About Audubon > Board of Directors >

Board of Directors

Following is a list of NAS Directors, including city of residence and years in which terms expire. If you have questions about the NAS Board, please direct them to Sue Mackey, boardservice@audubon.org.

The NAS Board meets three times a year. Meetings are open to the public; view the schedule here.

The National Audubon Society's Board of Directors has nine Regional Directors -- members elected by chapters. If you have any questions about Audubon that cannot be answered by your local chapter or your state office, or if you do not have a local chapter or state office, please contact your regional Board member.

Steven R. Beissinger, Ph.D.
A. Peter Cannon, Jr.
Caroline C. Coe
Alan R. Dolan
Lynn Dolnick
Margot Ernst
David B. Ford
Frank Gill
Ralf Graves
David B. Hartwell
Charles F. Kahle
Allen J. Model
Jane-Kerin Moffat
Peggy Montano

Jess Morton
Margery Aylwin Nicolson, Ph.D.
Adan A. Ortega
Andrew Sansom
Lloyd Semple
Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff
Michael Stolper
Virginia K. Stowe, M.S.N.
Holt Thrasher
John A. Whittle
Alan Wilson
Roger Wolf
William P. Yellowtail
Steven T. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Board member bios:

Class of 2009

Steven R. Beissinger, Ph.D., of Berkeley, California is a professor of conservation biology and holds the A. Starker Leopold Chair of Wildlife Biology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union and serves on editorial board member of Conservation Biology, Ecology Letters and Ecology. Dr. Beissinger is also a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution and University of California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

Caroline C. Coe
of Richmond, Virginia is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Mid-Atlantic Region. She is past President and Vice President of the Richmond Audubon Society and the Virginia Audubon Council. Ms. Coe is a member of the Steering and Oversight Committees of Audubon’s Virginia IBA Program.

Alan R. Dolan
of Massillon, Ohio is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Central Great Lakes Region. He is President of the Canton Audubon Society and Treasurer of the Council of Ohio Audubon Chapters. Mr. Dolan is the former First Vice President, Secretary, Membership Database Chair, and Newsletter Editor of the Canton Audubon Society and former President and Vice President of the Council of Ohio Audubon Chapters.

David B. Hartwell
of Minneapolis, Minnesota is the President of Bellcomb Technologies. He is a board member of the Land Trust Alliance, the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, Conservation Minnesota and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Mr. Hartwell is Chair of the Audubon Minnesota Advisory Board.

Charles F. Kahle
of Seattle, Washington is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Northwest Region. He is the President and founder of Kahle Technology Systems. He is a member of the Audubon Council of Washington, the Board of Seattle Audubon Society and the Audubon Washington Advisory Board.

Allen J. Model
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is Treasurer of National Audubon Society and Chair of its Planning and Finance Committee. Mr. Model is the co-founder and Managing Director of Overseas Strategic Consulting, Ltd. He serves on the boards of the Wildlife Trust, Middlesex School, Jerusalem Foundation, Women’s Way and Bach Festival of Philadelphia. Mr. Model is Chair of the Leo Model Foundation.

Margery Aylwin Nicolson, Ph.D.
of Pacific Palisades, California is a former faculty member of the University of Southern California Medical School and is a retired Senior Scientist of Amgen, Inc. Dr. Nicolson is a member of the Audubon Alaska Advisory Board and is an active volunteer at Audubon’s Lillian Annette Rowe Sanctuary and the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center in Gibbon, Nebraska.

Adan A. Ortega, Jr.
of Fullerton, California is a consultant to GCG Rose & Kindel, a Los-Angeles based public relations firm. He was recently appointed to California’s Board of Food and Agriculture and is a board member of Heal the Bay and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council. Mr. Ortega is a member of the Audubon California Advisory Board.

Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff
, an attorney from New York City and Highland Falls, New York, is of Counsel at Lacher & Lovell & Lovell-Taylor. He served as Regional Administrator for Region II of the U.S. EPA during the first Bush Administration. He is also the Chairman Emeritus of Phipps Houses and Chair of the Audubon New York Board. He was for 15 years a Commissioner of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York (MTA). Before that he was New York City Highways Commissioner and Transportation Administrator under Mayor Lindsay. He is Secretary and a Director of the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Inc. He is also a Commissioner of Orange County, New York Planning Board and a Director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section and serves on its Executive Committee and as Co-Chairman of its Standing Committee on International Environmental Law.

William P. Yellowtail
of Bozeman, Montana is the senior project specialist for the Cook Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He is a former member of the Natural Resources, Fish and Game, Judiciary, and Educational Committees of the Montana State Senate and served as Chair of the Montana Environmental Quality Council of the Montana Legislature. Mr. Yellowtail is a former Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a former Director of Education of the Crow Tribal Council.

Class of 2010


A. Peter Cannon, Jr.
of Madison, Wisconsin is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Central Region. Mr. Cannon is the Program Chair of the Madison Audubon Society and Acting Secretary of the Wisconsin Audubon Council. He is a retired legislative analyst with Wisconsin’s Legislative Reference Bureau and is Secretary of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Lynn Dolnick
of Chevy Chase, Maryland is the former Associate Director of Exhibits and Outreach at the National Zoo and was a founder of its New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences program. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Times Company and is Vice Chair of the Audubon Maryland-DC Advisory Board.

David B. Ford
of New York, New York is a retired partner of Goldman Sachs. He serves on the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a board member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, New School University’s Parsons School of Design, and Florida State University.

Frank Gill
of Rushland, Pennsylvania is the retired Chief Scientist of National Audubon Society. He is former Vice President of the Academy of Natural Sciences and past President of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He is the author of Ornithology 3e.

Jane-Kerin Moffat
of Greenwich, Connecticut is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Northeast Region. She is a member of the Audubon Connecticut Advisory Board, Chair of its Chapters and Members’ Services, Committee, and a lifetime honorary board member of Audubon Greenwich. A retired school teacher, she has served as grassroots coordinator of Audubon’s “Listen to the Sound” (Long Island Sound) campaign and the Long Island Watershed Alliance, as President, Vice-president, and Secretary of the Audubon Council of Connecticut, and as Vice-president, Newsletter Editor, and Conservation Chair of the former Greenwich Audubon Society.

Jess Morton
of San Pedro, California is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Western Region. He is Treasurer, past Newsletter Editor, and founding President (1978) of the Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society and founder of Audubon YES! (Youth Environmental Services) Program. Jess is a natural history writer and photographer, poet, tax preparer, board member of several environmental and cultural organizations, and a recipient of National Audubon Society’s 1996 Charles H. Callison Award.

Lloyd Semple
of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan is Chair of National Audubon Society’s Development and Audit and Ethics Committees. Mr. Semple is Chairman Emeritus of Dykema Gossett PLLC, a Detroit-based law firm and a visiting professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. He is an officer and director of the Detroit Zoological Society and is Chairman of the Michigan chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

Michael Stolper
of Berwyn, Pennsylvania is a general partner of Veritable, LP, a privately-held registered investment advisor. He was the co-managing director of Hawthorn, a PNC Company, and was President of Stolper & Co. He is a director of Advanta Corp. and has over 30 years experience as an investment advisor and financial consultant.

John A. Whittle, Ph.D.
of Nederland, Texas is a member of the Audubon Texas Advisory Board and Secretary and Newsletter Editor of the Golden Triangle Audubon Society. Dr. Whittle is a professor of chemistry and Director of Risk Management for Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas and is a member of the American Chemical Society.

Alan Wilson
of Manchester, Massachusetts is Secretary of National Audubon Society and Chair of its Conservation Committee. Mr. Wilson is an environmental lawyer and retired Vice President of the Conservation Law Foundation. Mr. Wilson serves on the board of the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation and is the former Chair of Massachusetts Audubon Society. He is the elected Town Moderator in Manchester.

Steven T. Zimmerman, Ph.D.
of Juneau, Alaska is Chair of Audubon Alaska’s Advisory Board and is the past President and past Vice President of the Juneau Audubon Society. Dr. Zimmerman is the former Assistant Regional Administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service and the current Vice Chairman of the Juneau Wetlands Review Board.

Class of 2011


Margot Ernst
of New York City serves on National Audubon Society’s Planning and Finance Committee. She is a retired Curator and Associate Director of the Japan Society Gallery. She writes and lectures on Japanese art and cuisine and has edited several books on Japanese culture. Ms Ernst is Co-Chair of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. She is an honorary trustee of the Adirondack Museum and serves on several environmental and cultural boards in the Adirondacks where she owns an inn with her husband and lives part-time. She is a member of the Audubon New York Advisory Board focusing on development issues.

Ralf R. Graves
(1st term) of Wallingford, Pennsylvania is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Eastern Region. She is a Program Manager at the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research. She is the former President and a board member of Valley Forge Audubon Society, a member of the John James Audubon Center Stewardship Board, and a member of the Nether Providence Township Parks Commission.

Peggy Montaño
of Denver, Colorado is a partner at Trout, Raley, Montano, Witwer & Freeman, P.C. She served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Colorado, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General for the State of New Mexico and as an advisor to the University of Colorado Natural Resource Law Center. Ms. Montaño is the former Chair of the Colorado State Parks Board and member of the Audubon Colorado Advisory Board.

Andrew Sansom
of Austin, Texas is interim Chairman of the Board of National Audubon Society. He assumed that position when former Chair Carol Browner resigned from the board following her nomination to join the Obama administration. He is currently the Executive Director of the River Systems Institute, Research Professor of Geography at Texas State University, a member of the National Council of the Conservation Fund, an advisory trustee of Bat Conservation International and a member of the Audubon Texas Advisory Board. Mr.. Sansom’s previous positions include Director of Texas Parks and Wildlife, State Director of the Nature Conservancy of Texas and founder of Parks and Wildlife Foundation of Texas, Inc. He has authored four books, two on Texas natural history.

Virginia K. Stowe, M.S.N.
of New York, N.Y. is a parent educator, family counselor, author and founder and director of the not-for-profit Parenting Development Resource, Inc. Gini co-chairs the Audubon New York’s annual Keesee Award Luncheon which funds state-wide programs in New York. She also co-chairs the Women in Conservation Luncheon Rachel Carson Awards which fund the Long Island Sound Campaign and serves on the Conservation Committees for the Audubon New York Advisory Board and the National Audubon Society Board. In addition, Gini has been a longtime volunteer teacher for Audubon’s urban education program “For the Birds” in New York City’s public schools, a program that introduces the importance of stewardship to children.

B. Holt Thrasher
(1st term) of Greenwich, Connecticut, is Managing Director and founder of Mooreland Partners. Holt has 25 years of investment banking, operating management and consulting experience specializing in communications software and in sectors such as wireless and wireline software applications, operating support systems, infrastructure software and applications. Holt serves as Chair of the Audubon Connecticut Advisory Board and the Board of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Jefferson Partners Capital, a Toronto based venture capital firm.

Roger C. Wolf
of Tucson, Arizona, is the regional director for National Audubon Society’s Southwest Region. He has over thirty years experience practicing immigration law in Tucson. He served as a legal aid lawyer on the Tohono O'odham Reservation and was a seasonal ranger at Yellowstone National Park. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia. He is past President of the Tucson Audubon Society and past Secretary of the Arizona Audubon Council, of which he is still a member.