Jill Erickson

Executive Director

(816) 813-0944

Natasha Karsk

Partnership Coordinator

(816) 407-8088

Jill Erickson, a Kansas City native, earned a degree in Journalism and Graphic Design from Northwest Missouri State University and has spent the last 25 years managing nonprofit organizations at various levels whose missions have supported the arts, education, urban agriculture and most recently conservation. As the co-founder and current Executive Director, Jill has co-led the Middle Blue River Urban Waters Federal Partnership since 2013 and has served as the Ambassador for the since 2016. She is passionate about the importance of nature in cities and thrives on bringing together diverse ideas and voices.

Adison Banks

Land Trust Coordinator

(816) 545-9847

Adison Banks was born and raised in the Kansas City metro. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Kansas and a Juris Doctor from Washburn University School of Law. Adison is licensed to practice law in Missouri and Texas, and he has worked at the county and federal levels of government, in addition to working in private practice.

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Adison has cultivated, and continues to cultivate, a passion for the environment, guided primarily by moral principles. He believes everyone has a responsibility to actively care for others and the environment, and by saving our environment we save ourselves. He has volunteered with the Sierra Club, Bridging the Gap, Mid-America Regional Council, KC Rescue Mission, and Impact KC, and has given presentations to the EPA, city councils, parks departments, and the public to help inform decisions to preserve the environment and protect human health and quality of life.

Angelica Duckworth

Urban Waters Blue River Crew Leader

Angelica Duckworth graduated from UMKC May 2019 with a Bachelor's in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology. Her research ties social and environmental policies together, and if that doesn't say enough, she loves people. She feels deeply connected to the Earth and travels to gain multicultural experiences. Her mission is to constantly find connections between humans and nature. She is an activist for social and environmental justice, advocating for a healthy ecology and a healthy, safe, and resourceful environment for society. When her head is not in the books and her hands are not in the garden, she is traveling, writing, practicing yoga, teaching cycling, snuggling with her cat and/or watching documentaries. Her hobbies include spoken word/rapping, writing poetry, making music playlists, and going down rabbit holes on YouTube. In addition to being a student and volunteer, she works for local businesses. 

A child of the prairie, Natasha grew up in Nebraska. After receiving her degree in Art Management with a minor in Business from the University of Tulsa, she moved to Kansas City and has considered it home for the past 15 years. Natasha has a strong background in nonprofit art organizations, working with national and international artists to create new works during her tenure at Grand Arts and serving the literary community of Kansas City as a past director of The Writers Place. 

While working in the arts, Natasha's passion for outdoor environments, nature, and our interaction with it grew. She owned and operated an urban farm in the KC metro for 3 years and is a recent Missouri Master Naturalist. With the intention to shift her career focus from the arts to conservation, Natasha completed her Masters in Public Administration from the University of Missouri Kansas City in 2016. Natasha seeks to unite people behind one like-minded goal: conserving our endangered wild environments. She believes in strength in numbers, that through collaboration we can truly accomplish something bigger than any one person or organization.

Sarah Dunne Pickrell

Outreach Coordinator

(816) 545-9971

Sarah is an artist, activist, yoga teacher, animal lover, and nature enthusiast. She studied Fiber Arts at the University of Missouri which led her to a deeper respect and curiosity for the natural world and its many gifts. She attributes her own health and wellbeing in large part to hiking, exploring, and spending time outdoors. 

Sarah has a background working in nonprofits focusing on children, young adults, and creating healthy communities. She is passionate about education, equal access to green spaces, and organizing to create social change. She is an advocate for racial and economic equity, responsible urban development, and thoughtful stewardship of our natural resources. 

Celesteal Clark

Outdoor Education Coordinator

(816) 759-7305, ext. 1148

Celesteal has found her home in KC after moving from Topeka, KS to attend college at UMKC. She is currently wrapping up her Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies, Sustainability Minor and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Certificate with HCA’s Outdoor Education Coordinator position in partnership with AmeriCorps VISTA. She loves plants and animals and appreciates humans in the fight to eradicate poverty. She dreams of an equitable world for all, in harmony with nature.

You can also find her working with HCA’s Youth Council and on the Executive Committee of the local Sierra Club Thomas Hart Benton group. When not being an activist, you can find her meditating or in a yoga class finding her center and breath, biking around town or eating at a one of KC's many vegan restaurants.

Our Board of Directors

Samuel Bennett

Board Treasurer

Finance Committee & Policy Work Group Member

Sam Bennett is an urban pioneer who has lived in midtown Kansas City since 1981.  He earned a bachelors degree in History and English from Simpson College in Iowa, and went on to add a masters degrees in Library Science and Public Administration from the University of Missouri.  A career in public libraries was followed by a second career as a program officer for local charitable foundations.

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Sam's environmental work has included planting redwood trees in northern California, organizing for the Black Hills Alliance and Mobilization for Survival, and volunteer work with Bridging the Gap.

Matt Hart

Board Member

Finance Committee Member

Matthew Hart is a Kansas City import from Idaho via Colorado, living in Waldo since 2002. An outdoor enthusiast his entire life, he discovered the Blue River via his mountain biking hobby in 2009 and has spent hundreds of hours biking, hiking, and exploring ever since. He has helped build and maintain single track trail through the KC Urban Core since 2012.

Matt is currently the Chief Information Officer for Arise Virtual Solutions. Prior to Arise, he worked at Avaya Communications and Oracle Corporation. He received his BA in History from The Colorado College. Matt is the author of six technology books and two works of fiction, and the co-author of two children.

Kristen Bontrager

Board Member

Partnership & Policy Work Group Member

After graduating from Washburn University in 2016 with a degree in biology, Kristen focused her career and advocacy on ecology and botany. While at Washburn she researched the species of plants that colonized the under story of invasive bush Honeysuckle. She also spent time in the forests of Costa Rica studying biodiversity of Arthropods.

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Kristen supported the Heartland Conservation Alliance 2016 National Fish and Wildlife “A Monarch’s View of the City” project. She also worked as a Maintenance Manager and Landscape Ecologist for a local native plant landscaping company, Down to Earth Services.

Kristen volunteers for many organizations, including Heartland Conservation Alliance’s Policy Work Group and Partnership Work Group. Kristen has assisted in teaching the Green Guard Stewards program for the past four years. She is passionate about conservation for both environmental preservation and protecting the communities around Kansas City that she loves. While not listing off the correct scientific names of plants to anyone who will listen, Kristen enjoys reading books with her two cats Grub and Dwight. 

Sarah Hemme

Board Member

Sarah grew up on the family farm an hour west of Kansas City and has lived in the metro since 2009. After stints in the historic Westside neighborhood downtown and Brookside, she settled with her partner in a small community along Blue River Road in South KC. An avid mountain biker, Sarah spends thousands of hours (and miles) each year exploring the dirt trails along the Blue River corridor and beyond. She volunteers with Urban Trail Co to build and maintain trails as well as with various HCA partners to remove invasive honeysuckle and clean up trash. She's passionate about conservation, outdoor recreation, access to public wild lands, and community cooperation and engagement.

Matthew Davis

Board President

Matt Davis is a Kansas City native with a passion for community development, active transportation and conservation. As a young man, Matt could not stay away from bicycles. This pushed him toward a career focused on improving conditions for biking and walking in the Kansas City region.

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Matt is currently focused on the Rock Island Rail Corridor Shared Use Path Project as a Project Coordinator for Jackson County, Missouri. He holds a Political Science undergraduate degree from Rockhurst University and a Master of Public Administration from the Bloch School at UMKC. In his spare time, Matt enjoys spending time outdoors with his family and friends.

Chandler Little Eagle

Board Member

Partnership Work Group Member

Chandler Little Eagle was born and raised in the northland of Kansas City, Missouri. In May 2018 she earned her Bachelor's in Environmental Studies with additional minors in sustainability, History and Geography.

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Chandler's passion for the outdoors stays beyond extracurricular activities as she participated in environmental activism to protect tribal land belonging to her enrolled tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux, opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline in September of 2016. She served one year of federal volunteer service through AmeriCorps as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America.)

Moving forward with her career, she is working to continue her studies to law school with a special interest in Urban, Land Use and Environmental Law.

Our Steering Council

Scott Schulte

Board Secretary

Conservation & Policy Work Group Member

Scott Schulte has 26 years of experience working to protect natural resources. He served HCA as Board President for six years, from its founding in January 2012 until March of 2018.

Scott is the Senior Environmental Planner for Vireo (formerly Patti Banks Associates) since 2005 where he supports natural resource planning, design, and policy development projects. He has been a Lecturer at the University of Kansas since 2009, first in the Urban Planning Program and at the Edwards Campus since 2015, instructing undergraduates and graduate students in environmental planning and environmental impact assessment. Previously, he served as the Board Vice President and Treasurer of Blue River Watershed Association for two years. Scott has extensive experience in watershed management, natural resources planning and restoration, public policy, community engagement and training.

Roberta Vogel-Leutung

Board Member

Outreach and Education Work Group Member

Roberta has been active in Kansas City are conservation for two decades.  As career staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, she helped to start KC WildLands as part of EPAs Regional Ecosystems Priority, and chaired the WildLands executive committee for five years.  After witnessing the birth of HCA as an outgrowth of conservation planning convened by Wildlands, Roberta was once again able to use her Community Partnership role to support the beginning of HCA programming and assumption of a leadership role in the Urban Waters Federal Partnership efforts on the Blue River. Since her retirement from EPA in 2017, Roberta has remained an active volunteer with the Outreach and Education committee and looks forward to her new role as board member.  

Currently, Roberta is a Program Manager of outdoor education for Green Works in KC. 

Heartland Conservation Alliance is honored to have the leadership and expertise of our Steering Council. The Council represents our Alliance partners and provides guidance for implementing our work.

Each Council member serves a two-year term and represents a key Partner community including: Business, Education, Government, Higher education, Land trust, Nonprofit, Neighborhood/landowner, Public land manager and Water utility.

Council members support our work by:

• Supporting staff and Board to fulfill our mission

• Bringing ideas to the table

• Connecting the larger group to resources

• Broadening our networking opportunities

• Using collective assets to implement plans and projects

• Provide a sounding board, especially when issues may conflict

• Provide direction and leadership

2018 HCA Steering Council Strategic Evaluation Meeting: Pictured: Back row, left to right, Stephen VanRhein, Missouri Department of Conservation; Lauren Garrott, HCA Board Secretary; Brian Nowotny, Jackson County Parks + Rec; Christina Hoxie, Hoxie Collective; Ayana Curran-Howes, HCA AmeriCorps VISTA; Andrea Clark. Middle row, left to right, Laura Don Wilkison, Artist; Lynn Youngblood, Blue River Watershed Association; Ginny Moore, The Conservation Fund, Bill Fessler, KC Parks. Front row, left to right, Amanda Graor, Mid-America Regional Council; Laura Adams, Black & Veatch; Patti Banks, Vireo; Roberta Vogel-Leutung; Jill Erickson, HCA; and  Connie Chapman.

Michael Frisch

Assoc. Professor of Urban Planning + Design in the Dept. of Arch., Urban Planning + Design at UMKC. Michael teaches Land Use, Urban Planning Studio and Environmental Planning. He began his environmental planning career working on urban environmental issues with noted ecologist Dr. Barry Commoner at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems in New York City and has worked on a wide variety of land use and environmental issues.

Lara Isch

Lara Isch began work with the Kansas City Water Services Department in 2003 with the Household Hazardous Waste Program where she discovered a passion for public outreach. In 2012, after two years in private consulting, she returned to Water Services as the Water Quality Educator, where she is responsible for implementation of water quality related education and outreach for both the Overflow Control Program and the Stormwater Utility. She graduated with a Bachelors of Environmental Studies from the University of Kansas with concentrations in science and policy.

Devin Wetzel

Devin serves as the Superintendent of Park for the Natural Resources Division for Kansas City, MO Parks and Recreation Department.  Originally from Iowa, he moved to the Kansas City area in 2004 after finishing his degree from Iowa State University in Horticulture.
He oversees the operations and maintenance of the City’s 221 parks spanning over 12,000 acres in addition to the park and street trees estimated at over 400,000 trees.

Joshua Anderson

Joshua Anderson, 5th generation Missouri farmer. Grew up farming conventionally in Northern Missouri, Iowa and Arkansas. After Highschool Joshua served in both the Army as a medic and with the Peace Corps in Agro-Forestry.  He also earned degrees in Geography & mapping systems from UCM, studied international development in Holland and is a alumni of UC Santa Cruz's "Center for Agro-Ecology & Sustainable Food systems. His work in non-profits began after returning home and helped start the Farmer Veteran Coalition.Currently he is the farmboss at Boys Grow where they manage 30 acres and empower urban youth by teaching entrepreneurship through Agriculture.

Carla Dods

Carla leads the all-volunteer Platte Land Trust as President, Board of Directors. Her passion is protecting and restoring natural areas in balance with human needs for land and resources. An environmental scientist with 30 years of experience, she currently works on watershed, stormwater, and water quality projects for Shockey Consulting Services. She is a life-long community volunteer, gardener, and native plant advocate.

Matthew Vander Molen

Matthew studied biology at Northwestern College in Iowa, then worked 2.5 years as a plant biologist for the National Park Service and nearly 4 years in the Peace Corps with a focus on agroecology in Latin America. Plants are Matt's passion, namely their propagation, ecology, and fusion into human culture. In his free time, you may see Matt wandering around observing plants, growing his own food, reading scientific books, or engaging in the cross-cultural urban Kansas City.

Brian Nowotny

Brian is the Deputy Director for Park Operations for Jackson County Parks + Rec.  Jackson County’s award winning parks system is the third largest county parks system in the nation covering over 20,000 acres.  With a background in landscape architecture, Brian oversees operations, planning and park development for our county’s 690,000 residents.  Originally from Dallas, Texas, Brian has lived in the Kansas City area since 2001.  

Amanda Graor

Amanda Graor is a Principal Planner at the Mid-America Regional Council in Kansas City. Her work includes education and outreach on criteria pollutants and other air quality concerns, transportation technologies and innovation, and facilitation of the regional Air Quality Forum. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Earth System Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Kansas.

Stephen Van Rhein

Since 2003, Stephen has been a Community Conservationist at the MO Department of Conservation working with cities and counties in the Kansas City metropolitan area to incorporate conservation friendly practices as the area grows. He has served the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks addressing rural water quality issues and spent 2+ years in Cameroon as a Peace Corps aquaculture extensionist. He has a MS in Ecology from Illinois State Univ. and a BS in Microbiology from the University of Missouri.