The Trustees for Alaska board of directors consists of volunteers from in and out of Alaska who care about and support the work Trustees does to protect the lands, waters, animals, and communities essential to Alaska’s health and future.
If you want to join Trustees as a board member, check out our jobs and opportunities page. We’d love to hear from you.
Chase Hensel is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist with more than thirty years experience working with Native people and Native languages in rural Alaska. His major research interests have included subsistence practices and traditional ecological knowledge. Retired from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), he currently consults on Alaska Native language and culture curriculum development, and on litigation, often involving rural plaintiffs and defendants and/or rural court sites. He attended Washington State University and Cornell as an undergraduate, UAF for an MA and UC Berkeley for his Ph.D.
Marlyn Twitchell was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, and has dedicated her career to protecting wild lands, wildlife and advancing Native rights in Alaska and beyond. She is currently a contract attorney, policy analyst and campaign consultant for nonprofit organizations and foundations. A graduate of Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, she has served as director of a Northwest foundation, Environmental Litigation Director for the National Audubon Society, and Attorney at Alaska Legal Services and Earthjustice. She served on the Trustees board in the mid-1990s and currently serves on the board of Toxic Free Future in Seattle.
Ann Rothe has been engaged in environmental management, policy and advocacy in Alaska for nearly forty years through her work with the U.S. Department of Interior, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation (whose Alaska office she established) and the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, (which she helped create after the Exxon Valdez oil spill). She was the executive director of Trustees for Alaska for ten years, and she recently retired from the Alaska Conservation Foundation after nine years working as a program officer, deputy director and executive director. Ann is currently working as a consultant in nonprofit management, fundraising planning and foundation research. She is an avid waterfowl hunter, and she and her husband, Tom, raise and train retrievers for field trials and hunting.
Michelle Meyer grew up in Southeast Alaska and now resides in the Seattle area of Washington state. Of Tlingit descent, Meyer is Raven moiety, Kwaashkikwaan Clan, Fort House from Yakutat, Alaska. Meyer’s passion is the preservation and protection of healthy, intact areas for gathering traditional foods and medicines. She works to fulfill her obligation to her Peoples’ ancestral lands because she knows their importance to the continuation of Tlingit culture. Meyer is a Western Washington University graduate and works in health care development and fundraising.
Jim Stratton’s 35-year career working to protect Alaska’s public lands and waters started in Juneau with the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council just a few weeks after the Alaska Lands Act was signed. He subsequently moved to Anchorage where he worked for the Alaska Conservation Foundation, spent most of the Knowles Administration as the Director of Alaska State Parks and most recently put in over 12 years with the National Parks Conservation Association. He is now retired and spends his time hiking, birding and visiting national parks around the world. In addition to Trustees, he volunteers his time as a board member with Boreal Songbird Initiative and the Oregon Natural Desert Association. Jim holds a degree in Recreation and Parks Management from the University of Oregon and an MBA from Alaska Pacific University. Jim received a lifetime achievement award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation in 2020
M. James “Jim” Spitzer, Jr. is a partner in the international law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP in the Real Estate Section and Co-Chairs the Institutional Investment Group. His clients include national real estate equity funds as well as local, national and multi-national developers and investors. During his extensive career, he has acted as lead counsel in a variety of complex transactions including preferred equity investments and mezzanine loans. Jim has served on nonprofit boards supporting the arts and conservation. Jim was elected to the board in September 2006.
Leonard first visited Alaska in 1974 and returned to live here in 1976. From 1977-1980 Leonard was employed by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council from 1977 to 1980, advocating for wilderness protection for the Tongass National Forest and during these years, he spent his holidays sea kayaking remote areas in Southeast Alaska. Leonard has also visited the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the western Arctic, and other remote parts of the state. During the 80s and 90s, Leonard worked as a business litigator, and for more than 20 years was general counsel and a corporate executive for a publicly traded company based in Alaska. In retirement, Leonard continues to explore Alaska, the Lower 48, and the rest of the world. Leonard earned his bachelor’s in biology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, his master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, his Juris Doctor degree from Hastings College of the Law, and his master’s in business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Margaret Williams is a senior fellow in the Arctic Initiative of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, specializing in environmental challenges related to shifting geopolitics in the circumpolar Arctic. For 24 years, Margaret was the director of World Wildlife Fund’s U.S. Arctic program, which entailed leading a team of experts in wildlife science, policy, climate change and collaborating closely with partners in Russia, Canada, and other Arctic countries. In the early 1990s, she lived and worked in Russia, where she supported public engagement in Russia’s protected areas network and launched a quarterly publication, Russian Conservation News. Margaret has a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, a master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Environment, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alaska. She has served on the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board, and the advisory board of the Alaska Oceans Observing System. Margaret is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an avid skier, hiker, pack-rafter, and conservationist.
Peg Tileston is one of Trustees for Alaska’s original founders from 1974. She served as board chairwoman for the first eight years of the organization’s history. She also played significant roles in the establishment of the Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska Conservation Foundation, the Alaska Women’s Environmental Network and Alaska Common Ground. She has served on many boards and commissions over her long tenure in Alaska. Peg was voted into the Alaska Conservation Hall of Fame and inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. She received an Honorary Doctor of Law from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2009. Since 1999, Peg has produced What’s Up, a weekly calendar of natural resource and conservation activities in Alaska. She return to serving on the Trustee for Alaska board in May 2015.