Kathy joined CBI in August, 2008 as an accounting assistant. Kathy has A.S. Degrees in Accounting Technology and Business Management, over 25 years of accounting experience, and a strong personal commitment to protecting and preserving the environment. Kathy grew up on a small 10 acre farm outside of Sodaville, Oregon and still enjoys a rural farming lifestyle with her husband. Kathy and her husband completed their six month Oregon State University Master Woodland Manager Program and a two-year LBCC A.S. Agriculture Degree in June 2007. They focused on living sustainably and making a positive influence on the environment. For example, they installed a smaller irrigation pump, heat pump, solar panel, and focus on reusing or recycling.

When she is not clearing blackberries or preparing garden plots, Kathy enjoys digital photography and traveling both locally and abroad, including trips to Bali, Israel, and Egypt. She also spends time learning more about plant types, pest control, propagation, and composting. With her strong background and experience in business, and her personal commitment to conservation, Kathy is an excellent fit at CBI and is delighted to contribut towards CBI’s mission of protecting and preserving the environment.

Patricia Gordon-Reedy is a Botanist/Senior Vegetation Ecologist with 30 years of experience in endangered species research and conservation planning for private, government, and non-profit sectors throughout the western U.S. and in Europe.  She has been involved in all phases of Natural Community Conservation Planning programs in multiple ecosystem types throughout California—preserve design for endangered species, developing protocols and conducting rare plant surveys, large-scale vegetation mapping and classification, research and risk assessments for invasive plants, and writing prescriptive habitat management and monitoring plans.  She is effective in working with scientists and land managers to synthesize and apply the latest scientific research to practical land management and conservation issues.  Ms. Gordon-Reedy developed an adaptive management framework plan for the federally threatened and state endangered plant, Acanthomintha ilicifolia, and worked with the California Invasive Plant Council and other partners to map invasive species and develop a regional strategy for prioritizing treatments of invasive plants in San Diego County, CA.  She serves on several regional subcommittees and working groups in San Diego, including subcommittees on Vegetation Mapping and Rare Plant Survey Protocols and an Acanthomintha working group.

Tim joined the Conservation Biology Institute in 2008. He has an M.S. in Geology from the University of Missouri – Columbia and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado – Boulder. His experience includes porting and tuning climate modeling software on massively parallel supercomputers as well as developing high data flow applications in networked realtime environments. He is interested in developing, expanding, and linking ecological models to further the understanding of current ecosystems and to examine alternative futures in the face of climate change and human activity. In 2012, he completed an M.S. in Biology at the University of Oregon – Eugene, his research concentrated on modeling fire and its effects in the Willamette Valley.

Tim and his wife Kim share their Eugene, Oregon home with several furred and/or feathered companions of various sizes. In his spare time he occasionally paddles a sea kayak or works on building one.

Patrick joined CBI in October 2010.   He brings thirty years of accounting and management experience working for various non-profits.  Patrick earned his BBA degree from the University of Michigan in 1980.

Henri is an advocate for being outside as much as humanly possible.  Henri is a Pacific North Westerner by birth and heart. Henri’s love of the outdoors inspired the study of horticulture and then geology. Obtaining a B.S. in geology from Oregon State University, followed by a graduate certificate in GIS, Henri inspires to save the world one rock, and one tree, at a time. Henri volunteers time with local schools to teach others about the planet we inhabit. Henri enjoys daily walks with her dogs, camping, hiking and pondering geology with her partner, Shereena.

Tom Atiyeh, joined CBI’s team in January 2012 and has a long history of conservation engagement. Tom is a native Oregonian and grew up around Opal Creek where years later he played an instrumental role in converting family mining claims to the now 35,000 acre Opal Creek Wilderness and Scenic Recreation Area.  Tom is a former Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center Board Member and Executive Director.

Tom recently moved his attention from the ancient forest to the urban forest and guided Oregon-based, Friends of Trees as their Chief Development Officer. You may also know the name Atiyeh because of the 112 year-old family-owned business. His wife Leslie is now the President of Atiyeh International, Ltd. allowing Tom to spend time in the non-profit world. Tom’s father, Victor served for two terms as Oregon’s Governor from 1979 – 1987. Tom’s daughter, Meagan works for the Oregon Arts Commission as the Visual Arts/Public Art Coordinator.

Jessie is a biologist/botanist with 22 years’ professional experience in field biology, botany and land management throughout California with a strong background in coastal and desert ecology, botany, and natural resource management and restoration.  She is particularly knowledgeable of the central and southern California coast and coastal ranges, western and central Mojave Desert, and central and southern Sierra Nevada Mountains where she has surveyed for and located more than 120 threatened, endangered, or sensitive plant species.  Additional experience includes coastal California gnatcatcher surveys, least Bell’s vireo nest monitoring, sensitive plant and animal monitoring and management, threats assessments and trend analyses, botanical research, vegetation mapping, wetland and upland habitat restoration, and preserve management. Jessie prepares habitat management plans, work plans and budgets, and annual reports, and has created public outreach literature and organized and led outreach events and volunteer workdays. Jessie communicates regularly with the conservation community through workshops and presentations, and is a member of the San Diego rare plant oversight committee and the San Diego County Weed Management Area steering committee.

Jerre has worked with CBI for 16 years as a conservation ecologist in endangered species research and landscape-scale conservation planning and management of natural resources in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. She is passionate about developing and orchestrating partnerships among the academic community, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and land managers to leverage funds and information for achieving conservation goals. Throughout her career, Jerre has researched and developed priorities for conservation and funding in California and Baja California, resulting in the acquisition and management of hundreds of thousands of acres for conservation, including the 240,000-acre Tejon Ranch in the Tehachapi Mountains, Donner Summit and Martis Valley in the Sierra Nevada (>15,000 acres), >100,000 acres in San Diego County, and Bahía de San Quintín in Baja California (>5,000 acres). She is project director for the Las Californias Binational Conservation Initiative which promotes creation of a binational park along the Peninsular Ranges of California and Baja-California. She has directed conservation planning, management, and monitoring for California’s Natural Community Conservation Planning programs in southern California, developed a regional program for coordinating management and monitoring in San Diego County, and currently works with land managers and researchers to develop management and monitoring plans for these programs. She coordinated development of the population monitoring framework for the six subspecies of Island Fox on the California Channel Islands and, through a grant from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, developed a science-based regional planning framework for wind energy in the Tehachapi Mountains and southern Sierra Nevada. She serves as a science and education advisor for several land trusts. As a member of the board of Terra Peninsular, she is active in conservation in Baja California.

Dr. Comendant is a Senior Scientist with 15 years of experience in research, communication, and organizational capacity building.  Her program and project work is at the nexus of conservation science and technology.  She has a proven track record developing innovative methods, tools, databases, and science-based solutions that increase knowledge-transfer, enhance stakeholder engagement, and inform natural resource management decisions.  Skills and experience include:

Dr. Comendant received her Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz where she studied life history evolution.  She received her B.A. from UC Berkeley in Integrative Biology. She lives with her husband and their twins in Napa, California.

Specialties:  ecology, evolution, protected areas and easements, online data sharing, visualization, and collaboration platforms and tools, island ecology, invasive species, herpetology, social media, inbound marketing, and landscape-scale informatic assessments.

Jim Strittholt is Co-Founder, President, and Chief Science Officer of the Conservation Biology Institute and has over 26 years’ experience in applying computer mapping technologies (including GIS and remote sensing) to address various ecological assessments and conservation planning projects in the U.S. and internationally. He holds undergraduate degrees in Botany, Zoology and Secondary Education from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) where he also earned a Masters in Zoology in vertebrate population genetics. Jim earned a Ph.D. in 1994 from Ohio State University in a self-designed multi-disciplinary program emphasizing landscape ecology, conservation planning, and computer mapping technologies. While a truly multi-disciplinary degree, he conducted most his research and developed most of his technical skills from the Center for Mapping – a NASA Center of Excellence. While at Ohio State, he earned numerous academic achievement awards including being chosen as a University Presidential Fellow during his final year.

He has experience working with large mammals, field research on forests and vertebrates, and taught numerous science courses in high school for six years and several college courses in zoology and biology. Over the last 22 years, he has been principle investigator on numerous projects including nature reserve designs, conservation gap analyses, forest and watershed assessments, ecological modeling, and remote sensing applications in conservation. He has also authored numerous reports, peer-reviewed articles, and white papers. Finally, he has taught numerous workshops on conservation planning. Areas of expertise include conservation planning, landscape ecology, geographic information systems, and remote sensing.