Wilderness Watch Staff

KATIE BILODEAU

Legislative Director and Policy Analyst

Katie joined Wilderness Watch in 2024 as our legislative director and policy analyst. Katie’s academic and professional credentials include natural resources and law. She completed a short fellowship with Wilderness Watch and represented environmental groups privately before serving as Friends of the Clearwater’s staff attorney for five years, fighting to keep the wild in Idaho’s Wild Clearwater Country.

DANIEL BRISTER

Staff Attorney

Dan joined Wilderness Watch in 2024. He earned a J.D. from the University of Montana with certificates in Natural Resources & Environmental Law and American Indian Law. He worked in private legal practice for three years and spent two decades as an activist with Buffalo Field Campaign, protecting wild bison and their habitat in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Dan enjoys live music and being outdoors. He lives at the base of the Mission Mountains near the Jocko River.

NICOLE CANNAVARO

Administrative Assistant

Nicole joined Wilderness Watch in 2024 as the administrative assistant. Nicole spent her formative years hiking around the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness, and volunteering with animal rescue rehabilitation groups. She spent 6 years as an aircraft technician before transitioning into the conservation field.

BRETT HAVERSTICK

Membership and Development Director

Brett joined Wilderness Watch in 2020 after spending ten years as the education and outreach director for Friends of the Clearwater in Idaho. He has degrees in recreation and natural resources and a certificate in environmental education. He is an avid backpacker and spends much of his time in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

DANA JOHNSON

Policy Director

Dana joined Wilderness Watch as our first staff attorney in 2014. Setting her roots at the fringe of Idaho’s Wild Clearwater Country, Dana has provided litigation and general legal support for environmental groups and individual Earth defenders throughout the Northern Rockies since 2010. Dana coordinates Wilderness Watch’s overall litigation strategy, representation in federal court, and cooperation with other attorneys and legal interns.

MATTHEW KOEHLER

Media Director

Matthew Koehler joined Wilderness Watch in 2023, bringing nearly 30 years of experience working to defend public lands, wilderness, and wildlife. Matthew is the former executive director of the WildWest Institute and board member of the National Forest Protection Alliance. Voted “best activist” by the Missoula Independent in 2007 and awarded the Fund for Wild Nature’s “grassroots activist of the year” in 2010, Matthew enjoys growing garlic, native landscaping, hiking, the game of golf, and an occasional old fashioned.

GEORGE NICKAS

Executive Director

George joined Wilderness Watch as our policy coordinator in 1996. Prior to Wilderness Watch, George served 11 years as a natural resource specialist and assistant coordinator for the Utah Wilderness Association. George is regularly invited to make presentations at national wilderness conferences, agency training sessions, and other gatherings where wilderness protection is discussed.

KEVIN PROESCHOLDT

Conservation Director

Kevin guided canoe trips in Minnesota’s million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) for 10 years, and has visited designated and undesignated Wildernesses throughout the U.S. and Canada. He helped pass the 1978 BWCA Wilderness Act through Congress, directed the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness for 16 years, and co-authored the 1995 book, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. For the eight years prior to joining the Wilderness Watch staff, Kevin directed the national Izaak Walton League’s Wilderness and Public Lands Program. Kevin has been active with Wilderness Watch since 1989, joined the board of directors in 2003, and served two years as president of the board. He has written extensively on the Boundary Waters, and wilderness policy and history.

DAWN SERRA

Communications and Outreach Director

Dawn joined Wilderness Watch in 2009. Dawn previously worked for the Highlands Coalition as communications coordinator and contracted design work for non-profits such as Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Appalachian Mountain Club, Great Burn Study Group, Native Forest Network, and the National Forest Protection Alliance. Dawn also served as publicity coordinator for the Sawtooths to Selkirks Hike, which promoted wildlife corridors in the northern Rockies.

MIKE BROWNING

Colorado

Mike Browning grew up in Great Falls, Montana. After graduating from Yale Law School, he had a 40-year career in Colorado as a water lawyer. Mike spent most of his summers in high school and college backpacking in Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where he fell in love with mountains and wild places. He climbed Mt. Everest and finished the rest of the Seven Summits when he was 60, climbing another 500 or so peaks along the way. Mike has served six years (two as chair) on the board of the Eagle Summit Wilderness Alliance, a volunteer organization working to protect the four Wilderness areas in Eagle and Summit counties, Colorado. He is passionate about the intrinsic values of Wilderness.

TRACY DAVIDS

North Carolina, Vice President/Secretary

Tracy Davids is the southeast program coordinator for Defenders of Wildlife in their Asheville, NC field office and the former executive director of Wild South and Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project.  A New Hampshire native, she has been an ardent advocate for public lands protection, imperiled species, and individual ecological footprint reduction since 1998. Tracy’s current work focuses on connecting people with the wild world around us and engaging Southeastern communities in wildlife/habitat protection efforts. Her experience also includes non-profit consulting/coaching/training, the practice of civil law, and volunteer board service for local, regional, and national conservation organizations including Fund for Wild Nature, Dogwood Alliance, Cherokee Forest Voices, National Forest Protection Alliance, and Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition. When she’s not advocating for wild places, she’s spending time in them. 

JON DETTMANN

Minnesota

Wilderness Watch welcomed Minnesota attorney Jon Dettmann back to our board of directors in Fall 2023. Jon first joined the WW board in 2003, where he served for eight years, including in the role of president of the board. Jon represented Wilderness Watch in our epic successful legal challenge to stop the National Park Service from conducting motorized van tours through the Cumberland Island Wilderness in Georgia. He argued our case through federal district court up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and won a sweeping decision there in 2004 in favor of Wilderness. Jon enjoys visiting Wilderness, including winter camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

MARK PEARSON

Colorado

Mark Pearson is a long-time advocate for wilderness, wildlife and public lands in Colorado. Mark currently serves as the executive director of San Juan Citizens Alliance in Durango, a position he has filled for 15 years. He has been engaged with public lands and wilderness advocacy in western Colorado for almost 40 years, in both staff and volunteer positions. Mark previously worked with the Wilderness Land Trust purchasing inholdings within designated and proposed wilderness for conveyance into public ownership. Mark holds a M.S. from Colorado State University in natural resource management and a B.S. in engineering physics from the University of Colorado. He has authored several guidebooks to existing and proposed wilderness areas in Colorado.

MARK PETERSON

Wisconsin, President

Dr. Mark Peterson has camped, hiked, kayaked, sailed, and skied his way throughout national parks and Wilderness areas. He’s pursued his outdoor recreation passions on campus with a Ph.D. in park and wilderness management from Colorado State University and also in the workplace serving as the Rocky Mountain regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a vice president for the National Audubon Society, and the executive director of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland College. Peterson’s efforts to advocate for conservation measures span worldwide as he is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He has served on a number of regional boards, including the Listening Point Foundation, St. Croix River Association, Friends of the Apostle Islands and the Minnesota DNR’s Council for Scientific and Natural Areas.

RENE VOSS

California, Treasurer

René Voss is a solo attorney in San Anselmo, California where he works to protect our national forests, wildlife, and wild lands from harmful development. He started his environmental career 25 years ago as campaign director for Georgia ForestWatch and helped protect the remaining roadless lands of the Chattahoochee National Forest and helped stop most new logging on that forest.  He then moved to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress on behalf of the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute to end commercial logging of our national forests. He is a life member and long-time Sierra Club leader, and was elected to the Sierra Club board of directors in 1999. During his time in D.C., while continuing his work, he returned to school to study law and in 2008 passed the California Bar Exam. He then moved to California and has been practicing public interest natural resources law from his solo practice in San Anselmo. He helps many clients, but he is most passionate about defending the Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument on behalf of Sequoia ForestKeeper. He is a member of the Town of San Anselmo’s Open Space Commission, whose goal is to acquire, protect, and restore undeveloped open space lands for the public.

HOWIE WOLKE

Montana

Howie Wolke is a retired wilderness guide/outfitter who has led over 500 multi-day wilderness backpack treks from northern Alaska to Mexico. He has been a wilderness activist in the Northern Rockies since the mid-1970s, including many years as a board director of Wilderness Watch. He has authored two books on wildland conservation, and enjoys backpacking, canoeing, backcountry skiing, whitewater rafting, hunting, wildlife viewing, and bird-watching. He and his wife, Marilyn Olsen, and their dog, Rio, live in the foothills of the Gallatin Range in southern Montana just a few miles from the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.