Rebecca Hayden
President
Rebecca Hayden has acted as the President of the Watershed Coalition of the Lehigh Valley since 2009. She works as a project manager for PENNVEST, and is active in a wide variety of community-based water resource initiatives, among them the Master Watershed Steward program. She has a degree in geology from Columbia University and a Master’s in water resource management from the University of New Mexico. Rebecca enjoys biking, swimming, kayaking, running, and anything outdoors. She is not particularly fond of ticks, however.
Nate Prichard
Vice President
Nate Pritchard is Acting District Manager for the Northampton County Conservation District. Prior to joining the conservation district, Nate worked for an environmental consulting firm doing site investigation and remediation throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, carrying out brownfield remediation, geotechnical sampling, and work related to the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. in Geosciences from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA
Gerald Mistal
Treasurer
Gerald Mistal is a Master Watershed Steward and Wildlands Conservancy’s 2013 Volunteer of the Year. He enjoys hiking and kayaking, and dreams of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. His wife prefers day hikes.
Jim Wilson
Jim is a founding member of WCLV. From 2008 to 2015, he was the watershed specialist with the Northampton County Conservation District. Since 2015, Jim works as the recreation specialist with the Northampton County Division of Parks & Recreation. He enjoys birding, kayaking, exploring nature and spending time with family in the North Carolina Outer Banks. He takes a lot of cool pictures of baby owls.
Meara Hayden
Secretary
Meara is an environmental engineer who lives in Bethlehem. She is a trained Master Watershed Steward, and helps on WCLV projects where an engineer is called for, such as swale rehabilitations and rain gardens. She lives in a leaky Victorian house that nevertheless has charm with her husband and excellent dogs. Meara loves to bake complicated things, play clarinet, run, and host boardgame parties.
Brad Kunsman
Sergeant-at-Arms
Brad currently serves as an Ag Conservation Extension Educator in The Center for Agricultural Conservation Assistance Training. In this role he provides conservation assistance training focused on the implementation of best practices for farmers, ag landowners, and conservation professionals to ensure the health of land and water across Pennsylvania. He also serves as the Youth Water Resources lead focused on watershed protection and restoration and private drinking water. Brad serves as the point of contact for the Future Master Watershed Steward Program and chairs the Dive Deeper Summit steering committee. Brad is a planner for the Delaware River Sojourn, and is a Board Member at Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm. Brad lives in Monroe County with his wife and two children and a Border Collie, Frost.
Stefanie Green represents the Bertsch Hokendauqua Catasauqua Watershed Association. She graduated with a BS in Environmental Biology from Delaware Valley University.She works as a Microbiologist at Azzur Labs. Stef’s dog serendipitously found Rebecca’s dog in the woods and she was given the opportunity to work with the Penn State Extension and eventually join the BHCWA, of which she is now president. Stef enjoys cooking/baking, hiking with her dogs, kickboxing, and discovering new books.
smallmouth bass
Rich Budihas represents the Martins-Jacoby Watershed Association. Rich was introduced to conservation and natural resource issues through his interest in fishing and involvement in Trout Unlimited. He received his formal environmental education at the prestigious John Mauser University. He hopes to someday graduate from JMU but the requirements for graduation seem to change every year. Although that can be extremely frustrating, the field trips are awesome!
Jim Orbin moved into the Cooks Creek Watershed in 1973 and serves on the WCLV Board as the representative of Cooks Creek Watershed Association. He holds a degree in Environmental Science from Lehigh University and worked for many years in industrial wastewater treatment and air pollution monitoring.
Kate Ebel is the Senior Environmental Scientist at Wildlands Conservancy and works on a wide range of restoration projects within the Lehigh River Watershed and Lehigh Valley. She works closely with broad-based groups of partners on natural resource stewardship, stream and floodplain restoration, water quality improvement, habitat restoration, and other conservation issues. She enjoys hiking, camping, biking, nature photography, gardening, and experiencing the outdoors in her free time.
Bob Schmidt
Bob serves as the President of the Fry’s Run Watershed Association, and has been involved with the group for over 15 years. He is interested in all manner of environmental and water quality issues. He turns wood in his free time.
Kathy Altmann has led the Bushkill Stream Conservancy for 6 years. She and her husband run an optical shop in Easton, and have a deep interest in conservation in the region Kathy loves to cook and garden, and is shown here with her grandson Ian and husband Bernie a few years ago.
Jane Cook
Jane is an active member of the Monocacy Creek Watershed Association, currently serving as the secretary and treasurer. She is a retired high school math teacher and moved to Bethlehem in 2006 when her first grandchild was born here. She is a Master Watershed Steward and helps with weeding and maintaining the perennial beds on the Hoover Mason Trestle, the Southside Bethlehem Greenway and the new native perennial beds at the Bethlehem Rose Garden with friends from Bethlehem Backyards for Wildlife. In May of 2019, she and Greg converted large sections of their front and back yard turfgrass into native perennials, and so far it’s been a very successful transformation!
Simon Molloy represents the Little Lehigh Watershed Stewards. He is a Master Watershed Steward and co-chair of the LLWS. He enjoys hiking, biking, kayaking, and playing guitar and hanging out with his five grandsons . Recently retired after 40+ years as a semiconductor process engineer, he is eager to get outside and help make a difference in environmental issues.
Jim Vogt and Carolyn Lange have been married since 1986. Jim is currently the Master Watershed Steward Coordinator in Monroe County. Carolyn works as a Medical Technologist. In 2002 they were awakened from their blissfully ignorant lives by someone proposing a racetrack for owners of high-end sports cars on the Kittatinny Ridge in their peaceful valley. They joined in the fight, becoming members of Blue Mountain Preservation Association. They then became Board members of BMPA and went on to join a number of other local environmental groups. The racetrack was never built- that property is now part of PA State Gamelands 168. Jim and Carolyn enjoy cooking together, hiking, biking, birding and watching Red Squirrels at their home. They are currently serving life sentences as President and Secretary of the Aquashicola/Pohopoco Watershed Conservancy. Together they form a single board member of the WCLV.
Nicholas Macelko is Assistant Treasurer for the Neshaminy Creek Watershed Association in Bucks County; he is also as Project Manager at PennDOT, a Master Watershed Steward, and avid birder. He is certified by the Society of Freshwater Science in family level macroinvertebrate identification and enjoys sampling throughout the South-Eastern Pennsylvania region. He also enjoys spoiling his cat, Dusty. It appears he may have discovered a new species of flatworm at Illick’s Mill. Stay tuned.
Geoff Rogalsky represents the Tobyhanna Creek / Tunkhannock Creek Watershed Association of the southern Poconos region in Monroe County, to which he has a life-long connection. He is a retired private-sector water resources engineer and wetlands scientist, and a Master Watershed Steward. In addition to advocating for the environment, he enjoys as much birding, kayaking, hiking, and fishing as he can find time for, and plays a little tennis on the side.
John Mauser
Emeritus Board Member
John has been active in conservation and natural resources for over thirty years, partnering with numerous conservation organizations throughout the Lehigh Valley. His experience includes developing and presenting numerous educational programs, running conferences, writing grants and securing other sources of funding, defining projects, permitting projects, project management, developing partnerships, and so forth. John is a founding member of the WCLV and a member of the Martin’s Jacoby Watershed Association.