Our Board of Directors

Darrell Bazzell, Madison
Darrell is the Vice-Chancellor of Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to his position at the University, Darrell served as Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Before becoming Secretary, Darrell was Deputy Secretary and headed the DNR's Office of Planning Analysis. Darrell also served as Assistant Administrator for the Agricultural Resource Management Division and Director of the Plant Industry Bureau at the State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Bill Berry, Stevens Point
Bill is a self-employed writer and editor who specializes in communicating about conservation on America’s working lands. His current projects include serving as writer/communications specialist for the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters’ Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin project. Berry writes a regular column for the Capital Times of Madison and contributes regularly to other national and state publications. He resides in Stevens Point with his wife, Nick Schultz, who is also a writer..

Peter Dohr, Madison
Peter is a Partner at DeWitt, Ross, & Stevens where he specializes in real estate and land use. An avid outdoorsman and nature enthusiast, Peter is restoring a prairie on 100 acres of wooded land in Waushara County, which he is also considering permanently protecting with a conservation easement.

Nelson French, River Falls
Nelson is the Executive Director of the Kinnickinnic River Land Trust.  Under his leadership, the KRLT has become the first accredited land trust in the state. Nelson has devoted his entire career to conservation in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Prior to joining KRLT, he served as State Director of The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota, Executive Director of Friends of the Minnesota Valley, and Director of Legislative Affairs at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.  Not surprisingly, Nelson is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys visiting the North Shore of Lake Superior and Lake Vermilion.  His hobbies include bird watching, canoeing, fishing, hiking, cross country skiing and swimming and listing to Bob Dylan perform live.

Kimberly Gleffe, Milwaukee
Kimberly Gleffe is currently Executive Director of the River Revitalization Foundation and has earned degrees in Psychology, Sociology and a Masters in Cultural Foundations of Education. Currently focused on serving the conservation community especially the Milwaukee River, she has devoted her entire career to the nonprofit sector, and is certified in nonprofit management. Her interests include travel, film, birding, and kayaking.

Alice Godfrey, Avoca
Alice was raised in a family very involved in conservation issues and active in a large land trust in Massachusetts. After moving to Chicago in 1979, Alice and her husband, Rick, bought some land in Avoca, Wisconsin in 1986 which they planned to conserve. She went on to join the Driftless Area Land Conservancy in Dodgeville in its infancy and served on its Board for just over three years before joining the Gathering Waters Conservancy's Board. Alice and her husband have two college-age children and split their time between Avoca, WI, and Oak Park, IL.

Joy Stieglitz Gottschalk, Madison
Joy Stieglitz Gottschalk is a Principal Planner and Brownfields Redevelopment Specialist at Vandewalle & Associates where her work focuses on urban infill redevelopment planning and implementation for clients throughout the Upper Midwest. Joy received her Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning with land use and environmental planning concentrations from the University of Wisconsin. In addition to her involvement with numerous local and national environmental associations, Joy and her husband, Rob Gottschalk, are founding members of Gathering Waters Conservancy's Land Legacy Society.

Shawn Graff, Slinger
Shawn Graff currently serves as the Executive Director of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust and has over 24 years of experience in areas of historic preservation, fundraising and non-profit management. He has served as Executive Director of the Pabst Mansion and Wisconsin Heritage's in Milwaukee, Curator of Education for the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, and Assistant Director of the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Art Gallery. Shawn is involved in several Wisconsin organizations, including serving as Chairperson of the Slinger Preservation Committee and Past President of the Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation.

Arthur Harrington, Milwaukee
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1972, Arthur J. Harrington received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1975. Mr. Harrington has since practiced environmental law for close to two decades. He is the inaugural past chair of the Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and a past president of the Milwaukee Bar Association. In addition, Mr. Harrington has served on the board of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust and as President of the Milwaukee Public Library board.

Terry Hatch, Mahomet, IL
Mr. Hatch is a recently retired pediatrician who worked in private practice and in academic medicine at University of Illinois and Southern Illinois Medical Schools. A life-long resident of central Illinois, Terry his wife DiAnne and their family have grown attached to their forest and cottage in Iron County.  They have donated conservation easements on 140 acres of lake front and working forest to the Northwoods Land Trust.  They enjoy fishing, hunting and various outdoor activities throughout the year, and strongly support land conservation here and in Costa Rica.

Charles "Chuck" Haubrich, Racine
After 32 years as Operations Director Asia Pacific for S.C. Johnson, Chuck Haubrich retired in July 2001. He serves as the President of the Kenosha/Racine Land Trust and on the Board of the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association Foundation as its secretary. In 2000, he donated a conservation easement on his 88 acre property, the first easement in Racine County.

Rita Hayen, River Hills
Ms. Hayen has spent her career in the ever-evolving world of energy production and transmition. In 2010, she accepted a position for TRC Solutions developing new business primarily focused on hydroelectric power generation and other renewables. Before that, She was the Environmental Department Manager for American Transmission Company, where she oversaw environmental function for ATC and worked closely with stakeholders and regulatory agencies to identify collaborative and innovative ways to address environmental protection. Prior to ATC, Rita worked for We Energies for 19 years in several roles including power plant engineering and corporate planning. Rita has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and an Executive MBA from UW- Milwaukee. Rita and her husband, Walter Boeshaar, enjoy gardening and the process of restoring a portion of their yard with swales, rain gardens and native prairie plantings. In her spare time, Rita pursues her first love – art. She paints, draws, weaves and makes jewelry. 

Christopher Hughes, Madison
Chris Hughes is an attorney and partner with Stafford Rosenbaum. A major focus of his practice is land use and real estate law. Chris has served on the Board of Directors of the Natural Heritage Land Trust for several years and continues to serve on their Stewardship Committee. He also serves on Gathering Waters' Land Protection Committee. Chris has presented at a conservation seminar sponsored by GWC in addition to co-presenting on conservation easements with Gathering Waters staff at several continuing legal education seminars for attorneys.

Tim Jacobson, La Crosse
Tim left his position as president of the 11-lawyer firm O’Flaherty Heim Egan, Ltd., to become Executive Director of the Mississippi Valley Conservancy because of his strong belief in the importance of MVC’s work and the effectiveness of the organization.  Tim has been a resident of the Coulee Region of southwestern Wisconsin since childhood.  He grew up working on farms and spent 14 years as a lawyer where he focused on environmental law and other civil litigation.  Tim has served on several boards of directors for local organizations.  Tim loves hiking, camping, rock climbing and scuba diving.

Ellen Kwiatkowski, Bayfield
Ellen has been Executive Director of the Bayfield Regional Conservancy since 2008. Prior to her life in Bayfield, her conservation career has taken her all over the hemisphere. For 10 years she held a variety of positions at The Nature Conservancy in the Latin American Division and most recently as Director of Conservation Programs for Delaware Chapter. Ellen has been a valuable advocate for Wisconsin working lands conservation and serves on the PACE council, the citizen body advising DATCP on Wisconsin’s new agricultural conservation easement grant program. Ellen lives in Bayfield where she and her husband Eric own and manage an organic blueberry farm, Blue Vista Farm, which is protected through the Town of Bayfield’s Farmland Preservation Program.

Thomas "Tuck" Mallery, Mosinee
Tuck is a partner at the law firm of Mallery & Zimmerman in Wausau specializing in real estate law. In 1985, he was a founding member of the Lakeland Conservancy in Minocqua and serves as its President. He has been on the Board of North Central Conservancy Trust since its inception and has drafted numerous conservation easements. In 2002, Tuck granted a conservation easement on about 1000 acres of land that he owns with D. David Sebold in Price County.

Tia Nelson, Madison
Tia Nelson was named Executive Secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands in October 2004. She oversees the management of approximately 78,000 acres of Trust Lands located in northern Wisconsin, the State Trust Fund Loan Program, four Trust Funds valued at over $735 million, and the Original Land Records Program, which includes land survey records dating back to the 1830’s. Ms. Nelson was previously with The Nature Conservancy for seventeen years. Beginning in 1994 she led The Nature Conservancy’s climate change program where she played a key leadership role in climate change policy and in developing forest protection and restoration as a climate change mitigation strategy. She received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Leadership Award in 2000. Ms. Nelson was appointed by Governor Doyle in April 2007 to co-chair the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming.

Ben Niemann, Hayward
An Emeritus Professor in UW-Madison’s Urban and Regional Planning Department, Niemann has a long-standing interest in applying the power of GIS to natural resource conservation. Ben serves on the Board for Couderay Waters Regional Land Trust and coordinated the Moose Lake Legacy Initiative.  Ben is also former president of the National Consortium for Rural Geospatial Innovations, and former chairman for the Wisconsin Land Information Board.

Eric Schumann, Racine
A businessman his whole career, Eric is the President and owner of Potala Corporation in Racine, WI. He is the past-president of Merit Gear and FAI, Inc. His connection to Gathering Waters Conservancy has grown from his service on the board of the Caledonia Conservancy, of which he is currently the president. Eric is new to our board, but we’ve been benefiting from his fiscal savvy for over a year as he has been a member of Gathering Waters’ finance committee. He is an equestrian, a fitness buff and lists investments among his hobbies.

Patricia Stocking, Madison
Trish Stocking currently works for the Wisconsin Chapter of The Nature Conservancy in the land protection department. Trish studied botany as an undergraduate and received a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975. She has worked for non-profit organizations since then, including the national office of the Sierra Club. Trish and her husband, Jonathan Ela, own property in Door County and enjoy traveling, gardening and bird watching.