Lifeblood: From Farms to Fish

Dr. Jen Pierce is a Professor of Geoscience at Boise State University, where she has been since 2005. Her research focuses on wildfires, soils, climate change, and landscape evolution.  She is committed to improving climate science education and outreach and is the director of the Idaho Climate Literacy Education Engagement and Research group (i-CLEER). Dr. Pierce grew up in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming.  She received her undergraduate degree from The Colorado College, her master’s degree from the University of Oregon, and her PhD from the University of New Mexico. Jen enjoys mountain biking, backcountry skiing, being on and in the water, playing music, and exploring the outdoors with her family and dogs.

Kevin Bauer has a diverse background spanning over 25 years as an executive, entrepreneur, investor and investment banker in various growth industries.

Kevin is currently the CEO of Envoy Group a digital experience consulting group.  In addition, Kevin leads Envoy Ventures, which combines Envoy Group’s capabilities with direct equity investment to help entrepreneurs and business leaders accelerate and launch digitally-driven business models.  Prior to Envoy, Kevin spent over 10 years as an executive and entrepreneur in the environmental sustainability industry.  Prior to his operating career, Kevin spent ten years in the investment banking industry, primarily with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Credit Suisse First Boston, advising technology industry clients.

Kevin has served on numerous private company boards and is a member of Young President’s Organization (YPO). He is a graduate of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and Washington and Lee University. You can find Kevin in the outdoors on the weekends pursuing some of his hobbies like mountain biking, hiking, fly-fishing, and surfing or coaching his son’s lacrosse team. He lives in San Diego, California with his wife and two sons and considers the Teton Valley in Idaho his second home.

Boots is a third generation guide on numerous waters in the Greater Yellowstone Area including Wyoming’s Snake and Green rivers and Idaho’s South Fork. His 30-plus years of experience in the fly fishing industry go beyond rowing a drift boat. Boots is also a well-established writer and speaker with four books, scores of articles, and dozens of presentations to his name. Much of his work revolves around issues of climate change, invasive species, congestion, and multi-use access that most western rivers face today.

Mr. Contor grew up in the national parks of the western U.S., and as a young man returned to the farming roots of both his grandfathers. He managed an irrigated row-crop farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, rented and then purchased an irrigated hay and grain farm in Howe, Idaho, and had a brief stint as a seed-company fieldman in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. He has worked in the hydrology field since 1996, including seven years in private consulting, ten years with the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute where he served as a research hydrologist, and five years with Idaho Department of Water Resources where he served as a Senior Water Resource Agent.

In private consulting, Mr. Contor worked on water-rights transactions and aquifer recharge evaluations, served as an expert witness, and performed environmental site assessments and baseline studies for conservation easements. With the Institute, he served as principal investigator on hydrologic projects as diverse as preparing water budgets for large numerical aquifer models, investigating remote sensing of evapotranspiration on irrigated lands, developing tools to calculate the economic demand for irrigation water, and investigating managed recharge of aquifers. He has published in national peer-reviewed scientific journals and has authored numerous technical completion reports for the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute. At Idaho Department of Water Resource, Mr. Contor measured flow in pipelines and open channels, investigated water-right claims and made water-right recommendations in the Snake River Basin Adjudication. While farming, he served on the board of a small canal company.

Mr. Contor holds an M.S. degree in hydrology from the University of Idaho, a B.S degree in agricultural economics from Brigham Young University, and a specialized associate in farm crops management from Ricks College.

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Todd began spending significant time in Teton Valley after he and his family built a home in Driggs in 2012, and then settled full time in 2014. He is graduate of the University of Vermont and has a MBA from Boston University. His career has been spent building high tech companies and managing venture capital investments back in Cambridge MA and New Hampshire. He currently sits on the non-profit board of the Putnam Foundation, and previously on the board of Mountain Bike the Tetons . He is an avid fly fisherman, hunter, mountain biker and skier. He and his wife Astrid stay busy trying to keep up with their three young adult children Quimby, Tucker and Addie and their dogs Cedar and Ollie, and can be seen out often on the river and trails in and around the valley.

Chris “Jigidy” Jensen found himself in Teton Valley in 2001 after many years guiding on South Fork, Henry’s Fork and Teton Rivers. Chris was born in Idaho and grew up in Salt Lake City. He was lucky enough to spend summers in Idaho as a kid and after graduating with a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Utah he moved to Idaho full time. You can still find Chris on the river fishing for fun and occasionally guiding a client turned lifelong friend. He works in digital marketing and e-commerce from his home. He’s excited to be working hard and raising a family here in the valley.

Gini Van Siclen joined FTR’s board in 2016 and was on the leadership team as Treasurer through 2020.  She has served on the boards of technical societies and nonprofit organizations for many years. To pursue her particular interest in nonprofit governance and capacity building, she earned her Masters of Nonprofit Administration (MNA) at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business in 2012. She is Adjunct Faculty at Naropa University, helping leadership graduate students learn about nonprofits and social entrepreneurship.

Gini worked as a project manager and team member in facility, nuclear safety, and waste management for the Idaho National Laboratory and Scientech, Inc. Subsequently, for many years she taught a three-day seminar in risk management for project managers for an international training and consulting firm.

In addition to her MNA degree from Notre Dame, Gini has a BA in French from Duke University and an MA in Mathematical Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University.

She and her husband, Clint, live in Teton Valley, Idaho, where they enjoy walking their dogs, fly fishing, hiking, cross country skiing, reading, and especially getting together with their sons, DeWitt and Arthur and their significant others.

Will was captivated by rivers at a young age. Some of his earliest memories are napping in the bottom of an aluminum canoe and falling in the river while fishing. A passion for the outdoors motivated Will to complete a B.S. in geology at Appalachian State University and M.S. in natural resources at the University of Idaho. Over the past decade Will has divided his time between teaching math and science in the classroom and teaching leadership and environmental education on backcountry expeditions with NOLS. Will is excited to connect others to their local landscapes and especially to the unique water resources of the Teton River watershed. Will is grateful to have found inspiration and community in the Teton Valley and spends his free time outside with his partner Kait and their dog Hank.

Contact Will Stubblefield

Andrea Flores moved to Teton Valley, ID, from Long Beach, CA in 2001. From El Capitan in Yosemite to the Grand Tetons here in her back yard, mountains have always had a pull on her heart. Andrea dedicates her free time to her two boys, partner, dogs and cat. She enjoys volunteering for Hispanic Resource Center of TV, sharing her Mexican heritage with her community. Andrea is bilingual and has a certification in Professional Office Careers at Climb Wyoming. When not volunteering she is spending time outdoors, snowboarding, camping, rockhounding, floating the river or enjoying live music with her family.

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Brian was born and raised in Reno, Nevada and introduced to fish and fishing at the age of 2 and hasn’t looked back since. After spending his youth exploring and fishing his way through the Sierra’s and surrounding areas, he moved to Oregon to attend Oregon State University. He fortunately limited out on King salmon the day of his last final and was able to make it back to campus in time to complete his exam and subsequently earned a B.S in Fisheries Biology. Brian has worked extensively as a fisheries biologist throughout the West and Alaska on projects that ranged from listed Lahonton Cutthroat Trout to the docile Sleeper Shark in Alaska. Brian first sort of moved to Driggs in 2005 working for Aqua Terra Restoration constructing stream and wetland restoration projects throughout the area, while still going back to Alaska for fisheries research survey’s in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Brian spends his free time outside and with his girls Jenny (wife), Brook, Maggie (daughters), and their black lab, Maple Heart Van Winkle Syrup.

Contact Brian Van Winkle

Sarah was born and raised in southwest Colorado. After graduating from Colorado College with a degree in Biology and Fort Lewis College with a degree in Business Administration, she attended Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. In her time at Lewis and Clark Law School Sarah was influential in the development of the Lewis and Clark Small Business Legal Clinic, a pro bono law clinic seeking to assist low-income business owners with business transaction legal matters. She was also a member of the Animal Law Journal, serving as Notes and Comments Editor. After law school Sarah accepted a job with a law firm in Montana where she represented a variety of clients in transactional, administrative, and litigation matters. The majority of Sarah’s practice was devoted to the mediation and litigation of water right matters before the Montana Water Court and Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Sarah began working as the Streamflow Restoration Director for Friends of the Teton River in May of 2010.

Contact Sarah Lien

Hayes fell in love with the Tetons as a teenager and spent a couple of stints living in the area before settling for good in Teton Valley with her husband, Ryan, son, Findley, and dog, Moose, in 2021. She is originally from North Carolina and has a degree in Forest Ecology from Sewanee, but she moved west after college to pursue her love of mountains and wide-open spaces. She has over 15 years of experience working for non-profit organizations focused on conservation and restoration and is currently the executive director of Mountain Roots Education. If she is not in one of the school gardens she manages, you’re likely to find her hiking, mountain biking, or skiing with friends and family, or getting to know more people in her community.

Mike Lien joined Friends of the Teton River in the summer of 2002 as a research associate and currently serves as FTR’s Director of Stream Restoration and Fisheries Research. Mike has surveyed stream channel conditions, conducted fisheries assessments and completed restoration and fish passage projects throughout the Teton River watershed. Mike has a B.S. in Forest Resources and Hydrology from the University of Minnesota and was a hydrological technician for 10 years for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska prior to starting with FTR. A resident of Driggs, Mike enjoys spending a few months each winter surfing at various locations around the globe.

Contact Mike Lien

Anna Lindstedt graduated from Montana State University-Bozeman in 2002 with a B.S. in anthropology and a love for rivers and the outdoors. After college, she started her non-profit career with the Rocky Mountain Nature Association, and from 2002-2004 she worked in Rocky Mountain National Park, creating a youth service and education program focused on cultivating student’s interest in natural resources conservation careers. Anna began working at FTR in 2004 as the Education and Outreach Director, and has been the Development Director since 2007. She loves living in Teton Valley with her husband, young daughter, and two dogs, and exploring the rivers and ridges in the West.

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Amy Verbeten is originally from Walla Walla, Washington. She learned some of her most important lessons about collaborative conservation and western water issues on the strawberry farm where she worked as a kid, and while accompanying her father on fly fishing adventures throughout the intermountain west. She went on to formally study watershed science and education, earning Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Washington in Ecology and Geology, and a Master of Arts in Environmental Education from Prescott College. She has spent her career in education and conservation, with organizations including the National Outdoor Leadership School, Outward Bound, Walking Mountains Science Center, Colorado Mountain College, and Prescott College. Amy has worked for Friends of the Teton River since 2007, and has served as the organization’s Executive Director since 2012. Outside of the office, Amy loves growing, foraging for, and preparing local food, and sharing her passion for the rivers and wild lands of the west with her husband, daughter, and an assortment of furry friends.

Contact Amy Verbeten