Anita Randolph, President. Anita was appointed Director of the Missouri Energy Center (formerly the Division of Energy) in July 1998. Prior to becoming the Energy Director, she was employed by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDot) in the Office of Transportation Planning and Policy Development. Before being employed by MoDOT, Anita worked for the Missouri House of Representatives where she developed legislative approaches for environmental, energy and natural resource issues. She was recently appointed by Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson as a member of the State Energy Advisory Board, a federal advisory board to the U.S. Department of Energy, and she is a board member of the National Association of State Energy Officials.

Susan Flader, Secretary/Treasurer. Susan 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.

John Solodar, Vice President. John holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from Yale University in Organic Chemistry, and did his Post-doctoral work at MIT. He specialized in catalytic chemistry for the Monsanto Company for nearly 30 years and retired May 1, 1997. He has been an active board member of the St. Louis Audubon Society since 1997, and is currently the VP of Finance/Treasurer. John has been a part of many conservation projects including the Riverlands Least Tern Breeding Project in 2002-03 and the Litzinger Road Ecology Center’s bird surveys. He has put in many volunteer hours for The Nature Conservancy, Ruth Park Woods, and is currently on the Board of Adjustment for University City’s city government.

Charley Burwick, Chapter Representative. 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 and instrument ratings. He retired from the FAA in 1993. Charley spends a tremendous amount of his time birding, his number one hobby.

James Fossard, At Large Trustee. Jim has practiced law in Springfield, Missouri with the firm of Pratt, Fossard, Jensen & Masters, L.L.C. and primarily practices in the area of real estate and construction law. He 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, biking 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. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Missouri Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and Vice President of the Ozarks Green Building Coalition. He now enjoys birding and flying an ultralight aircraft which he keeps at an airport south of Ozark, Missouri.

Brad Jacobs, At Large Trustee. Brad earned a Bachelor of Science degree in conservation of natural resources from Cornell University in 1969, and spent three years with the U.S. Peace Corps in Columbia and Ecuador, South America. In the 1980’s he taught on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and studied the birdlife of the region. He began his career with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) in 1987 while attending graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) where he earned a master’s degree in biological sciences, with an emphasis on avian ecology. He is co-chairperson of Partners-in-Flight’s (PIF) Midwest Working Group steering committee and the PIF National Implementation Committee. He has conducted a plethora of research and is the author of many published books from that research. He was a founding and charter member of board of Audubon Missouri, and has been president and board member of the Columbia Audubon Society for eight years.

Charlie Nilon, At Large Trustee. Charlie is a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at the University of Missouri where he’s worked since 1989. Before coming to MU, he was the urban wildlife program coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. His research and teaching interests are in human dimensions of wildlife conservation and in urban wildlife ecology and conservation. He’s been a member of Columbia Audubon and this is Charlie’s second time serving as a board member of Audubon Missouri.

Jim Wilson, Regional Representative. Raised in the hills of Northeast Missouri, Jim received his education from Northeast Missouri State and Iowa State. His interests include environmental interpretation, experiential education and the interrelationship of people and the land. He was formerly with the Missouri Department of Conservation in endangered species, natural history and education. In his current position as part of the Des Lee Collaborative Vision at UM-St. Louis, he works with Forest Park Forever to develop education programs that will better connect people to nature in a 1200 acre urban park and the greater St. Louis region