Candidates for the SERNW Board of Directors Ballot 2023

Position: Board President

Candidate: Vacant

Position: Board Vice President

Candidate: Hugh McGee

Position: Board Secretary

Candidate: Amy Sacry

Position: Director-at-Large, 2 open positions

Candidates:

Lina Aoyama

David Powell

Candidate Statements

Lina Aoyama, Eugene OR, Position Director-at-Large

I am a PhD candidate in Dr. Lauren Hallett’s lab at University of Oregon. My research spans from rangeland ecology, post-fire restoration, to community ecology. In 2020, I co-founded the student association of SER at the University of Oregon with the vision of creating a vibrant community of students who are excited about learning and doing ecological restoration. Since then, I have initiated an on-campus riparian restoration project, forged new partnerships with local parks, and organized three annual speaker series. 

As a student, I’ve always appreciated people sharing what they do and how they got to where they are now. If I am elected as a board member of SER NW, I am interested in creating more opportunities for young professionals to connect with restoration professionals. Specifically, I would like to facilitate conference mixers and professional development workshops for SER student associations. At the personal level, I am excited to expand my professional network and learn the awesome work you all are doing in this region.

David Powell, Portland OR, Position Director-at-Large

My name is David Powell and I’m interested in serving on the SERNW chapter board as director at large. I work in Portland, OR as a Project Manager at a natural resource management firm. I work with multiple stakeholders to improve habitat function on degraded lands throughout Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington. I have over eight years of experience working on environmental restoration projects of various sizes and in a range of roles, from a restoration technician installing plants to a shop manager maintaining the tools we use on restoration projects.

I’d like to get involved with the SERNW chapter because I want to contribute to a community that connects people of various backgrounds engaged in ecological restoration. In particular, I’m interested in working on awards and professional networks.

Hugh McGee, Arcata CA, Position Board Vice President

Hugh McGee has been designing and implementing ecological restoration projects throughout the western United States for over 20 years. He is currently a Restoration Ecologist and the owner of Native Ecosystems, Inc., a full service ecological restoration design and construction firm located in Arcata, CA. He also currently serves as the Ecosystem Restoration Program Director at the Mattole Restoration Council, a non-profit organization founded in 1983 focused on restoration of the Mattole River Watershed. Hugh brings extensive experience designing and managing restoration projects and has managed many large scale riparian, grasslands, oak woodland, native plant, and salmonid habitat restoration projects with multiple private, non-profit and agency partners. He specializes in native plant restoration design and implementation in riparian and grassland ecosystems. He has managed the installation of over 1.5 million native plants and several miles of willow baffle installation and floodplain restoration treatments. Over the past several years he has played a key role in designing forest health and grassland restoration projects in the Mattole and Eel River Watersheds. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont (UVM, 2002). After attending UVM, he worked for private ecological restoration firms in Montana and California, the National Park Service, and as a private consultant. He is certified by the Society of Ecological Restoration as a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner and is a California Licensed Contractor. When not in the trenches with restoration crew, he spends his time with his two sons and wife hiking, biking, and exploring the beautiful wildlands of the west coast and looking for the perfect patch of willow cuttings.

I have been eating and breathing ecosystem restoration since the first time I bagged up, swung a hoedad, and put my first plant in the ground. I love every single part of it: design, estimating, fundraising, implementation, monitoring, all of it. What I also love about it is the incredible community of restoration practitioners I was able to meet, and learn from, along the way – tree planters, engineers, children, foresters, ranchers, and biologists. Ecological restoration is one of the most important practices that we can do to make our world a more resilient, diverse, healthy place to live, for plant, animal, and human communities. I have been involved with the Society of Ecological Restoration over the past couple decades and would appreciate the opportunity to continue to be involved as member of the Board of Directors of SER Northwest, as an at-large member in Northern California. As a board member, I will create more collaboration with SERNW and the many restoration practitioners in this region and bring more awareness to the projects being implemented in far Northern California, specifically Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties. I also want to create more SER engagement with local Native American tribes and students attending Cal-Poly Humboldt through workshops, memberships and enrollment in the CERP program. I believe my experience and enthusiasm for restoration can be an asset to the organization and the board of directors. I appreciate your consideration.

Amy Sacry, Missoula MT, Position: Secretary

Amy Sacry is a restoration ecologist with over 20 years of professional experience working in the fields of fisheries and riparian ecology in Montana and Idaho. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Graceland University in Iowa and a Master of Science degree in Resource Conservation through the Riparian Wetland Research Program at the University of Montana, Missoula. Amy’s work over the past 20 years has focused on aquatic habitat, floodplain and riparian restoration and she has designed and implemented numerous
restoration projects using a variety of strategies and techniques. She has developed and implemented monitoring programs and protocols for several ecological restoration projects. Amy has been an instructor for an annual Army Corps of Engineers riparian ecology course held in Missoula, Montana for the past ten years. She has been a member of the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) for eight years and a member of the Northwest Chapter for five years. She was certified as a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner (CERP) through SER in the spring of 2017.

The field of ecological restoration continues to rapidly evolve, both through research and practice, and the evolution of the field benefits greatly from integrating a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. Amy feels like the Society for Ecological Restoration embodies this integration of disciplines and this has stemmed her interest in serving on the board of the Northwest Chapter. As a board member, she hopes to help increase learning and networking opportunities for restoration practitioners, managers, students and researchers. She is currently leading an effort in Missoula to initiate a community restoration network for western Montana to provide a forum to share knowledge and perspectives on ecological restoration.