Tucson Audubon Society

Jean Barchman
Membership Coordinator, 520 629-0510 x7002, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

What brought a Midwest person to Tucson? Most snowbirds can relate to not having to drive on ice and snow on a very cold, windy day.

I was raised in the small farm town of Wyoming, Iowa. Then I moved on to the large city of Davenport to attend business college. From there, I was employed in the proof department of a bank, as a financial secretary for 2 churches, and the accounts receivable person for an auto shop.

Camping is one of my favorite pastimes. Once a year, seven girl friends would adventure on one of the Iowa rivers canoeing. We have stories to tell about raccoons invading our campsite or cattle crossing the river in front of us. Our major trip was to Poncha Springs, CO white water rafting the Arkansas River through Brown Canyon. My husband and I share the same desire. We love to Dutch oven cook and have made many meals that way. Our best meal was a Thanksgiving dinner, baking a 12-pound turkey in a Dutch oven and a pecan pie in another one.

Another hobby is playing the clarinet in the community band. Growing up in a small town had its benefit. Music lessons were included in their curriculum. Beginning in 4th grade and continuing through high school, I accomplished my goal of being first chair clarinet player in my senior year. There was a lapse of several years before playing again. While attending a concert in the park, one of the band members there convinced me to pick up the horn again and come to practice. Life changes and things happen. This same person became my future husband. When moving here, we continued our enjoyment by playing with the Tucson Concert Band. We perform several concerts per year throughout the area. One special event is playing the 4th of July concert in Summerhaven.

It wasn't until my husband and I moved to Tucson that I was introduced to "Birding". My first field trip was to the Mason Center lead by Lia Sansom. As a new birder, my first experience with seeing an Elegant Trogon was in the 2008 Birdathon. We were off Sweetwater Wetlands/Roger Road with our binoculars tilted to the trees. "Hey, Sara (Pike) what is that?" An Elegant Trogan would you believe! Each migratory bird may be a "new lifer" for me. I have been on several trips sponsored by Tucson Audubon and am learning more each time.

June 2007, I was hired by Tucson Audubon part-time as the Administrative Assistant and in January 2008 hired full-time as membership coordinator. Each employee is an important spoke in the wheel to accomplish the mission of Tucson Audubon.

Rich and I enjoy sitting in the dark trying to beat each other at spotting satellites in the sky. Our record is 19 in one night. It is one way to relax at the end of the day.

We look forward to vacation visits with the kids in Kansas, Toronto, and Iowa, and are the proud grandparents of two little girls, Evey and Emma.

Michelle Bourgeois
Accountant, 520 629-0510 x7003, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Matt! Brooks
University Shop Manager, 520 629-0510 x7007, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Matt didn't discover birding until right after college, but that hasn't stopped him from turning it into a life-long hobby and obsession. He came into his own as a birder in Alaska while working for the Forest Service and Fish & Wildlife Service in various bird-related capacities over the years. His jobs have included working as a natural history interpreter on the Alaska Marine Highway System, a ranger at the Mendenhall Glacier National Recreation Area, a biological technician in Southeast Alaska, and as a seabird surveyor on the Bering Sea. Birds have also been at the root of most of his world travel to over 40 countries worldwide (including 17 countries in Latin America alone). Though he is a New Mexico native, he is proud to currently call Arizona home. He works for Tucson Audubon Society as the Education Outreach Specialist and Deputy Shop Manager and runs a variety of programs, including the Institute of Desert Ecology. He also leads birding field trips for Tucson Audubon and Pima County Parks and Recreation, and has professionally led trips to northern Mexico for Nature Treks & Tours. Several of his articles on birding hotspots in the Arizona, Alaska, and New Mexico have been published by Birder's World magazine. As far as Matt is concerned, life is pretty sweet: he gets to bird for work and for play!

Paul Green
Executive Director, 520 629-0510 x7001 or 520 209-1801, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Paul was born in Cambridge, England, and spent his childhood on his bicycle on the back roads around Fen Ditton, exploring the woods, hedgerows and streams. He was often the "last child in from the woods" each night. As a teen he took up birding, volunteered for the Cambridge Conservation Corps to restore natural areas and, in 1970, subscribed to The Ecologist and established the Cambridge Schools' Conservation Society. He took part in a mass bicycle rally to protest the lack of bicycle lanes in Cambridge. Paul graduated from the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys with A levels in zoology, botany, and geography and while an undergraduate at the University of Keele in the UK, Edward O Wilson published Sociobiology which changed Paul's perspective on biology. Paul's closest friends at Keele (Mark Brazil, later author of The Birds of Japan, and Ian Redmond, later Elefriends and YoG Ambassador) guided Paul deeper into the world of natural history and he took the results of his undergraduate research on Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) to secure a post graduate position at the University of Edinburgh (mentors included Ian Newton, N Philip Ashmole and Aubrey Manning) to research the effects of patterns of food resources on the social organization of birds. After gaining his Ph.D. in 1981 Paul worked as an NERC Post-DoctoralResearch Fellow with Linda Partridge on Macarthur's theories on specialists and generalists, using Jackdaws (Corvus monedula) as their subject, in the field and in the lab. He also taught biology and statistics at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and for the Open University.

In 1985, Paul took up a position teaching ornithology and ecology at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, working with David Wells (Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula). Here he met zoologist Chong Eng Li: they married three years later. Another critical change point in Paul's life came following banding birds in Pasoh Forest Reserve and seeing lowland swamp forest cleared for oil palm plantation. At that point he knew he had to work in conservation related to birds.

Returning to the UK in 1988 to train with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Paul took up a position with the British Trust for Ornithology, where he worked to engage birders in collecting data for conservation, something the BTO has been doing since 1933, increasing membership by 50 percent in seven years after 20 years of no growth. In 1996 Paul moved to the US to a position with the American Birding Association to develop education and conservation programs for recreational birders, and went on to become President and CEO. During these thriving years for the ABA, Paul established the Young Birder of the Year program, brought North American Birds from National Audubon, Birders' Exchange from Manomet, and Institute of Field Ornithology from the University of Maine at Machias to the ABA as ABA programs and activities, and expanded the conference, convention, and tours program. He also became a keen student of non-profit management.

In 2003 he took the opportunity to work with Frank Gill, then Chief Scientist at National Audubon, to become Director of Citizen Science, where his goal continued to be bringing people together to watch birds with a conservation outcome (for example through the Great Backyard Bird Count, Christmas Bird Count, IBA Site Assessment, and the Audubon side of eBird). In addition Paul was responsible for the Audubon at Home program, which sought to make everyone aware of the outcomes of their decisions on the well-being of the natural world.

Paul has been Executive Director of Tucson Audubon since March 2007. He came here so that he could be closer to the conservation outcomes of his work, and to continue developing the links between members of the community and their natural world through birds, so that natural habitats might thrive and birds prosper. Paul has a particular interest in addressing all things that threaten the continued survival of our natural world. He enjoys bringing together all people, including business owners, who want to fight these threats with creative solutions.

Paul has had the good fortune to bird in Britain, France, Spain, Turkey, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Sumatra, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Borneo, Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Trinidad, Panama, USA and Canada. He has ringed and banded in the UK, Malaysia, and the US, and was a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on the Bird Banding Laboratory that issued its report in 2008.

Matt Griffiths
Habitat Restoration, IBA Program Associate, Communications, Webmaster, 520 971-7924 (cell), This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Matt first fell in love with the diverse biology of southeastern Arizona while volunteering at the Southwestern Research Station in the Chiricahua mountains. Later, his interest in birds reached new levels during a year of surveying for Southwestern Willow Flycatchers in the Grand Canyon. Now he can imagine nothing better than listening to Whip-poor-will and Canyon Wren song in one of his favorite Sky Islands! He considers the Loggerhead Shrike to be the coolest local bird.

Starting at Tucson Audubon in 2004 as a habitat restoration field tech, Matt is currently webmaster, coordinator of the Vermilion Flycatcher, and an IBA Program Associate, while still spending time in the field planting native trees and shrubs. He also participates in Important Bird Area surveys at locations such as the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers and the Patagonia mountains.

Matt is originally from Los Angeles and has a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has extensive experience gathering data as a field biologist, including participation in the Mt. Graham Red Squirrel Monitoring Project at the University of Arizona and the El Segundo Dunes restoration project in Los Angeles. Matt has also worked in a print shop, done graphic design and was a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. In his free time, Matt enjoys teaching his young son about the biological bounty of the Sonoran desert, and riding one of his many bikes up Mt. Lemmon or across the country.

Kara Kaczmarzyk
Development and Volunteer Coordinator, 520-629-0510 x7011, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Kara Kaczmarzyk joined Tucson Audubon in Fall 2011 as Volunteer and Development Coordinator. Before joining the TAS team, Kara worked in a number of development positions at nonprofit organizations in Arizona, New Jersey and New York City.

With a background in the arts, Kara works to get new people from a variety of backgrounds engaged in the TAS goals of conservation, education, and restoration. A lifelong vegetarian, Kara grew up in rural Arizona and is constantly amazed by the everyday opportunities to witness and appreciate the nature that surround us here.

Kara is new to birding, but is starting to identify southeastern Arizona birds outside her window at our Mason Center. She is excited to learn all she can about birding and work with the dedicated, passionate TAS volunteers! Kara received a Bachelors Degree in Art History and Italian Language from the University of Arizona.

Kendall Kroesen
Habitats Program Manager, 520 629-0510 x7006, 971-2385 (cell), This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Kendall grew up in Southern California and graduated from Canyon High School in Anaheim. His mother identified common yard birds but he didn't take up birding until after earning a BA in anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. After participating in a sea turtle conservation project in northeast Mexico, he bought a bird book and binoculars and was off.

He practiced birding when he could during three years as a salvage archaeologist and then in graduate school at the University of California, San Diego. In graduate school Kendall studied psychological and medical anthropology. He gathered material for his dissertation during a twenty-month stay in central Mexico, earning a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology.

After moving to Tucson and volunteering for Tucson Audubon for a few years, Kendall joined the staff in February 2002. During his first four years he worked with the habitat restoration program and helped improve communications, especially via the website and newsletter.

In the fall of 2006 Kendall became Habitat Restoration Program Manager. In that capacity his responsibilities include oversight of ongoing restoration work, grant writing, planning and new project implementation. He manages a small staff, oversees a 300-acre conservation easement and helps Tucson Audubon track certain conservation issues.

Kendall's new title is Habitats Program Manager because, in addition to managing the restoration program, he is helping Tucson Audubon create an urban sustainability program. Tucson Audubon is working with businesses, homeowners and landscape designers to create landscaping that addresses the needs of wildlife, water conservation, non-point source pollution, urban heat island effect and carbon footprint.

Jennie has been interested in nature from a very young age and in birds in particular since elementary school. When she put on her first pair of glasses in second grade and looked out the window and for the first time saw the individual leaves on a tree and then a bird sitting within the tree, that was it! Jennie has been hooked on birds ever since.

Through high school in Tucson, Jennie was involved in many nerdy activities such as Envirothon and Science Olympiad (and still enjoys many "nerdy" activities). In both competitions, Jennie's team won at the state level and advanced to the national competition (three times in Envirothon!). One year Jennie's Envirothon team came in 6th at the national competition and the next year Jennie won first place at the national Science Olympiad competition in the "For the Birds" event about birds of North America.

As a senior in high school, Jennie entered the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (SARSEF) with a project about Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy Owls and was a winner in the "environmental" category. The prize was a tuition waiver to the University of Arizona. While in college, Jennie volunteered for 2 years as a hummingbird trapper in a banding project in Sabino Canyon with the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. In the last year of college, she began volunteering with the Important Bird Area program as a surveyor and had a great time learning how to survey for birds (and how to camp!)

In 2010 Jennie graduated from the University of Arizona with a BS in Wildlife Conservation and Management from the School of Natural Resources. That same month she was hired by Tucson Audubon Society to work in the Arizona Important Bird Areas Program and is absolutely thrilled to be working here!

Erin Olmstead
Development Manager, 520 629-0510 x7009, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

A chance encounter with a pair of Barred Owls got Erin hooked on birds about ten years ago. Since then, she has explored the Americas as an interpretive naturalist, helping people connect with nature and appreciate the value of biodiversity. Her adventures have taken her from the bustling hawk-watch platform at Cape May, NJ, and the briny shores of Mono Lake in California, to the pristine tropical beaches of Costa Rica and the spectacular rainforest canopy of the Amazon. Erin spent almost three years getting to know the birding community through her work with an ecotourism outfit in Ecuador before returning to the States in 2008. After landing in Arizona, she spent a season monitoring breeding Bald Eagles near Phoenix and joined Tucson Audubon as our Special Projects staffer in 2009. Erin coordinates a variety of development and outreach projects. In her free time, Erin enjoys exploring the Sky Islands with her husband, Scott.

Brad Paxton - Contractor
Finance Manager, 520 629-0510 x7014, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Bete Pfister
Environmental Education Program Coordinator, 520 629-0510 x7012, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Bete moved to Tucson three years ago after living for eight years in Kino Bay, Sonora a small fishing village on the shores of the Gulf of California, Mexico. It was there she explored the interface of the desert and the sea and had amazing opportunities to follow resident and migrant landbirds, shorebirds, seabirds through the seasons, onshore and offshore into the Midriff Islands. Offshore, she participated in photo-identification projects with fin whales and sperm whales and conducted underwater surveys for commercially important species of fish and marine invertebrates within the San Pedro Martir Island Biosphere Reserve.

While she was in Kino, she began her career as an educator and mentor, teaching marine biology, ecology and conservation based field courses to Prescott College students at the College's Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies. For two years, she coordinated Prescott College's environmental education program in the local Kino schools and since then the program has grown to reach 700 children a week.

A teacher and mentor at heart, Bete is excited about the opportunity to manage existing education activities, and to develop new ones for the Tucson Audubon Society. She feels passionately about fostering a connection to the natural world for her children and for our greater community. She has seen the positive and powerful impact that local, community participation in conservation initiatives can have on the success of conservation programs and is looking forward to engaging in this important work.

Bete is originally from New England and has a bachelor's degree in Biology from Skidmore College and a Masters degree in marine resource management and policy from the University of Washington's School of Marine Affairs. She enjoys exploring outdoors with her family and dancing and playing music with Batucaxé, an Afro-Brazilian drum and dance ensemble based here in Tucson.

Sara Pike
Operations Manager, 520 629-0510 x7008, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sara has been working for Tucson Audubon since 2005. She started out as a Volunteer Naturalist at Tucson Audubon's Mason Center and helped with the beginning bird walks there.

Sara currently manages the Operations and Nature Shop for Tucson Audubon and is also a Field Trip Leader. Why Tucson Audubon? Sara loves being outdoors. She loves being reminded and humbled that she's not the only thing on this earth. In her words, "Nature humbles me – it reminds me that there is more to this life than material things, and that we all need to care for something other than ourselves. Birds especially are a constant reminder of the importance of diversity and the greatness of being unique.”

Kate Reynolds
Volunteer Field Trip Coordinator, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Kate Reynolds is a freelance writer who fell in love with birding a few months ago and is eager to learn more. She authored the fifth and sixth editions of The Insiders' Guide to Phoenix and co-authored (with Mary Paganelli Votto) the sixth edition of The Insiders' Guide to Tucson, as well as numerous magazine articles here and there. A few years ago, she also volunteered at The Tucson Wildlife Center, a rescue and release haven for injured and orphaned wildlife. Her most recent venture is a blog called TucsonOnTheCheap.com. Kate is delighted at the chance to meet and work with all of you. So, everyone . . . let's go birding!