BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND STAFF

About the WBRA Board

The Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association (WBRA) is managed by a volunteer Board of Directors and several staff members.

We are fortunate to have such a dedicated group of individuals involved in operating the WBRA. As you will see in their brief biographies below each individual on the WBRA board and staff brings with them unique skills and backgrounds making for a diverse and well-rounded team.

WBRA directors serve a two-year term and are elected during our Annual General Meeting, which is open to the public. If you have an interest in taking on an active volunteer role on our Board of Directors, please contact us.

AGM in Waterton Lakes National Park – July 2017

Bill Dolan

[Chair]

Bill Dolan joined the WBR in 1990 when he moved to the area as the Chief Park Warden of Waterton Lakes National Park and in 2021 became the Chair of the WBRA. Bill has a keen interest in landscape-level conservation and has been a long-serving member of many ecosystem-level partnerships, including the Crown Managers Partnership and the Miistakis Institute for the Rockies. In 2009, Bill left Parks Canada to work as the Land and Resource Management Coordinator for Alberta Environment and Parks in southern Alberta. Bill is now retired and lives east of Waterton Lakes in the Boundary Creek area with his wife Debbie.

Nora Manners

[Executive Director / Biosphere Reserve Coordinator]

Nora has been the Coordinator of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve since 2009 and is also the Executive Director of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association. She has worked with conservation organizations since 2000 and prior to that was a national park Warden – working in a number of western national parks, finishing off her time with Parks Canada as the Wildlife Specialist for Wood Buffalo and then Jasper National Parks. Nora grew up on a mixed farm near Ghost Pine, Alberta and was happy to settle back into an agricultural community when she moved to the Waterton Biosphere Reserve in 2005. Nora and her husband live south of Pincher Creek where they run a cattle grazing and hay production operation. She is an enthusiastic promoter of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve and enjoys working with the community to build a sustainable future.

Cam Francis

[Vice Chair]

Cam Francis graduated from the University of Lethbridge in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Business. Following University, Cam returned to his grandfather’s ranch in the Glenwood area where he lives and ranches with his wife Nikki and their three children. Cam has been very active in the community over the last number of years serving on a variety of committees and boards including nine years with Cardston County, five of which he was the county reeve.

Julia Palmer

[Treasurer]

Julia Palmer is a fourth-generation rancher who lives and works in the Twin Butte area. In 2007 she completed her BA in Religion at Reed College. Following graduation, she began working with her parents on the family ranch. While maintaining a commercial herd of beef cattle, the Palmer family is also committed to pursuing innovative ways of improving the range and riparian health of their land.

Neil Dixon

[Secretary]

Neil Dixon is a third generation Albertan. He is retired and is a resident of the MD of Ranchlands. He is a graduate from the University of Oklahoma with a BBA majoring in Petroleum Land Management. Neil was a director of numerous companies, including Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever.

Jeff Bectell

[Director / Carnivores and Communities Program Coordinator]

Jeff and his wife Liz, ranch with their children south of Cardston, on land that has always been ‘home’. He was chair of the WBRA from 2010 to 2017. Currently, he is on the WBRA Board of Directors and is also the Coordinator of the Carnivores and Communities Program (CACP). He enjoys working with others in the community to ensure that generations to come can enjoy this area that he loves so much.

William singer III (API’SOOMAHKA – running coyote)

[Director]

William Singer III is a member of the Kainai Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Named after his great, great, great uncle who was a Blackfoot warrior, Api’soomaahka carries on his legacy through stewardship and maintaining the Blackfoot worldview. His main profession is as an artist/illustrator with over 40 years of experience. His work is deeply rooted in the Blackfoot worldview and uses his art to teach the Blackfoot language and culture. He devotes a lot of time as an entrepreneur, an educator and an environmental and political activist, utilizing Blackfoot Ecological Knowledge and protocol. He currently operates Naapi’s Garden and Katoyiss Seed Bank and teaches at the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society where he is developing a land based / Indigenous Plants curriculum. He is member of the Oldman Watershed Council (OWC), a board member of the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association and works in a partnership agreement with Parks Canada, Waterton Lakes.

Mike bruised head

[Director]

Mike Bruised Head is a rancher in the Waterton Biosphere Region, raising horses and black angus cattle. He is member of the Kanai of the Blackfoot Confederacy and a fluent Blackfoot speaker. As an elder in the community, he is regularly involved in ceremonies and cultural events.

He currently serves as president of the University of Lethbridge Iniskim Indigenous Alumni Chapter, Chairman of the Kainai Board of Education, and with the assessment team investigating the possibly of reintroduction of the Iinnii (Bison) to the Blood Reserve.

His commitment to the environment also includes work with the Oldman Watershed Council, the Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association, the Crown of the Continent Roundtable Leadership Committee, and Crown Managers Partnership.

LOCKE MARSHALL

[Director]

Locke Marshall was born and raised in the Waterton Biosphere Region and has spent the majority of his life living and working here. He is passionate about safeguarding wild spaces in the area, along with its agricultural community culture.

Locke has recently retired from Parks Canada in Waterton Lakes National Park after serving more than 40 years in various capacities. His interests include hiking, snowshoeing, cycling and flyfishing, as well as literature and making music with friends and family.

Kim Pearson

[Waterton Lakes National Park Liaison]

Kim has been a WBRA board member since 2009, including Chair from 2017 to 2021. She works as Parks Canada’s Nature Legacy Ecosystem Scientist in Waterton Lakes National Park, coordinating landscape-scale and collaborative conservation programs. Kim spent ten years contributing to the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Waterton Park Front Project and has also supported organizations such as the Southern Alberta Land Trust Society. She and her family have roots in southwestern Alberta and are proud to be contributing residents of the Waterton area.

Andrea Morehouse

[Carnivores and Communities Program Science Lead]

Andrea Morehouse is an independent scientist who works on a variety of conservation and management issues related to large carnivores in multi-use landscapes. She moved to Alberta in 2007 and completed both an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in ecology at the University of Alberta. Through her research, she strives to effectively engage scientists, managers, and community members to develop and implement scientifically sound and socially workable wildlife conservation strategies. She was on the board of directors from 2014 to 2021 and began working as the Carnivores and Communities Program Science Lead in 2017. Andrea and her family live west of Pincher Creek and are happy to call southwestern Alberta ‘home’.

Elizabeth Anderson

[Conservation Biologist]

Elizabeth grew up in the Maritimes but settled in Alberta after completing her M.Sc. degree at the University of Alberta. In 2009, Elizabeth and her family moved to Crowsnest Pass to be closer to the family cattle operation near Cowley. After developing the WBRA’s first Species at Risk Action Plan in 2015, Elizabeth continued to support youth education activities in Waterton Biosphere Reserve before taking a more active role in 2020 coordinating the Species at Risk (SAR) program and recently the Supporting Landowners in Stewardship and Conservation (SLICS) project. Her favourite days at work are those spent sharing a coffee or a stroll with a landowner, learning from their experiences on the land, and discussing how we can ensure healthy habitats and species for generations to come.

LAURA RANCE

[Conservation Technician]

Born in Lethbridge and raised in North Vancouver, Laura has always been deeply curious about the natural world. This curiosity led her to pursue a degree in biology, which ultimately shaped her career in conservation. She worked with Parks Canada in the Mountain Parks for thirteen years, primarily focusing on wildlife management. Returning to Southwestern Alberta in 2019, Laura now calls Pincher Creek home. Captivated by the diversity of bird and wildflower species in the region, she can often be found exploring the grasslands, foothills, and mountains right outside her back door. Laura believes there’s always something new to learn, and she is just as excited to gain knowledge from you, as she is to share her own.

Mackenzie Brown

[Conservation Technician]

Mackenzie has lived alongside the rolling fescue grasslands and wide-open skies of southwestern Alberta for six years. She has been touched by how welcoming the community within this windy corner of Alberta has been and she is excited for the opportunity to engage with its members in her role as a Conservation Technician. Mackenzie holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies with a focus in Ecology and is grateful that her professional and personal interests align. Her work in southwestern Alberta has been diverse which is exactly how she likes it, and much of her career has been wearing different hats within Resource Conservation with Parks Canada in Waterton Lakes National Park. Mackenzie’s professional roles have had her climbing to the subalpine to assess white bark pine trees for restoration initiatives, waking up before dawn to record birds for long-term community studies, and getting knee-deep in waterbodies to observe northern leopard frogs, all in the name of conservation.

In her personal time, she can still be found in the subalpine, up before dawn and knee-deep in waterbodies or spending time with the animals at the Pincher Creek Humane Society.

thomas porter

[Communications Coordinator]

Thomas Porter is a long-time story-teller, outdoorsman and motorcyclist. He has been hiking, fly-fishing and back country camping throughout the biosphere for 40 years. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Physical Geography from the University of Lethbridge, where he was involved in various research projects from Waterton to the Castle Wilderness.

While pursuing his studies in earth system science, Porter also cultivated skills in New Media Arts including cinematography, lighting and documentary film making. Porter has produced several public education pieces for local and regional ENGOs in the last few years. Prior to his academic tenure, Porter spent 20 years in print media. His writing and photography have been published in daily newspapers and magazines across North America.

When he’s not out in the wild Porter can be found in his art studio doing custom woodwork and leather pieces.

Mike Meeks

[Program Assistant]

Born and raised in southern Alberta, Michael Meeks has a passion for the landscape, flora, and fauna of the region. At an early age he knew a desk job wasn’t for him – that he was destined to be outside. He needed to be working on the land, alongside the wildlife and surrounded by plants.

Today, no matter what he’s doing (be it guiding on the river, turning wrenches on the farm, or working in pre-hospital care) Michael strives to live and work harmoniously with the local ecosystem. From the tiniest wildflowers to the largest carnivores, Michael appreciates everything nature provides and is grateful to be living in the Waterton Biosphere Region.

“I’m proud to call this place home.” – Michael Meeks

If you would like more information about the Waterton Biosphere Reserve please contact us at:

info@watertonbiosphere.com

Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association
P.O. Box 7, Pincher Creek
Alberta T0K 1W0

Kim Pearson