New Council Members, Officers and Bylaw updates

Welcome to five new At-Large Council Members--Scott Friskics, Sally Hughes, Jerry Pease, David Rockwell and Marianne Spitzform. Sally has been serving as an interim member and now begins her official term. We are also happy to announce that Bernard Rose will continue in his role as Treasurer for another year. Finally, the proposed amendments to the Bylaws passed by a large margin.

Officers

Joseph Scalia III, President, Livingston
Joe is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Bozeman, and the Executive Director of Northern Rockies Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also a Board member of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. Interested in the interface between psychoanalysis and environmental ethics, Joe is well placed in his current commitments. He enjoys hiking and ultra-marathoning in Montana's backcountry, especially with his wife, Lynne and son, Joseph IV.

Daphne Herling, President-Elect, Missoula
Born in Manila and educated in England, Daphne has worked in the nonprofit world for almost 20 years. She spends many hours enjoying Montana’s wilderness beauty while hiking, backpacking, paddling, biking, and cross-country skiing.

Bernard Rose, Treasurer, Billings
Bernie is a retired professor of Economics and Business. He is a member of a number of other environmental groups and has been actively engaged in the arts in Billings, serving on the board of the Billings Studio Theatre. Bernie is an avid hiker, mountain biker, and walker.

At-Large Members

Pete Bengeyfield, Dillon
Before retiring in 2006, Pete worked for 33 years as a hydrologist in the Northern Rockies. He is also an award-winning nature photographer and published author. Pete has extensive backcountry and wilderness experience throughout the West and Alaska.

Tom Crane, Great Falls
At one time or other, Tom was a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer, an air traffic controller, and union representative and president. He also sat on the Montana State AFL-CIO Executive Board in the 1990’s. Now serving on the Council of MWA, he is able to revisit his interest in the natural world.

Doug Ferrell, Trout Creek
Doug graduated from Brown University in 1972, and moved to Montana soon after. He is a homebuilder and designer, happily married with two sons, who also love to hike and camp. Doug also serves on the board of the Cabinet Resource Group, is Vice-Chair and Montana Outreach Director for Friend of Scotchman Peaks, and has been working to protect roadless areas on the Kootenai National Forest for over 30 years.

Kendall Flint, East Glacier
A family physician, Kendall likes to goof off by hiking, backpacking, paddling, picking, biking, fishing, skiing, painting, reading, gardening, cooking, and visiting. He hopes to die in the far-off future surrounded by Wilderness, without ever having owned a television.

Scott Friskics, Great Falls
For the past 15 years, Scott has worked at Fort Belknap College, first as a natural re-sources instructor and then as a grant writer, institutional planner and assessment coordinator. He earned a BA in Religious Studies and Biology from Colgate University and a MS in Envi-ronmental Studies from the University of Montana, and is currently completing a MA in En-vironmental Philosophy from the University of North Texas. Scott lives in Great Falls with his wife, Jennifer Smith, and his greatest joy in life comes from wandering the wildlands of the Rocky Mountain Front and Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.


Sally Hughes, Livingston
Sally is president of Gillette Consulting Inc., which provides management assistance, tax and accounting services to local businesses. She, her husband and their Kerry Blue terrier live east of Livingston along the Yellowstone River with the Crazy Mountains to the north and the Absarokas to the south. All three are avid hikers, fishers, cross country skiers and backpackers. Sally’s recent volunteer efforts include membership on the Park County Planning and Zoning Commission, and Park County Search and Rescue (team leader and board member). She also has memberships in the Park County Environmental Council, Corporation for the Northern Rockies, Montana Conservation Voters and the Northern Plains Resource Council.

Jerry Kalur, Bozeman
Jerry is a retired civil trial attorney who often represented environmental groups pro bono and has authored law review articles on the Water Pollution Control Act. He moved to Montana in 1995 in order to devote more time to climbing, hiking and fly-fishing. Jerry's main area of environmental interest is combating global warming.

Brenda Lindlief-Hall, Helena
Brenda is a partner at the law firm of Reynolds, Motl & Sherwood in Helena. Her practice focuses on environmental, personal injury, and general civil law and litigation. She is on the threshold of finishing her M.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. Brenda and her partner are both outdoor enthusiasts, and enjoy hiking, biking, sailing, canoeing, skiing and gardening. They live in Helena with their three children.

Gerald (Jerry) Pease, Harrison
Jerry has worked as a public school teacher as well as held numerous administrative posts for the past 34 years. He has taught in the areas of Environmental Education, Biology, Wildlife Biology, Physical Sciences, Physics, Chemistry (Organic and Inorganic) and Computer Science and Applications. In his free time, Jerry rides and packs his horses into Montana’s wilderness areas, fly-fishes, photographs the natural world, and takes his dogs on long walks across the fields close to home.

David Rockwell, Dixon
For the past 30 years David has worked in Montana in the field of natural resource management and education. He has worked in a variety of capacities, including as an inter-disciplinary team leader for forest and wilderness management planning efforts. In recent years, much of his work has been in the area of environmental education, specifically fire history and ecology and the protection and restoration of bull trout habitat. He is the author of three books: two on natural history and one on bears. David and his wife Nancy have two children: Adeleene, 17 and Isaac, 14. He spends most of his spare time hiking, fly fishing, canoeing, and hunting.

Kate Sako, East Glacier
Kate is a newly formed environmentalist who has always enjoyed the outdoors. Her past life was as a patent attorney and her current life includes helping in a K-2 grade classroom, doing intake at the Browning Family Planning Clinic, and chasing her little girl around the house and yard—the latter in conjunction with Dad, Kendall Flint.

Lynne Scalia, Livingston
Lynne is a public school superintendent and principal in Bozeman. She spent much of her childhood exploring the bayous of Louisiana, and for the past 26 years has hiked and run in many of the wild places in Montana.

Marianne Spitzform, Missoula
Marianne has lived in Missoula since 1972, having found her true home during her first trip to Montana for geology field camp five years earlier.  She finished a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Montana (1979), and also studied theology at Harvard (MTS 1970).  Since 1985 she has been in private practice and also teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.  Marianne loves horses, hiking, travel and reading.  The relationship between people, nature and health has fascinated her for years.
 

Chapter Representatives

Eastern Wildlands Chapter, Sue Duncan, Billings

Ryan Sparhawk and Brad Wood are the Chapter Alternates.

Flathead-Kootenai Chapter, Terry Meyers, Kalispell
After growing up in an Air Force family and living across the country and around the world, Terry moved his family to Montana in 1982. He's been on the board of the Flathead-Kootenai chapter for about 3 years and just retired from a 30-year teaching career. He enjoys gardening, kayaking, fishing, and traveling, and feels that preserving wilderness is the most important work on earth.

Island Range Chapter, Dan Bennett, Great Falls
Dan has been on the board of the Island Range Chapter since 1994. Most of his time has been spent trying to protect the Rocky Mountain Front, particularly with oil and gas issues. He also spends a lot of time organizing and leading Wilderness Walks on the Front. Dan works for a law firm as a paralegal.

Madison-Gallatin Chapter, Bob Bayley, Ennis
Bob lives in Ennis where he works on private and public land management issues within the Madison Valley. When living back east, he derived great pleasure and inspiration by escaping with his wife to canoe "Forever Wild" regions within the Adirondack State Park. Bob relishes his involvement with MWA and enjoys working with diverse groups of people in pursuit of additional wilderness for Montana.

Wild Divide Chapter, Walter Walsh, Helena
As a boy, Walter and his family went camping in the summer and fall every weekend. It was as a result of these experiences that he fell in love with the outdoors. Walter has degrees in microbiology and English literature, and is presently writing stories about growing up in Butte.