Wilderness Watch Staff
Headquartered in Missoula, Montana, Wilderness Watch also has offices in Idaho, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. Get to know our staff and board.
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 holds a M.S. in Environmental Studies and a J.D. with certificates in Natural Resources & Environmental Law and American Indian Law from the University of Montana. He has worked in private legal practice 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, being outdoors, and spending time with his daughter, sometimes all at once. He lives in Montana near the Mission Mountains.
NICOLE CANNAVARO
Administrative Assistant
Nicole joined Wilderness Watch in 2024. She handles the office logistics for Wilderness Watch’s day-to-day organizational needs. She comes from a strong background in animal rescue and rehabilitation, and previously worked as an aircraft technician for several years before transitioning to the conservation field. Nicole spent her formative years hiking around the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wildernesses in Montana. When she isn’t elbows deep in paperwork, she can be found roaming around the wilderness with her family, tinkering on something in her garage, or feeding her insatiable curiosity with a good book.
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.
MASON PARKER
Wilderness Defense Director
Mason joined Wilderness Watch in 2024. He focuses on management issues that impact the National Wilderness Preservation System. He previously served as coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Western Regional Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species, and led the implementation of Missoula’s Zero by Fifty plan as Home Resource’s Zero Waste Systems manager. He received his M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, where he was an editor for Camas magazine and an ecology research assistant. Mason recently caught the packrafting bug and looks forward to exploring Wilderness by float and by foot.
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.
This past summer, Wilderness Watch mentored two law students from the University of Denver. Interns Drew Carlson and Jon Thompson researched case law and legislative history surrounding the Wilderness Act’s public purposes and special provisions to help produce arguments that limit the scope of wilderness degrading activities and that maintain the Act’s fundamental purpose of wilderness preservation. They also researched the implications of the Supreme Court overturning the Chevron Doctrine and the potential positive impacts this may have in preventing runaway agency discretion in Wilderness cases. Thank you, Drew and Jon!
DREW CARLSON
Intern
Drew grew up in Colorado near an abundance of wild spaces. He studied Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder with focuses in Ecology and Policy, and worked as an environmental scientist prior to returning to school to study law. Drew writes, “Wilderness areas provide a wonderful window into the intricacies of our world’s biological systems and cycles, which I have a vested interest in doing my part to protect. Transitioning into my legal career, I’ve had the pleasure of interning with Wilderness Watch where I discovered the scope and breadth of the issues surrounding wilderness law and policy. My time with Wilderness Watch was wonderful. Working alongside this group of fierce advocates was inspiring and provided guidance for the
kind of attorney and environmental steward I hope to be.”
JON THOMPSON
Intern
After a five-year stint in the Marine Corps, Jon took his GI Bill all the way to Paris. His time there was incredible, but the lack of wild spaces there (and in Europe) reinforced his appreciation for America’s most unique and valuable asset—Wilderness. Jon writes, “Even up in the Alps, a railway and tourist chalet are truly never out of sight, and while one can drop their pack whenever they please, something certainly good for the lumbar, it’s less-so for the soul. A well-guarded wilderness is an assignment and reflection of our values, and if it happened under the Matterhorn, it could certainly happen here, too. And that’s why interning for Wilderness Watch has been both uplifting and a privilege—they’re a passionate and dedicated cast of characters who help remind us of what it’s all about and why stewardship and vigilance is a lifetime commitment.”
Wilderness Watch Board of Directors
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.
LARRY CAMPBELL
Montana
Larry spent much of his childhood running wild while his dad mapped geology in remote areas around Montana, Idaho, and Washington. As part of Larry’s geology degree, he founded Princeton Ecology Action in 1969. Following graduation, he mixed it up between guiding wilderness backpacking trips for Outward Bound schools and traveling abroad to visit pre-industrial cultures. Larry eventually settled in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana and built a tiny off-grid farm. He then juggled seasonal geology work and guiding wilderness backpacking trips around the American West. In 1989, he helped co-found Friends of the Bitterroot, another grassroots, non-hierarchical group, and in retirement continues working to preserve wildlands and wildlife.
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.
MICHELE DIETERICH
Montana
Michele Dieterich is a retired art teacher and hiking guide. She has spent much of her life backpacking, skiing, and hiking in wild country and Wilderness, enjoying the aesthetic beauty and solitude. She began her advocacy work in Guatemala, preserving indigenous rights and culture with the women’s group CONAVIGUA. She became involved in forest advocacy when the Bitterroot National Forest cut down an old growth stand near her home. She has been working ever since to protect wildlife habitat, old growth, and the solace that Wilderness and intact forests provide. She was also a voice for grizzly bears on the Montana Grizzly Bear Advisory Council in 2020. She currently lives with her husband in southwestern Montana.
MARK PEARSON
Colorado, Treasurer
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.
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.