dorothy won a seat in the Montana House of Representatives where she served as the only woman in 1971. Serving eight terms she was known for her leadership on difficult issues she championed and her consensus-building approach. Dorothy was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1992, campaigned by riding her horse across the state, and narrowly lost the race. Since that time she briefly taught at a small rural school next to the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, and worked in administrative positions dealing with water, the courts and criminal justice. She lives in Clyde Park with retired rancher Dan Hurwitz.

George is the Tourism Director for Discover Fort Belknap and Aaniiih Nakoda Tours. He has extensive experience in the tourism industry and is a former Vice-President of the Fort Belknap tribal council. He has knowledge in the Aaaniiih and Nakoda cultures and history on the Fort Belknap Reservation. George has been immersed in cultural education since his youth. His father, George Horse Capture, Sr., was a curator of the Plains Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming and he was also instrumental in establishing the American Indian Museum in Washinton, D.C. George Jr. has knowledge of horsemanship and practices traditional Nakoda & Aaniiih arts and crafts.

Jill Bough has been an integral part of building the growing community of Big Sky, Montana. She and her husband, Loren, were the founders of the local public high school which boasts numerous awards and an International Baccalaureate curriculum. Jill is a photographer whose work has been described as journalistic storytelling. Having lived in Russia for nine years, her projects primarily focus on Russia-related topics and people. She has exhibited in New York, Cambridge, Minneapolis and Moscow, Russia. Having grown up in Montana, Jill is passionately in love with grasslands and prairie. She and Loren own multiple ranches and split their time between the mountains of Big Sky and the prairies of Central Montana. She is excited to be part of the National Board of Directors and hopes that her Montana roots may benefit the organization.

Justin is a hunter and conservationist that was born and raised in eastern Montana. For the last decade he has lived in Glasgow with his wife, Kayleigh, and their two children. He is a founding member and President of Keep It Public, (a non-profit organization that supports public land and water by advocating for effective federal management and healthy ecosystems) through which he has shown a strong commitment to staying engaged with wildlife and land management decisions both in Montana and across the United States. When Justin’s not roaming around and enjoying Montana’s public lands, he can be found at work, where he is a trainman for BNSF Railway.

Lance Johnson is a fourth-generation Montana rancher with a keen sense of responsibility to be a good steward of the land he's been entrusted with. He realizes the management decisions he makes not only affect his bottom line, but his choices can also impact neighbors next door or those in the next county. Lance's first priority is to keep the land sustainable for generations to come, including for his two daughters. Lance has partnered with American Prairie through leasing on the PN property and the Wild Sky program. He has diversified his operation to include tourism and outfitting. His property boasts a glamping wall tent, trails, wildlife watching, fishing and hunting opportunities and can be found listed on sites like Hipcamp.

A Great Falls native and 4th generation Montanan, Randy practiced law for 30 years, and now enjoys retirement. He is a former Great Falls city commissioner and served three terms as mayor. Randy is also a former trustee of the Montana Nature Conservancy, a past President of the CM Russell Museum, and Chairman of the McLaughlin Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Great Falls. Randy has been married for 48 years to his wife, Nora, and they are parents to 3 sons and three grandchildren, of whom they are very proud.