Dr. Gary Tabor, Executive Director, BSC Cornell, VMD U Penn, MES Yale, is a conservation catalyst. He has championed large landscape conservation efforts throughout the world, notably the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). His efforts have increased the conservation capacity of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Wildlife Trust and numerous other conservation organizations. More recently, Gary established and directed the Wilburforce Foundation's Yellowstone to Yukon field office in Montana and in 1999 designed one of the first conservation science grant making programs in western North America. His conservation background includes eight years of international conservation work in East Africa and South America. Trained as a wildlife veterinarian and an ecologist, Gary also co-founded the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, an ecological health collaborative linking ecology, epidemiology, human and veterinary medicine, and public health. During his career, Gary has served as an adviser to six major private foundations and several bilateral and multilateral donor agencies in the area of biodiversity and wildland philanthropy. Gary recently completed his 6 year term on the Board of Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology. wildcatalyst@gmail.com
Rob Ament, Senior Conservationist, BS Horticulture, Iowa State University, MSc Biological Sciences, Montana State University, has more than 30 years of experience in ecology, natural resource management, environmental policy, and organizational development. At CLLC, Rob leads our efforts to protect wildlife corridors and ecological connectivity by developing strategies, implementing policies and connecting organizations, agencies and institutions. He began his career as a field ecologist, wilderness ranger and rare plant botanist, working from the deserts of Utah and the alpine region of the Northern Rockies, to the temperate rainforests of Alaska. His Master’s thesis evaluated the recovery of Yellowstone National Park’s plant communities after the 1988 wildfires. More recently he has been the Executive Director of American Wildlands, North American policy coordinator with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Road Ecology Program Manager at the Western Transportation Institute - Montana State University. He served on two policy groups for the Western Governors’ Association’s Wildlife Corridors Initiative – oil and gas; transportation and infrastructure. He was an expert panelist to the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board in their development of a synthesis report on new technologies for environmental surveys. He is the treasurer of the Wildlands Network’s Board of Directors and was a founding board member of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. Other volunteer activities have included rescuing sea otters from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, teaching English as a second language to immigrants, and serving as a child advocate and board member at a local women’s shelter. rament@climateconservation.org
Rosemary Burton, Office Director, B Environmental Design, Texas A&M, M Arch, Montana State University, Humanities year, Gonzaga-in-Florence. Rosemary is a multi-faceted professional. Although originally trained as an architect, (Master’s thesis - straw bale construction), she has had a substantial career as an outdoor educator. Rosemary led trips for Outward Bound throughout the west for many years and as an avid outdoorswoman, she led month-long river expeditions on the Grand Canyon, the Rio Grande and the Hayes River (Lake Winnipeg to Hudson’s Bay). She has kayaked, canoed and hiked numerous rivers, deserts and mountains of the west and southwest. She created and directed Montana State University’s Outdoor Orientation for incoming freshman. Her design work includes traveling for Patagonia as a Visual Merchandiser, designing on the team of the Nantahala Outdoor Center, interning with local architects, and designing and remodeled several homes in the area. She has served on a local school board and actively volunteers in the Bozeman community. Rosemary studied and speaks Spanish from her travels in Costa Rica. As Office Director, she manages financial operations and human resources for CLLC. rosemaryburton1@gmail.com
Renee Callahan, Senior Policy Officer, BA Harvard, JD American University, Masters of Env. Sci. & Mgmt. UC-Santa Barbara. Originally from Virginia, Renee recently graduated from the Bren School at UCSB with a Master’s in Environmental Science and Management. Previously, she graduated summa cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law, and magna cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies. While at the Bren School, Renee specialized in conservation planning and coastal marine resources management, with a focus on habitat connectivity and climate change. Among other projects, she has explored ways to reduce the risk of vessel strikes to endangered whales in the Santa Barbara Channel; analyzed the socioeconomic value of regional fisheries in the Baja California Sur portion of the Gulf of California Eco-region; and developed policy recommendations for conserving populations of Western snowy plovers in response to anticipated climate change. She interned with the World Wildlife Fund’s Northern Great Plains program in Bozeman, Montana, and volunteered for six years at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park’s Cheetah Conservation Station. Renee has over a decade of professional legal experience working on federal regulatory law and public policy issues before the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. Prior to enrolling at Bren, she was a Partner with the law firm of Lawler, Metzger, Milkman & Keeney, LLC, and served as an Attorney Advisor for the Honorable Joseph E. McGuire within the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the U.S. Department of Justice. Renee provides the CLLC with her expertise in administrative processes, legislative language, and judicial rulings to facilitate large landscape and ecological connectivity conservation. renee@climateconservation.org