Brent Charette is the Director for Land Stewardship at the Arc of Appalachia. He received his training in forest resource management at Hocking Technical College. His first career was with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources where he worked as a state-wide naturalist for the Division of Parks and Recreation, eventually serving as Park Manager at Malabar Farm State Park. In his personal time, he relishes caring for one of the Sanctuary’s tracts of land known as Ridgeview Farm, where he cares for the trails, removes invasive plants, and plants a ton of trees! Brent’s greatest passions include nature interpretation, permaculture & forest gardening, native tree propagation, and subsistence gardening. He loves anything to do with trees, including growing his own edible mushrooms, carpentry, and studying mycorrhizal associations.
Laura Hughes is a superb field naturalist, wildlife researcher, photographer, and videographer. She has a special interest and deep skills in the identification and natural history of arthropods and other small invertebrates. Inarguably, among our event leaders, Laura is the most knowledgeable of insect on both terra firma and in water, including fireflies. Currently she is a contract biologist for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, currently studying the state endangered Allegheny Woodrat. Previously in her career, she worked for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency as a macroinvertebrate biologist. She also recently served as a consultant for the BBC in their endeavor to film fireflies for the Planet Earth series.
Kelly Capuzzi works professionally as a fisheries biologist and water quality specialist for the Ohio EPA with over 26 years of experience in sampling lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands throughout the state of Ohio. She is deeply knowledgeable in stream life, and is an expert in fish recognition and natural history. Kelly has a BS in Zoology from the Ohio State University and is also an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN) for the Hocking Hills region. She generously volunteers for a number of nonprofit education and conservation nonprofits, including the Arc of Appalachia. Kelly is a naturalist who possesses knowledge in a breadth of fields. She is an avid gardener, and her latest self-admitted obsession is learning about native bees and growing native plants for pollinators
John Howard possesses the best of all the qualities associated with “naturalist.” He has an insatiable curiosity and a perennial sense of wonder. Studying the backroads of Adams County his entire life, he knows nearly all -if not all- of the dragonflies, butterflies, vascular plants, birds, amphibians and reptiles, and is working on a good understanding of everything else. Taking a nature walk with John is a rare privilege for even his close friends, who don’t think twice about driving half-way across the state for an opportunity to watch fireflies, catch salamanders heading for the vernal pools, photograph the first spring flowers in bloom even if they are only 1/2 inch tall and tomorrow’s forecast calls for snow, or look for a new-to-science moth or caterpillar on an obscure plant.
Robert Klips is an associate professor emeritus at Ohio State University (OSU), where he continues to teach courses on plant identification and ecology. He manages the bryophyte and lichen specimen collections in the herbarium at OSU’s Museum of Biological Diversity and is the author of the new and very engaging and effective field guide, “Common Mosses, Liverworts and Lichens of Ohio,” published by Ohio University Press. Skilled in botanical macrophotography, Klips served as the photographer for the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s 2017 Common Lichens of Ohio Field Guide and has contributed images to dozens of books, periodicals, and websites. He frequently conducts field work and educates nature study groups about the identification, ecology, and distribution of Ohio plants and lichens.
Debi Wolterman is an active conservation leader in the Cincinnati-Dayton Ohio area. She serves on the Board of MidWest Native Plant Society and Friends of Caesar Creek. In addition, she is an active member of Dayton Wild Ones and an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist. Her favorite hobby is eliminating invasive plants so that our native plant communities have more land to grow and thrive. Debi hosts a very popular invasive removal event at Caesar Creek Gorge and is one of the co-sponsors of the Arc’s annual workdays at Ohio River Bluffs Preserve. Debi considers herself a “nature” generalist, constantly learning and re-learning about our Ohio treasures, and always happy to share them with others.
Elijah Crabtree is the Regional Land Manager for the Arc of Appalachia, stationed at Tremper Mound Preserve in Scioto County and working at the Arc’s many preserves in the larger region. Elijah was born and raised in Ross County – the epicenter of Hopewell architecture – where he developed a passion for the 2000-year old Culture, all kinds of history, natural sciences and conservation work. He has a wide breadth of knowledge and interpretive naturalist skills, but a special interest in connecting people to the natural world through botany, geology, historically significant sites such as the landscapes of Tremper Mound and the Great Portsmouth Earthworks.
Nancy Stranahan is the Director of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System and was one of the non-profit’s founders back in 1995. Since that time, Nancy has organized the Arc’s expansion from zero acres to 10,000, founding a total of 24 preserve regions in southern Ohio. Nancy previously worked for ODNR for ten years with Ohio State Parks as Chief Naturalist, and another twenty years running a bakery, a soup & cafe, and international gift store in downtown Columbus known as Benevolence, promoting healthy and intentional food choices. Nancy loves preserving land and has a special passion for habitat restoration and native plant propagation from seed. Nancy also loves teaching, learning, and networking.
Emily Uldrich is the Museum Educator at the Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center in downtown Portsmouth. In addition to her role as Educator, leading tours and teaching visual arts classes, Emily is also the Curator of the museum’s magnificent Wertz Collection of Prehistoric Native American artifacts, a prodigious collection of tools and art created by the Hopewell Culture 2000 years ago. Emily’s background in the Natural Sciences influenced her approach to researching this historic and world-significant collection, and she is now the foremost expert on the Great Portsmouth Earthworks, a Hopewellian creation of a 25 square mile sacred landscape on the confluence of the Scioto with the Ohio River.
Kim Banks is a Mothapalooza veteran, helping organize the event since its inception. She loves all animals, but she has two special passions – moths and bunnies!! Kim spent her summers in the 70’s in Arkansas without radio or television. The moths at her porch light became her one and only nighttime entertainment – sparking a lifelong fascination. As for bunnies…Kim cares for abandoned pet rabbits through the nonprofit Ohio House Rabbit Rescue.
Samuel James is a photographic artist from Southern Ohio. In recent years, his work has focused on the study, documentation and conservation of biodiversity in North America’s Eastern Forest. He has also worked extensively in the tropical wetlands of Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the desert Southwest. He is the recipient of the International Center for Photography’s Infinity Award, the Overseas Press Club’s Olivier Rebbot Award, and an Artist’s Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, among other distinctions. His images of fireflies and spiders are featured in Werner Herzog’s film Theatre of Thought, and a selection of his photographs of the forest at night is currently on view at the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Museum of Natural History & Science. His forthcoming photographic book on fireflies will be published this year.
Jenny Richards grew up on the edge of Shawnee Forest exploring the outdoors with her brother Kamiakin. Encouragement by her parents to stay outside, cultivated an intimate relationship with mother nature. She obtained her BS in Geography from Ohio University. Having a lust to learn, she traveled and worked abroad with Leatherback Sea Turtles in Costa Rica, taught English in Ecuador, and ran a youth hostel in France. She returned home 10 years later to land her dream job as a state park naturalist in the very forest she was raised. She loves sharing her passion for the great outdoors with everyone she meets. Her infectious enthusiasm for her work readily endears her to visitors of all ages.