Tina M. Brown, President

Tina M. Brown moved to Juneau in 2006 from Atlanta, Georgia, thus achieving a dream of many, many years to live in Alaska. She is a retired high school English teacher and previously managed a used book store.

For about 30 years before moving to Juneau, she and her husband Greg and backpacked in Denali National Park for one to two weeks almost every summer. They chose routes that would lead through bear and wolf areas, but were joyful to see all the wildlife in Denali - one of their most treasured Denali afternoons was spent quietly watching a pika collect hay for his den.

She writes; "For as long as I can remember, I've been writing to legislators in Alaska in opposition of aerial hunting. In fact, one summer Greg and I boycotted Alaska because of aerial hunting, and I wrote to every Alaska legislator I could think of to say that we were doing so. Now that I live here, I do what I can to support our state's wildlife."

"Just a few months after I arrived in Juneau, the Pack Creek bears came under threat of hunting. I testified for the bears even though I had had rotator cuff surgery only a week before and was not supposed to be out. That was the first time I saw Jenny Pursell (though we didn't meet at that time); I never forgot how compelling her testimony was."

"My husband and I have been members of many wildlife and environmental organizations for all of our adult lives. We have been members of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance for about two years, and strongly support all that the Alliance stands for."

Art Greenwalt, Vice President

Fairbanks resident Art Greenwalt is an avid wildlife advocate and longtime conservation activist. He has a strong interest in Alaskan prehistory and paleontology, and participated in a wooly mammoth dig near McGrath at the invitation of the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) Museum of the North. The Museum’s collection includes about 2,500 bones that Art gathered. He has lived in Fairbanks since 1969, having lived near Washington, D.C. and in Europe prior to settling in Alaska. His great wit and thorough knowledge of Alaska’s wildlife issues routinely finds its way into several of Alaska’s daily newspapers via letters to the editor.

Alex Simon, Treasurer

Alex Simon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. He specializes in environmental sociology and political economy. His current research focuses on the political economy of Alaska's wolf and bear policies and the social and ecological impacts of various forms of hunting. In the fall of 2008, he gave a public presentation at UAS entitled "European Anthropocentrism vs American Ecocentrism: Clashing Values Regarding Wolves." In December 2009 his article Wildlife and the State - The Use of Historic and Contemporary Justifications for Killing Wolves By the Palin Administration was published in the Routledge academic journal. Alex was an invaluable organizer and host for AWA's "Managing Wildlife in Alaska: Predators, Prey & Politics - the Event and the Rally" in Juneau in March, 2010.

Connie Brandel, Secretary

Connie Brandel joined the Alaska Wildlife Alliance as office administrator in August. Born and raised in Iowa, she lived in Idaho, Oregon and California before making her home in Alaska 20 years ago. Connie is familiar with both Alaska's wildlife issues and the day-to-day operations of not-for-profit organizations. She spent the previous 10 years as a volunteer and staff member at Wolf Song of Alaska, a non-political organization dedicated to increasing public awareness, understanding and acceptance of the wolf through education. While at Wolf Song she managed its downtown Anchorage museum and gift shop, and continues to volunteer for the organization as a wolf adoption and membership coordinator. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism, and in several of her "prior lives" she was a newspaper reporter and a legal secretary. Her hobbies are reading, fiction writing, camping, travel, and anything related to wolves. She lives near Wasilla with her two shelter-rescue, not-very-wolflike dogs: China, an Australian Shepherd-mix trained for agility competition, and Wilson, an English Springer Spaniel.

L. Mackenzie Donegan

Mackenzie was born and raised in Alaska and is currently a student at the University of Alaska. Having had unparalleled opportunities to observe wildlife from her childhood home near Chugach State Park, she has developed a real appreciation for their presence as a reflection of a healthy ecosystem, and is grateful for the privilege she has had of observing them in their habitat. After many hours of sketching moose and bears on the Alaskan landscape, she has become a talented sketch artist

Jenny Pursell

Juneau resident Jenny Pursell is another strong voice for Alaska’s wildlife. She has been a particularly effective activist and advocate for the wolves of Douglas Island near Juneau. She co-founded Voices for Douglas Island Wildlife, which managed to institute a first time ever wolf management plan there. Jenny also serves as co-chair of the Mendenhall Refuge Citizens Advisory Group, and regularly testifies before the state legislature on wildlife issues.

Linda Shaw

Linda Shaw is a habitat biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, where she has worked for the past 20 years, 19 of them in Juneau. She has a special interest in marine invasive species and addressing their impacts to Alaska 's ecosystems. She has a B.A. from Kansas State University, Manhattan, where she majored in biology and an M.A. from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where she majored in fisheries. Linda grew up in St. Louis, Missouri but also lived in Massachusetts, Louisiana and California before settling down in Alaska. Linda loves to enjoy the outdoors in Juneau and to travel in Alaska, the U.S. and the world to see wildlife. Linda is married to Bob Shaw and they have three cats and two dogs.

John Toppenberg

John is a veteran of the many battles AWA has fought over the last seven years. He and his wife Peggy moved to Alaska in 1996, from Ft. Collins, Colorado. He served on the board of directors of a Colorado based wildlife organization for six years before moving to Alaska. John retired from a 22 year career in law enforcement, having spent the last 11 years as a major crimes detective for the Larimer county Sheriffs department in Ft. Collins. He is a self taught naturalist, and a professional wildlife photographer. John’s wife is a nurse midwife. They live on a lake near Soldotna with 3 golden retrievers.

Advisory Board

Marybeth Holleman

Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound: An Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost, and co-editor of Crosscurrents North: Alaskans on the Environment. Her essays, poetry, and articles have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies, as well as radio commentaries on National Public Radio. She's also author of Alaska’s Prince William Sound: A Traveler’s Guide and The State of the Sound, and writes for nonprofit organizations on environmental issues, including predator control, global warming, oil spills, and polar bears. She has taught creative writing and women’s studies at UAA and KPC, and has lead nature writing workshops in the wild, including down the Copper River. Raised in the Appalachian Mountains around Asheville, North Carolina, she transplanted to Alaska's Chugach Mountains 25 years ago, where she now lives with her husband and two wild huskies. Her website is www.marybethholleman.com.

Nick Jans

Nick Jans is a longtime contributing editor to Alaska Magazine and a member of USA Today's Board of Editorial Contributors. He's lived 26 years in Alaska, most of them in remote Native villages, and currently makes his home in Juneau with his wife, Sherrie, 3 dogs, and a varying assemblage of other critters. Jans's writing and photography have appeared in many magazines and books; he is the author of six books, including The Last Light Breaking and Tracks of the Unseen. His latest is The Grizzly Maze (Dutton, 2005). He is currently gathering information for a book on wolves.

Johnny Johnson

Johnny Johnson was a 15-year old Texan when his parents gave him a Brownie box camera. It quickly became his obsession. Through the years - as a wildlife management student at Texas A& M University, as a National Park Ranger at Denali National Park, and as a professional photographer on assignment for National Geographic, National Wildlife, and dozens of other publications - he developed the skills and persistence that have made his name synonymous with wildlife photography. An avid outdoorsman, Johnny along with six other friends made a record-setting 53-day ascent of Mount McKinley in 1968 by a new route (the Traleika Spur), which hasn't been climbed by anyone since. He has skied across the Brooks Range, kayaked Alaska's rugged coastline, built his own log cabin and devoted his life to recording our natural earth from Alaska to Antarctica. Johnny's work is internationally recognized and published throughout the world. He has stock agent representatives in Europe, Japan, Canada and the USA.

His images can be found in books, magazines, paper products and ad campaigns . But Johnny's real love is the photograph as a work of art. Others must feel the same way since his limited-edition prints have been selling out for over twenty years. His personal goal is "to capture and express the essence of our vanishing natural world. I am disappointed by a growing trend among wildlife photographers to photograph animals in controlled situations, such as zoos and game-farms, and then present this work as wild. The use of captive animals holds no interest for me. My images reflect the truth."

Andrew Josephson

An avid outdoorsman and runner, Andrew Josephson is an outstanding divorce and custody advocate. Andrew has been an adjunct college instructor and is a public official, serving the municipality of Anchorage (Zoning Board of Examiners and Appeals). He studied in England during his undergraduate education and has a Masters Degree in Arts in teaching social studies.

Robert Glenn Ketchum

Robert Glenn Ketchum is a photographer and author who has received numerous acknowledgements throughout his unique 35-year career dedicated not only to fine printmaking and book publishing, but also to the issues of natural resource management and habitat protection upon which he has focused within his work. Ketchum has combined his publications with target-specific exhibitions, lectures and direct lobbying to help establish wilderness lands, enhance national parks and further campaigns to protect habitats and biodiversity. In addition to his photography and writing, he sits on the boards of several prominent conservation organizations, and is Fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers.

Dune Lankard

Dune is a native leader who travels internationally for conservation causes. He has worked closely with the Alaska Wildlife Alliance on several important campaigns, proving to be a capable innovator. Dune is also Executive Director of the Eyak Preservation Council. Among other honors he was pictured on the cover of Time Magazine, as one of America’s fifty most influential conservation activists.

Lynn Sadler

Lynn came to our attention thanks to a recommendation from Barry Lopez. We got to know her better at the Carnivore’s Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico this autumn. Lynn is President and CEO of the Mountain Lion Foundation, Sacramento California, and an expert in structuring effective non-profit conservation organizations.

Kathy Sarns Irwin

Kathy Sarns Irwin has lived in Alaska since 1982. She drove from Maine in a yellow VW Bug to work in a fish cannery and stayed because the Bug broke down. The fish business was not for her, and she followed her talents as an artist. She is now a very successful independent artist and designer living in Homer. She has generously contributed her artistic talent to a number of AWA projects, most notably the annual Run Wild Fun Run t-shirt design.

Kathy was the first woman to complete the 200+ mile Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic (Hope to Homer). She later also completed the Nebesna to McCarthy and the Brooks Range to Wiseman Alaska mountain wilderness races. An avid nordic skier, Kathy has also been a Junior Nordic ski coach since 1984.

Her bright artistic images are products of a vivid imagination inspired by a unique and adventurous life in Alaska with her husband Pat and 2 dogs. Kathy designed the very popular Gold Rush Alaska license plate design - which won the 1998 Best Plate in the United States Award. She specializes in intaglio printmaking and graphic design, and creates a very unique line of activewear clothing marketed as Free Spirit Wear.

Kneeland Taylor

Kneeland Taylor is an attorney practicing law in Anchorage where he has lived most of his life. He has been a regular at Board of Game meetings since the mid 1990's, and has been appointed as the token wildlife advocate to two Board of Game subcomittees. The first of those committees concerned wolf trapping on State lands adjoining Denali National Park, and the other concerned trapping in Chugach State Park and along popular hiking trails.

Kneely was the prime sponsor and manager of the unsuccessful 1998 citizen ballot initiative that would have prohited using snares to kill wolves on State lands, and he has organized two attempts to elect wildlife sympathizers to the Anchorage Fish and Game Advisory Committee. Kneely takes pride in the fact that in 2007 it was his testimony against wolverine trapping that provoked Board of Game member Bob Bell to express his true (anti-wildlife) feelings on the record, the reporting of which resulted in widespread outrage against the current membership of the BOG.

Lowell Thomas, Jr.

Lowell is a world traveled adventurer and former Alaska Lieutenant Governor. In recent years much of his time has been devoted to conservation causes, with an emphasis on Alaska’s wildlife. His generous and tireless support of wildlife has been an inspiration to all of us fighting for their wellbeing.