About Us >

Charley Burwick, President
Charley was born and raised in Joplin, Missouri. He served in the Air Force for four years, spending three years in Germany. He worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for thirty-one years. Most of his career was in the Air Traffic Control System with a few years in Aviation Safety. In addition, he had a tour as an instructor at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, as well as assignments in the FAA Central Regional Office, and the FAA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He had a commercial single-engine license, with multi-engine-engine and instrument ratings. Retired from the FAA in 1993.

Charley spends a tremendous amount of his time birding, his number one hobby.

Susan Flader, Secretary/Treasurer
Susan Flader is professor of American Western and environmental history at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She has written widely on the career and thought of conservationist Aldo Leopold and on various other natural resource-related topics, including books and articles on the parks, forests, and waters of Missouri. She has served as president of the American Society for Environmental History and on the boards of the National Audubon Society, the Forest History Society, and the American Forestry Association. She is past president of the Missouri Parks Association, vice president of the LAD Foundation, and secretary of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Charles Abele
Charles Abele is an attorney who has practiced trial law in Missouri and in Illinois since 1965. He has been in the past First Assistant Public Defender and First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in St. Louis County. Since 1970, he has practiced law throughout the Midwest with a focus in St. Louis, Missouri and Belleville, Illinois. He has a broad interest in environmental law and environmental concerns. In addition to his membership on the Board of Audubon-Missouri, he is one of the founders of Missouri Votes Conservation (MVC), an organization associated with the Coalition for the Environment and the League of Conservation Voters. He is a member of the Legal Advisory Board to the Great Rivers Environmental Law Clinic.

Dave Bedan
After four years in the U.S. Air Force Dave returned to graduate school and received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He was on the faculty at St. Louis University for 8 years and was the Director of the University's Institute of Environmental Studies for 5 years. He was an employee of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for 19 years (1978-97) in the Division of Parks, the Director's Office, the Division of Environmental Quality and the Division of Energy. He retired in 1997.

Dave is active in several conservation organizations, including the Ozark Chapter of the Sierra Club, The Missouri Coalition for the Environment, the St. Louis Open Space Council, the Missouri Waste Control Coalition and local chapters of the National Audubon Society (River Bluffs Chapter and Columbia Chapter).

Lisa C. Berger
Lisa Berger is owner and CEO of Consulting Analytical Services, Inc., an environmental testing laboratory and consulting firm incorporated in 1979 in Springfield, Missouri. She has served as president of Greater Ozarks Audubon Society (GOAS), and is presently newsletter/publications editor and a member of GOAS Board of Directors. She currently serves as Missouri Important Bird Area Program (IBA) Steering Committee Chair.

John "Torrey" Berger, Jr., Vice President
Torrey is an attorney with the law firm of Lewis, Rice & Fingersh, L.C. in St. Louis. He is currently Vice President of Finance of St. Louis Audubon Society and is the chapter’s incoming President as of April 1, 2005. He is on the board of St. Louis Chapter of North American Butterfly Association and has been an active birder for 30+ years.

Mary Dueren
Mary has long been involved with St. Louis Audubon Society having served on their board in some capacity since 1989. She also served on the Missouri Audubon Council, which helped spawn Audubon Missouri. For the last 20 years she has worked for Quest Diagnostic Laboratories.

Liz Forrestal
Liz Forrestal has more than 20 years’ experience in interpretive planning, exhibit content development, and writing, primarily for wildlife conservation and habitat issues. She was the Saint Louis Zoo’s Interpretive Exhibit Coordinator for 11 years, and she now puts this expertise to work as an interpretive planning consultant. Her clients include nature centers, museums, parks, botanical gardens and zoos. She also creates communications and marketing strategies for non-profit environmental organizations and city governments.

Liz participates in a number of environmental organizations. She is a board member of Audubon Missouri and on a steering committee the U.S. Green Building Council (St. Louis Chapter). She was past chair of the Clayton (MO) Environment Committee, as well as a member of the 2006 St. Louis BioBlitz Planning Committee. She has pursued social marketing training aimed at fostering sustainable behavior in people’s private lives. As a result, she has advised the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) on targeting conservation behavior recommendations for visitors to all U.S. zoos and aquariums.

Liz regularly contributes environmental commentaries to KWMU Radio, the National Public Radio affiliate station in St. Louis. She holds a bachelors degree in zoology and a master’s degree in science communications.

She and her family live in St. Louis.

Jim Fossard
Jim grew up in Missouri and Kentucky. He loved to go fishing when he was a kid and he loved animals and wildlife. He spent a lot of time outdoors and was active in Boy Scouts. Starting in high school and college, he was engaged in many outdoors sports, including hiking and canoeing.

During law school, he went to Alaska during the summer break and worked on commercial fishing boats in the Gulf of Alaska. He could not believe just how beautiful and unspoiled parts of the world were, and he grew to appreciate the precious wilderness and wildlife treasures in this country and the precarious status of many of them.

Starting in law school and after, he engaged in kayaking, mountain climbing, wind surfing, and hang gliding. Unfortunately, he broke his neck hang gliding and he has not been able to walk since 1986. He now enjoys birding and flying an ultralight aircraft which he keeps at an airport south of Ozark, Missouri.

Ron Kucera
After several years teaching and consulting, Ron became policy director and deputy director for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and served in this capacity for five Missouri governors. With the thawing of the Cold War, he was appointed to the federal Environmental Management Advisory Board which assisted setting the direction for the long overdue cleanup of the nation's nuclear weapons production facilities. Ron retired in 2005 and remains active with environmental and conservation organizations serving on several boards including the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, the Missouri Parks Association and Audubon Missouri. He and his wife, Summer, enjoy travel and photographing the American West.

Susan Lammert
A life long St. Louis native, Susan is a landscape architect who has a special interest in native plants. Her favorite activities include eco-travel, hiking, biking, and tennis, as well as gardening, botany field trips and birding. She has been a member of St. Louis Audubon and Webster Groves Nature Study Society.

Susan sits on the Ladue City Council and is the immediate Past President and current member of the Board of Commissioners of Tower Grove Park. She served on the Missouri Clean Water Commission, as Chairman of the Missouri Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, President of the Garden Club of St. Louis, on the executive committees of the Open Space Council and Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

Ken Webb
Ken owned and operated a Certified Public Accounting practice in Pittsburg, Kansas for nearly 20 years. He also spent five years in the tax department of a Big 5 accounting firm in Kansas City. He is currently Vice President and Trust Officer with Gold Trust Company in Pittsburg. He holds memberships with the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Rotary International, Masonic Lodge, Mirza Shriners, and the American Legion, as well as several conservation organizations.

He became active with Audubon and the efforts to create the Center in Joplin early on. He now serves on the advisory board of the Wildcat Glades Conservation and Audubon Center in Joplin. His hobbies include water sports (boating, skiing, fishing, diving, etc.) hiking, outdoor cooking and travel.