Shari Eggleson - President

Shari has been a BRC member for 10 years and a Board member since 2007.

Shari worked at the Wisconsin Department of Justice for 30 years, prosecuting polluters all over the state, prior to her retirement in 2008.  She moved to Washburn, Wisconsin in 2000, with her husband Mark, who is the Superintendent at Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island.

A longtime Madison resident, Shari jumped at the chance to move to the Bayfield area in 2000, having played in northern Wisconsin for many years--canoeing, kayaking, biking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.  She cherishes both the natural, unspoiled beauty of the area and the wonderful people who live here, dedicated to keeping it that way.

Kayaking Lake Superior, paddling the Brule River, biking roads through the Chequamegon National Forest, and skiing at Valhalla and Mt. Ashwabay are all favorite activities of Shari.  She also lives a short walk from the beautiful Houghton Falls Ravine, which the Conservancy is working to protect.

 

Kim Bro -Vice President

Even though Kim was born and raised in the Chicago area, the North Country is in his DNA.  His connection to the area began with summers around Cable Lake in southern Bayfield County.  In 1973 he made this area home after his great aunt encouraged him to volunteer at Northland College’s Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute.  The experience led to a career in environmental outreach education and a special interest in Lake Superior.  Except for a 14-year stint in Madison, WI, Kim has since lived in the Chequamegon  Bay area. 
Kim is trained in land and water resources management (M.S. and Ph.D.), and has managed outreach education re: natural resources for thirty years through the UW Sea Grant Institute, state and federal environmental health and remediation programs and at Northland College as Vice President and Executive Director of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute and as Director of Sustainability.

Additionally, Kim brings a lot of non-profit managment experience to BRC and has chaired the Boards of Directors of the Cable Lakes Association, the Ashland Rotary Club and the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council.  He is secretary of the Town of Washburn Plan Commission and a member of Wisconsin’s Lake Superior Partnership Team.  Kim has served on the Management Committee of the Lake Superior Binational Forum, the Public Health Steering Committee for Ashland and Bayfield counties, the board of directors of the Listening Point Foundation (Ely, MN) and the Board of Trustees of Northland College.  Kim is currently assisting the City of Ashland and the Land and Water Conservation departments in Ashland and Bayfield Counties to develop a management plan for the Fish Creek Watershed.  In addition to all his other activities, Kim also helps his wife with her native plant business.

When asked what he likes about BRC: "I am especially attracted to the community-based approach to working with property owners because I have found that, when mutual learning occurs between land owners and environmental experts, land stewardship improves.  The land owners learn about ecosystems and natural processes, and experts learn about those attributes of the landscape that land owners find special.  In addition to the natural history of a piece of land is its personal history.  Not only is a parcel of land protected, but also land owners share the value of what is protected with family, friends and neighbors.  This dimension of local significance often is lost on state and national organizations dedicated to land protection."

 

Jack Wichita - Secretary

Jack has lived in the northwoods area for the past 10 years on Marengo Lake in southeastern Bayfield County.  Jack brings to BRC's Board his strategic planning skills as his work with Northwest CEP included developing and implementing quality improvement strategies and in building strategic alliances and partnerships with state agencies and local entities to deliver “one stop shop” employment services.  Jack's community affiliations include his continuing involvement with the Bad River Watershed Association, where he has served on the board during the last 7 years, including 3 years as President. He also Chair of the Town of Lincoln's comprehensive planning commission, and continues his involvement with Northwest CEP on their executive, operations, and strategic directions committees.

Jack and his wife Mary are retired and their passion is the outdoors and luckily live in an area that is a great place to enjoy their outdoor activities—including camping, x-country skiing, canoeing, kayaking, biking.

Of BRC and its mission, Jack says, "I greatly appreciate and resonate with the BRC’s environmental message—preserving fragile and unique lands from development as well as developing easements and preserving access to trails for public use.  These are very concrete activities that will have a major impact on our future generations.  It’s a great legacy that we are leaving them through the work of the BRC."

Janet Dale - Treasurer

Janet is in her fourth year on the BRC Board in the role of Treasure.

As a 30+ year resident of the community, Janet is quite familiar with the immediate and extended community.  She has been a Bayfield Township resident sine 1977, and is co-owner of Highland Valley Farm, where she manages all the books, and which is the largest grower of blueberries in the State of Wisconsin, supplying fruit to a three state area.  Janet also worked 8 years as RN for Bayfield County Memorial Hospital in Washburn, then 3 years for Bayfield County Health Dept.

Janet says "I am especially grateful for BRC’s support of the Farmland Preservation program.  Our farm is one of the four first area farms protected through this program."   She also enjoys walking the Brownstone and Ravine Trails, both BRC projects.

 

Edith Brevold

Edith is a retired teacher and has been a member of the BRC since its inception, serving on one of its first Boards.  Her input and sense of history of the organization is invaluable.  Her experience in non-profit management (Edith both serves and has served on several boards) has been a real asset to BRC.

 

Roger Dreher

Roger was born and raised in Shawano, WI and has been a MN resident since 1968.  Roger has over 30 years of corporate experience in engineering, marketing, manufacturing and quality assurance at the middle and upper management level.  Always interested in environmental and conservation issues, Roger has held several positions on non profit boards over the past 10 or so years, including  the Wisconsin Association of Lakes (director 6 years, secretary 2 years), Bayfield County Lakes Forum (president for 4 years), Cable/Namakagon Historical Museum (currently president), and chair (5 years) and member of the planning committee for the Northwest Wisconsin Lakes Conference since 1999.  Rogers brings his vast experience and network of extensive contacts with people who are involved in water and shoreland protection to BRCs Board, enhancing its work in those areas.

Roger has a masters degree in electrical engineering from UW Madison and MBA from Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He has owned property on Lake Wilipyro, a Class 3 lake in southern Bayfield County since 1983.

Of BRC's work, Roger says, "I think the conservation easement is an important tool to preserve and protect lands and waters of NW Wisconsin.  I also believe that cooperative and mutually supportive efforts involving BRC, DNR, other conservancy groups, citizen conservation organizations, tribes and government agencies will be effective in accomplishing the BRC mission and the desires of citizens to protect special places and natural resources."

 

Grandon Harris

Grandon has been on the BRC board for one and a half years and has been a member for almost four years (moved to Bayfield just over four years ago).  Grandon currently chairs BRC's Fundraising Committee and the Big Ravine Committee.

During the first thirteen years of Grandon's career, he and his family were honored to live in a Native American Community on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.  Employment possibilities there for a decent livelihood were nil, so Grandon was the enabler for creating products and a manufacturing facility while training and mentoring employees as job possibilities were created.  Not an easy task since there were no funds, no buildings, no product or service--while living in a very rural area.  But, starting from scratch, one success led to another, and thanks to a lot of hard work and perseverence, Milk's Camp Industries was born and became notably successful!  Grandon ended his career working with a company that made specialty architectural plywood. He purchased rare veneers from around the world, worked with architects and fabricators to design a process to layout the veneer appropriately for museums, hospitals, theaters, yachts etc.

In between careers, Grandon designed and built a superinsulated passive solar house (the hard way, milling his own lumber, recycling maple flooring from an old school etc.) in Fifield, WI.  He says "I am embarrassed to say it took ten years to complete, but it may still be one of the very most energy efficient homes in Wisconsin".

According to Grandon, the Lake Superior region is special to him and he and his wife started to gravitate here as soon as they moved to Wisconsin, perhaps because they were both born and brought up by the Atlantic Ocean, he in Plymouth, MA and his wife, Dot on Cape Cod, MA.  The Chequamegon Bay area is their "ocean" and is as close to Maine and the seacoast as they can get without being there!  He says, "here we are rural, pristine, culturally alive, and environmentally sensitive.  We have it all--here!"

"This is why I serve on our board.  The land and our environment is special and sacred.  Having been the only non-native family in a native community so long, we learned a new way of life, one of respect, honor, walking lightly on Mother Earth.  Life, community, and place are awesome; we can only share and give back to enjoy what we have inherited."

Grandon is a serious amateur photographer (his art form) and has done some work professionally.  Doing meaningful photography for BRC is high on his agenda.

His favorite natural places in our area are too numerous to list, mainly because he has hiked, snowshoed, and skied to one new gem after another.  Waterfalls, estuaries, upland bogs, beaches, sea caves, groves of aged white pines . . . many beautiful, quiet, and scenic places.

Tam Hofman

Tam is a resident of the Town of Bell and has been a long time supporter of BRC and its mission.  She works for the National Parks Service Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Area, is a teacher in the South Shore School District, serves on the Alumni Board of Directors at Northland College and is an Emergency Medical Technician.

 

Karin Kozie

Karin has been on the BRC board for 5 years and currently serves as Chair of the Land Projects Committee.  
Karin has a masters degree in wildlife biology and has worked as a wildlife biologist for various federal agencies, including the National Park Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the US Forest Service.  Karin's biological knowledge is certainly an asset to BRC in its land project decision making.

Karin first fell in love with the region in the early 1980s while working on her masters degree in the Apostle Islands.  There is something about living in a lighthouse on Outer Island studying bald eagles that inextricably connects one to Lake Superior.  Since then, Karin has lived all over the United States, including Alaska. But no matter where she has lived, she always talked about when she and her family would move back to the Bayfield Peninsula.  Lake Superior does and always will hold a special place in her heart.   Karin serves on the board of BRC because she cares deeply about conserving land for wildlife and ultimately for all of us, especially our children.  We all need wild spaces.

One of Karin's favorite places in our area is Bark Bay slough.  She says "It is an amazing fresh water estuary".  Karin loves to camp, hike, canoe, birdwatch, and enjoy the outdoors with her family.

 

Dennis McCann

Dennis joined the BRC board in October 2008 and Chairs BRCs Marketing and Public Relations Committee.

Dennis was a newspaperman for more than 30 years, including 25 years as a reporter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Also a UW-Madison grad and a Wisconsin native, Dennis is the author of three books, with a fourth - about Wisconsin cemeteries - to be released in 2010.  His wonderful writing has been a real asset for BRC's communications.

Dennis and his wife began coming to Bayfield and Madeline Island more than 25 years ago and from the very beginning the area felt like soul country to them. They bought land about 10 years ago and built a house on Lake Superior with views of Madeline across Chequamegon Bay. Dennis says, "My service is a modest contribution toward keeping the peninsula and surrounding waters the special, even occasionally wild, place that it is."

Dennis lives on the Brownstone Trail and walks or rides it to town several times a week. He and his wife, Barb, cross country ski at Mt. Ashwabay, a BRC protection project. He is also an avid golfer and member of the board of Apostle Highlands GC, another special place he hopes can be preserved.

 

Bruce Moore

Bruce has been a full-time resident of Bayfield since 2006, and a visitor to the northwoods since 1988. An environmental engineer/ hydrologist  for the Wisconsin DNR, Bruce is a lifelong advocate of preserving natural habitat, and maintaining a lighter ecological footprint through lifestyle choices.  The expertise Bruce brings to the board includes his knowledge of stormwater, erosion and water quality contril measures (he has been a great help on our trails!) and the workings of State and Local agencies that regulate land use.  Bruce is very active in the community and in addition to his service on the BRC Board, he serves on the Board of the Wisconsin Wetland Association and the Chequamegaon Bay Alliance for Sustainability.  Also, Bruce developed the concept & design for the City of Bayfield courthouse stormwater treatment/rain garden system.

Bruces interests and hobbies include wetland and riparian habitat restoration, home applications in energy conservation, nordic skiing, kayaking, native planting, material reuse.

Bruce believes that the acquisition of fragile water resources (i.e., stream segments, wetlands, lake shoreline) can be critical to the protection of those areas, as well as the downstream watershed.  He wholly support BRC’s efforts to ensure thoughtful land use of special habitat, such as the recently secured Lost Creek Bog area. Of BRC he says, "As a licensed hydrologist, I recognize the strength of BRC’s watershed approach to land acquisition and management.  Land use activities in key portions of a watershed can have far-reaching implications for both water and habitat quality downstream.  That is, it isn’t just the shoreline or riparian corridor that requires effective land management if the goal of habitat preservation is to be realized.  What occurs in land use upstream can have far-reaching implications."