Melinda Kassen, Managing Director Western Water Project
1320 Pearl St., Ste 320
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 440-2937
Melinda Kassen is the managing director of the Western Water Project. Between 1998-2005 she ran the Colorado Water Project. She is the environmental and recreational interest representative on Colorado’s Interbasin Water Compact Committee. Her water experience includes working at the Environmental Defense Fund's Rocky Mountain Office, where she was involved in the fight to stop Two Forks Dam. She has represented water quality and water rights clients with the Colorado Attorney General, including the Water Conservation Board for its instream flow program. Melinda also worked for ICF Kaiser, primarily on the clean up of the Rocky Flats site, was Environmental Counsel to the House Armed Services Committee in the 103rd Congress and spent two years prosecuting domestic violence cases in Los Angeles.
John Gerstle is Technical Advisor for the Western Water Project and the Public Lands Initiative. With a professional background in water resources planning and management, water rights and environmental impact assessment, he worked as a consultant for over 30 years on assignments in the US, Norway, Africa and Asia. He testified as an expert witness in legal cases involving water management for several clients, including Trout Unlimited, US Department of Justice and US Fish and Wildlife Service, and assisted the governments of Bhutan, Nepal and Tanzania in the development of their administrative and legal arrangements for water resources management. He has a BA (Chemistry) from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and SMCE and CE postgraduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Randy Scholfield is Communications Director for the Western Water Project. He previously was an editorial writer and columnist for The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, where he wrote frequently on environmental and water issues. As a community outreach coordinator for the Great Plains Earth Institute, a small nonprofit environmental group in Wichita, he helped start community gardening and environmental education projects. He has also worked as a freelance writer and taught English and writing at the high school and college levels. Randy has a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas. In his free time, he enjoys outdoors activities with his wife and two children and pursues a lifelong passion for travel and fly-fishing in the West.
California
Brian J. Johnson, California Director
1808B 5th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 528-4772
Brian J. Johnson manages TU’s California Water Project, where he works to reform state water law and to promote scientifically sound stream flows for trout and salmon. He came to TU after five years at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, a public interest law firm where he represented community groups in battles to protect waterways and other natural resources. Before law school Brian was the Communications Director at the White House environmental office from 1993-97, and the co-creator and manager of EPA's first "Energy Star" initiative for energy efficient computers from 1991-93. Brian grew up in Iowa and graduated from Duke University and Stanford Law School. He and his wife Debbie are busy introducing their toddler son Leo to the great outdoors.
Mary Ann King is the Stewardship Coordinator for TU’s California Water Project. Mary Ann is responsible coordinating landowner participation in TU’s cooperative initiatives to improve instream flows and water supply reliability in California-- Water and Wine and Streamflow Stewardship. Before coming to TU, she worked at Recreational Equipment, Inc. She received her M.S. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written extensively on water and natural resources law and policy and has been published by the MIT Press and the Harvard Environmental Law Review. She received her B.A. in Political Science, also from UC Berkeley. She is an avid hiker, backpacker and road cyclist.
Colorado
Drew Peternell, Colorado Director
1320 Pearl St., Ste 320
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 440-2937
Greg Espegren serves as the Colorado Water Project’s staff aquatic scientist, working as an agency liaison, instream flow, water quality, and aquatic habitat analyst, and river restoration project manager. Prior to coming to T.U., Greg spent 15 years working for the Colorado Water Conservation Board (C WCB) as a Water Resource Specialist with the Board’s Instream Flow and Natural Lake Level Program. Greg has also worked as a private consultant on various water-related projects including the completion of the CWCB’s ArcGIS-based Instream Flow Decision Support System and the Town of Avon’s Recreational In-Channel Diversion water right. Greg holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Fishery and Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University.
Drew Peternell joined Trout Unlimited's Colorado Water Project in 2002 as staff attorney. In that role, he worked to maintain and restore flows in Colorado's rivers and streams, primarily through the Colorado water court system and various state and federal administrative agencies. As the director of the Colorado Water Project, Drew continues the effort toward protection of stream flows, with increasing emphasis on statewide water policy and on-the-ground stream restoration projects. Drew holds a B.A. in political science from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. and Certificate of Specialization in Environmental Law from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining TU, Drew worked for two years in private practice in Boulder.
David Stillwell came to TU from Boulder's Naropa University, where he was the Director of Academic Affairs. He has 12 years of experience in a non-profit environment. He received his BA in English from Bethany College, West Virginia and his MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
Amelia (Mely) Whiting is legal counsel for the Colorado Water Project. Mely brings experience and perspective to her job, having spent her legal career representing a broad range of interests -including local, state and federal government, agriculture, the private sector, and other non-profit organizations- in public lands, environmental and water matters. She has also taught environmental law courses to undergraduate students. Mely graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah in 1989. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Mely moved to the United States in 1981.
Idaho
Kim Goodman, Idaho Director
151 North Ridge Ave, Ste 120
Idaho Falls, ID 83402
(208) 552-0891
Kim Goodman is the director of the Idaho Water Project, a statewide effort to find creative ways to enhance and protect fisheries and instream flows. Before coming to TU, Kim was a nonprofit consultant for organizations throughout the Greater Yellowstone area, and was a land protection specialist with the Teton Regional Land Trust. Kim has worked with many conservation organizations throughout Idaho, and completed her graduate work in central Idaho with the Nature Conservancy. Kim was raised in eastern Idaho and has a BS in biology from University of Puget Sound and a Masters of Environmental Management in Resource Ecology from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. Living at the base of the Tetons with her husband and pets, she hikes, backcountry skis, cycles, and travels whenever possible.
Peter Anderson is legal counsel for the Idaho Water Project. Peter has 23 years of water law experience, having worked as a deputy attorney general for the Washington and Idaho water resource agencies and having been a hearing officer deciding water rights cases for the Idaho Departments of Water Resources and Environmental Quality. His varied career has also included stints as a commercial real estate attorney and a deputy prosecuting attorney. He graduated from Whitman College with a degree in political science and from the University of Michigan Law School.
Montana
Laura Ziemer, Montana Director
321 E Main St #411
Bozeman MT 59715
(406) 522-7291
Laura Ziemer opened the Montana Water Project office for Trout Unlimited in August of 1998. In Montana, Mrs. Ziemer has expanded Trout Unlimited's water leasing program through legislative improvements to the program as well as completing a number of stream restoration projects by converting irrigation water rights to instream flow rights. Before joining Trout Unlimited, Mrs. Ziemer had been practicing public-interest environmental law since 1993 as an attorney with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (now Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund) out of Seattle, Washington and later in Bozeman, Montana. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, graduating cum laude from the Law School while earning a Master’s Degree in Resource Ecology with honors from the School of Natural Resources.
Stan Bradshaw has been an attorney for the Montana Water Project since May 2001. In his position, he works on a variety of instream flow initiatives. Previously, Stan was the Resource Director for Montana Trout Unlimited, where he was responsible for working with various state agencies on resource issues related to cold-water fisheries, with a heavy emphasis on instream flows. From 1976 to 1979 he worked for the Montana Department of Health and Environmental Sciences on subdivision and water quality issues. From 1981 through 1986 he worked for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, where he was Chief Counsel. As part of his duties at MDFWP, he was actively involved in the statewide water rights adjudication and stream access litigation. In addition to his conservation work, Stan was a principal in Greycliff Publishing with his wife Glenda and the late Gary LaFontaine. When he’s not talking water with ranchers or anyone else who will listen, he spends as much time as he can on water, in one form or other--he is an accomplished whitewater canoeist, enthusiastic fly fisherman, and an avid skier.
Julie Eaton is the Project Coordinator for Trout Unlimited’s Montana Water Project. She works in the field on streamflow, with volunteers, researches water rights and provides GIS support for the Water Project. Julie has taught Secondary Science for many of the last twenty years, written a fly fishing instructional workbook, appeared on several fly fishing shows, and brings work experience from both state and federal levels of fish and wildlife agencies. As a licensed Montana Outfitter, professional fishing guide, and instructor she has firsthand knowledge of many of the streams and rivers that she currently works on. Julie, her husband, and two children enjoy fishing, hunting and skiing.
Wyoming
Scott Yates, Wyoming Director
250 N First St
PO Box 64
Lander, WY 82520
(307) 332-7700
Scott Yates began working for Trout Unlimited in 1997. His tenure with TU has included work in the Pacific Northwest on salmon and steelhead issues, the Rocky Mountains on native trout issues, and Idaho and Wyoming for stream flows. He left TU briefly in 2005 to work for Portland General Electric as the License Manager for the 350 megawatt Pelton-Round Butte Project on the Deschutes River. He now directs TU’s Wyoming Water Project based in Lander, Wyoming. Scott has an undergraduate degree from Willamette University and a law degree and environmental and natural resource law certificate from Lewis & Clark’s Northwestern School of Law.
Cory Toye is a Wyoming native and a recent law school graduate from the University of Wyoming. Perhaps most importantly, he has spent actual time on-the-ground working with irrigation systems on a working ranch in the Wind River Basin. Cory will be helping work on our existing on-the-ground projects and help identify new ones that both protect/restore streamflows and compliment our legislative efforts. He’ll also become the TU face in Wyoming working on Wyoming Water Development Commission and federal Farm Bill issues. When not working, Cory can be found in the Wind River Mountain Range or in Valdez, AK with his father chasing Cohos.
Nelli Williams comes to Trout Unlimited via Wisconsin, Alaska, and Oregon. After completing graduate studies in environmental education at the University of Wisconsin-Steven’s Point, she worked as a Public Affairs Specialist for the Tongass National Forest and as the Community Outreach Coordinator for a small non-profit in Roseburg, Oregon. As TU's Wyoming Coordinator, Nelli helps coordinate TU's Wyoming Water Project and Public Lands Initiative efforts ensuring that grassroots members are informed and involved in the development and implementation of programmatic efforts. She also provides support to local members and chapters, while coordinating the activities of the Wyoming State Council. When Nelli is not working she is out exploring the vast and beautiful landscapes of Wyoming with her husband and golden retriever, fly rod and camera in hand. If a weekend at home is on the agenda she can be found out for a long run or in their backyard converting grass into gardens.
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