Pinchot Institute for Conservation Staff

 

V. Alaric Sample, Ph.D. President alsample@pinchot.org Jennifer Yeager Chief Financial Officer jyeager@pinchot.org William C. Price Program Director willprice@pinchot.og Eric C. Sprague Program Director esprague@pinchot.org Star Dodd Director of Communications sdodd@pinchot.org

Amy Rogers Research Fellow arogers@pinchot.org Blair Rynearson Research Fellow brynearson@pinchot.org Aaron Lien Project Director aaron.lien@pinchot.org Brian Kittler Project Director bkittler@pinchot.org Maria-Alexia Godinho Administrative Assistant maria@pinchot.org

Staff Biographies

V. Alaric Sample, President (top)

Al has served as President of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Washington, DC since 1995. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters, and a Research Affiliate on the faculty at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His research interests are in organizational systems for advancing sustainable forest management, including policy frameworks, market-based systems, and evolving models for forest management planning and decision making. Sample earned his doctorate in resource policy and economics from Yale University (1989). He also holds an MBA and a Master of Forestry from Yale, and a Bachelor of Science in forest resource management from the University of Montana. His professional experience spans public, private, and non-profit organizations, including the U.S. Forest Service, Champion International, The Wilderness Society, and the Prince of Thurn und Taxis in Bavaria, Germany. He specialized in resource economics and national forest policy as a Senior Fellow at the Conservation Foundation in Washington, DC, and later as Vice President for Research at the American Forestry Association. He has published widely in journals of resource policy, economics, law and organizational management. His recent books include: Common Goals for Sustainable Forest Management: Divergence and Reconvergence of American and European Forestry (with Steven A. Anderson); Forest Conservation Policy (with Antony S. Cheng); The Impact of the Federal Budget Process on National Forest Planning; Land Stewardship in the Next Era of Conservation; Remote Sensing and GIS in Ecosystem Management; and Defining Sustainable Forestry. Sample has served on numerous national task forces and commissions, including the President's Commission on Environmental Quality task force on biodiversity on private lands, and the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry.

Jennifer Yeager, Chief Financial Officer (top)

Jennifer Yeager has served with the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Washington, DC since 2001. As Chief Financial Officer, she has management oversight and responsibility for the Institute’s finance, human resource, contractual and administrative functions and oversees a $1.8 million budget. She is responsible for preparing financial statements; implementing and overseeing financial policies and procedures, negotiating contracts and procurement; administering the Institute’s GSA Schedule, assisting in short and long term financial planning; monitoring all grants and contracts and other sources of funding; administering the Institute’s employee fringe benefits plan; and overseeing the Institute’s annual independent audit. She has designed and implemented business protocols and improved the integration of technology in the Institute’s day-to-day business operations that have made the Institute more effective in fulfilling its mission to improve natural resource conservation and environmental policy. During her tenure with the Pinchot Institute, Jennifer has ensured sound stewardship of the nonprofit’s federal, state and charitable grants and contributions and has made fiscal accountability her top priority. Prior to joining the Institute Jennifer served as the Assistant to the Director of Admissions at the University of St. Mary in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and more than fourteen years as a teacher and administrator at a private school in the San Francisco Bay area. Jennifer holds her degree in Accounting with a minor in Business Management, and is currently pursuing her CPA certification with the Commonwealth of Virginia. Her special interest and area of expertise is Nonprofit Accounting.

Will Price, Program Director (top)

Will has been at the Pinchot Institute since 1999, working on public policy and market-based solutions that improve forest management and advance conservation. His studies on forest certification have included projects with state and federal agencies, companies, universities, and First Nations. In recent years he has also worked with agencies and landowners on ways to sequester carbon through forest conservation. Prior to the Pinchot Institute he consulted with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; and worked as a research technician with NASA, and with the Forest Service PNW Research Station in Corvallis, OR. Will graduated from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with a Master of Forest Science degree, and holds a Bachelor’s of Science from University of Notre Dame, where he studied ecology.

Eric C. Sprague, Program Director (top)

Eric Sprague is helping the Pinchot Institute investigate opportunities for increasing sustainable management on private forestlands. His current projects include developing the Bay Bank, an online ecosystem service marketplace for private landowners, and the sustainable forestry revolving loan fund, a low-interest loan fund that promotes sustainable management and lessens the need for family land to be sold to pay back short- to mid-term debts. Eric received a Master of Science in Environmental Science and a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University. Between 2000 and 2004, Eric served as the natural resource and farmland protection expert for the U.S. EPA's smart growth program. From 2004 to 2006, Eric managed The State of Chesapeake Forests project for The Conservation Fund. Synthesizing more than a decade's worth of data, the resulting report presents a comprehensive picture of the status of forestland in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Star Dodd, Director of Communications (top)

Star recently joined the Pinchot Institute as their Communications Coordinator and is working to manage relations with all stakeholders while creating new message strategies to increase overall visibility. She is very excited for the opportunity and hopes to provide support for the staff while raising public awareness. In May 2004, she graduated with her Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Science and then returned to complete her Master of Arts degree in Communication and Public Relations, both from Virginia Tech. While completing her undergraduate degree, she studied abroad in Belize and the Dominican Republic concentrating on public perceptions of natural resource sustainability, human dimensions and coral reef preservation efforts. Her master's degree focused on the methods and theories associated with mass and public communication with emphasis placed on public advocacy, media studies, public affairs, campaigns and issue management. In association with her degree, she completed an internship with the US Forest Service involving their national forest management plan revision process and overall public collaborative efforts. She now looks forward to working with the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in an effort to raise awareness and facilitate action concerning the future of conservation and natural resource sustainability.

Amy Rogers, Research Fellow (top)

Amy is directing the implementation of an integrated conservation management plan in Ecuador’s Mache-Chindul Ecological Reserve for the Institute. This effort, aimed at preserving Ecuador’s remaining Chocó coastal rainforests, dovetails with that of Peter Pinchot and the Ecomadera Project. Together, and by deliberately incorporating all relevant ecological, socioeconomic, and policy considerations, these two programs will address deforestation from ‘both sides’ of the problem by: 1) slowing and eventually reversing the current pace of deforestation, and 2) preventing future sources of anthropogenic and ecological habitat degradation. Amy’s current work builds upon five years of on-the-ground experience in Mache-Chindul, as well as upon the results of her doctoral research, which was focused on developing an ecologically-based strategy for reforestation in tropical secondary forests. She holds a Ph.D. in Ecology from UCLA, an M.A. from San Francisco State University, and a B.A. from UCSC. Amy’s conservation work has taken her to Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Alaska, and California, and her funding has included fellowships from the Wildlife Conservation Society, US Dept. of Education, Switzer Foundation, and US Dept. of State Fulbright Program.

Blair Rynearson, Research Fellow (top)

Blair graduated from Beloit College with a Bachelor of Science in ecology, evolution and behavioral biology and a minor in environmental studies. His summers were spent working as a teacher naturalist for the Glacier Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to outdoor education based out of Glacier National Park, MT. He worked five years as a seasonal US Forest Service employee with jobs ranging from trail maintenance, to public relations, to working on a fire suppression hotshot crew. For three winters Blair was employed by Confluence Timber Co., a business focused on restorative forestry based out the Flathead Valley, MT. He started as a volunteer with the Pinchot Institute's EcoMadera program in January of 2009, and assisted on a baseline study of the existing methods of timber extraction. He is currently working in conjunction with local sawyers to introduce technologies that will improve the transport and yield of harvested timber, and reduce damage and mortality associated with non-directional felling.

Aaron Lien, Project Director (top)

Aaron is facilitating the Bay Bank working group process for the Institute. The Bay Bank will link private farm and forest landowners in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to ecosystem service markets through a centralized marketplace for multiple ecosystem services. In spring of 2008, Aaron earned a Master of Science in Urban Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Water Policy at the University of Arizona. His graduate research focused on Arizona water policy through a research assistantship at the Arizona Water Resources Research Center and private land conservation and stewardship. Prior to graduate school, Aaron worked at the National Council for Science and the Environment as program coordinator for the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry, the US Forest Service Research Outlook process, and the Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Arts from Willamette University in Salem, OR, where he studied environmental policy.

Brian Kittler, Project Director (top)

Brian is helping to develop the Institute’s sustainable wood bioenergy program and is also working with the Bay Bank’s water quality working group. Brian comes to the Institute from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation where he was the Assistant Director for the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund. While at NFWF he helped manage four high profile grant programs focused on innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions to restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Brian has also worked as a fellow with the Chesapeake Bay Program during which time he researched bioenergy systems and their impacts on watershed health and water quality in the Chesapeake Bay region.  In 2006 - 2007 he served on the Chesapeake Bay Commission's report Biofuels And the Bay: Getting it Right to Benefit Farms, Forests and the Chesapeake and has participated on the Advisory Panel for the 2008 Chesapeake Cellulosic Biofuels Summit hosted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  He holds a bachelors degree in Environmental Policy from Colby College and is working towards a Masters of Environmental Management from Johns Hopkins University.

Maria-Alexia Godinho, Administrative Assistant (top)

Maria-Alexia is assisting the Pinchot Institute daily through overall organization, administrative duties, event planning and database management. With a strong desire to work in the nonprofit sector, Maria is excited to help with all program areas within the Pinchot Institute. A native of Northern California, Maria spent her childhood in the Bay Area. She moved to Southern California to attend the University of San Diego where she majored in Political Science. Although originally interested in retail, after five years she decided to pursue her passion of working for an organization whose mission was to improve the lives of others through temping at various nonprofit organizations. She began her temp work at the Pinchot Institute in 2008, and after having such a great experience, decided to stay on permanently. Maria's current work involves regular communication with the Pinchot Institute Board of Directors, fielding all inquiries that come into the office, planning all Pinchot hosted events, and building the overall development efforts.