2019 Keynote Speakers
Other Leaders and Presenters
Abbott Schindler
Abbott Schindlerhas been photographing birds, wildlife and general nature for several decades. His photographic work and equipment take advantage of his extensive R&D experience, studies of photographic technique and composition, and classroom experiences. His work has been published in scientific and industry journals and fine art books, and is used extensively by the High Desert Museum.
Angela Sutton
Angela Sutton has worked at Lava Beds National Monument and the Tule Lake Unit, WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument since 2001 She has a degree in Parks and Recreation Management from Northern Arizona University. She is the lead interpreter for the Tule Lake Unit and also the education and volunteer coordinator for both Lava Beds and Tule Lake. She is proud to be a fourth generation local from the Tulelake/Klamath Basin area.
Claude Singleton
Claude Singleton graduated from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, with a major in wildlife biology and minor in recreation management. He has worked for the Bureau of Land Management since 1975 in Northeastern California as a range technician, wildlife biologist, Natural Resource Specialist, and presently an Outdoor Recreation Planner. He has also been active in Klamath Basin raptor surveys and annual Bald Eagle counts in Northern California for many years. He enjoys working with young adults through school programs and riparian management projects with AmeriCorps and the Student Conservation Association groups each year.
Darrel Samuels
Darrel Samuels, a retired teacher, is currently President of the Klamath Basin Audubon Society. Having lived in Klamath Falls for almost 14 years, he and his wife Diana (Festival co-coordinator) are enthusiastic birders and feeders of birds and have succeeded in drawing in a wide range of species into their backyard. In addition to the more usual culprits (flickers, nuthatches woodpeckers, chickadees, juncos), some more infrequent visitors have been: White-headed and Pileated Woodpeckers, Sooty Grouse, Barred, Great Horned, Barn and Great Gray Owls.
Dave Haupt
Dave Haupt is a Klamath Falls resident, where he teaches biology and art at Tulelake High School. Dave got his start in birding while at the University of California, Santa Barbara. There he worked as a consultant for many years in the management of Bell’s vireo and other endangered bird populations. Since moving to southern Oregon in 2000 his work with the Klamath Bird Observatory as well as personal endeavors has given Dave keen knowledge of the area’s avifauna.
Dave Hewitt
Dave is a research fish biologist with the Klamath Falls Field Station of the U.S. Geological Survey. He moved from Virginia to Klamath Falls in 2008. Dave didn’t start birding until some fellow students at North Carolina State University coerced him into it in 2002, but he’s been obsessed ever since. Dave is a long-time member of Audubon and has served on the Board of Directors for the Klamath Basin Audubon Society. He helps to maintain the Klamath County bird checklist, runs the regional email listserv, and serves as regional reviewer for eBird in Klamath County.
Dick Ashford
Dick is a past Board President of the Klamath Bird Observatory and former Board Chair of the American Birding Association. He is also a board member of the Crater Lake Natural History Associationand a former Mayor of Sonoma, California. He has spent hundreds of hours in the field watching hawks and an equal amount of time researching their natural history.Dick leads hawk-watching outings in both California and Oregon, and is a graduate of both the Institute for Field Ornithology’s Winter Raptor Workshop and Cape May Bird Observatory’s Hawk Identification workshop.
Jeff Smith
Dr. Smith has more than 25 years of experience studying the breeding and migration/movement ecology of various raptors throughout western North America, and assessing and developing conservation solutions to minimize and mitigate the impacts of energy, residential, and other large-scale developments on migrating and breeding raptors. For the past 8 years, he has worked as an ecological consultant at H. T. Harvey & Associates, based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. For the previous 13 years, he served as the Science Director at HawkWatch International, a Utah-based non-profit dedicated to raptor conservation, where he coordinated a network of long-term raptor migration studies and research projects in 10 primarily western states. His experience includes operating raptor migration banding stations in six western states, and extensive satellite-based tracking of several raptor species, including the ongoing collaborative study of Rough-legged Hawks with Jeff Kidd and other colleagues. Dr. Smith currently serves on the Steering Committee for the California-Nevada Golden Eagle Working Group, on the California Swainson’s Hawk Technical Advisory Committee, and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Raptor Research.
John Vradenburg
John Vradenburg joined the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges team in July 2015 as a supervisory wildlife biologist. He previously served in the same position at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico for 9 years. A Minnesota native, he spent his younger years in Northern Minnesota and his teens in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri. Always eager to accomplish more for wildlife, John was recognized as Employee of the Year in 2015 for his management plan for the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse before it was listed in 2014, and for providing opportunities for youth to learn on the refuge. He and his wife Leigh Ann enjoy bird watching and fishing with their 3 children ages 21, 7, and 6 yrs. |
Julie Thomson
Julie Thomson was born and raised in Ottawa Canada with a degree in Fine Art and Graphic Design. She studied medical illustration for a time as well as owned a large art supply store and art school in Sonoma County, California. She is the owner and Artist in Residence at Wild Pigments Art Studio, teaching art to adults and children in Klamath Falls.
Karl Wenner
Karl has lived in the Klamath Basin since 1989. He is an orthopedic surgeon by profession but has an MS degree in Wildlife Biology, serves on the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, and was instrumental in creating and currently serves on the board of the Klamath Watershed Partnership. He has led the Beginning Birding field trip for the past two years and enjoys sharing his passion for birdwatching with novices of all ages.
Kevin Spencer
Kevin has been a teacher for the past 23 years. He is currently a fifth grade teacher at Tulelake Elementary School. He graduated with a B.A. degree in Forestry from Humboldt State University in 1979. Kevin has been interested in nature since an early age and focused on birds for the past 35 years. He was a contributing author to Birds of Oregon: A General Reference, and an editor of the South Central Fieldnotes for Oregon Birds. For the last 23 years, he has been a compiler for the Klamath Falls Christmas Bird Count and a field trip leader for the Klamath Basin Audubon Society. Since the mid-1990s, Kevin has been involved with the Klamath Bird Observatory as a Point Count Surveyor, conducted USFWS Breeding Bird Surveys in Klamath and Lake Cos., and has been the compiler for Klamath County’s part in North American Migration Counts. His best “Big Day” in Klamath County was 171 species last spring, and has seen or heard over 315 species in the Klamath Basin.Kevin is considered one of the best birders in the Klamath Basin. He has been involved with the Bald Eagle Conference and the Winter Wings Festival since 1992.
Lisa Langell
Lisa Langell is a full-time, award-winning professional photographer from Scottsdale, Arizona. A bird watcher and lover of photography since the age of eight, she now leads tours and workshops internationally and is genuinely passionate about three things: Creating emotionally evocative images of nature; providing supportive, fun and high quality learning experiences for her participants; and being a good steward of our natural resources.
Lisa sits on the Board of Directors for the North American Nature Photography Association, has been published in numerous top tier magazines and publications, featured in a variety of art galleries, and more. Lisa is fondly revered by many for both her creative, artful imagery and her upbeat, relaxed and nurturing teaching style.
Marshal Moser
Marshal Moser is a consultant and manager/biologist at Lonesome Duck Ranch on the Williamson River, 25 miles north of Klamath Falls. He also leads tours in the Klamath Basin, specializing in Crater Lake National Park. Having traveled and studied natural history on 5 continents, he began naturalizing and birding in Oregon in the 1970s and liked southeast Oregon so much he moved to the area in 2006. A Certified Wildlife Biologist, he was the founding Executive Director of the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, college biology instructor, and has owned his own environmental consulting company, EcoServices, since 1978. He works with terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, wetland and water issues, endangered and invasive species, fishing, birding, grazing, native plants and landscaping.
Marty St. Louis
Marty St. Louis has been the Wildlife Area Manager of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Summer Lake Wildlife Area for the past 31 years. Educated with a B.S. degree in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University, he has spent a majority of his career working with waterfowl and wetland management.
Matthew Stuber
Matthew Stuber has been a wildlife biologist and studied/managed raptors for the US Fish and Wildlife Service for 8 years. He is currently the Eagle Coordinator for the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The bulk of his duties revolve around managing/studying eagle populations in the Pacific Northwest, but he also works with a variety of other raptor species. Matt got his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, and his Master of Science (in Raptor Biology) at Boise State University. He presently lives in Corvallis, OR with his wife and twin 4-year old sons.
Myra Hamaker Schelb
Myra began in Acrylic before exploring other mediums with artist Dorothy Hale and Pam Stoehsler. She enjoys creating in Oil, Acrylic, Watercolors, and Pastel in subjects of wildlife, floral, and landscapes. When she moved to the Klamath Basin she become involved in the Art community and become a member of Gallery 803 in 1995 and was a member till it closed. Her acrylic painting of a Varied Thrush has been chosen as the 2019 Winter Wings Festival bird,
In May of 2013 she established her own Gallery inside her new business office Countertops by TOPSecret, Inc at 6032 Washburn Way, and called it MJ Art Gallery.
Pamela Llewellyn
Pamela Llewellyn is a San Francisco Bay Area native who has been leading local birding trips for the Golden Gate Audubon Society for the past 15 years, and more recently, taught Raptor Identification classes for the Mount Diablo Audubon Society and the Klamath Falls Winter Wings Festival in 2016 and 2017. Prior to that she spent five years as a bander and docent for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. She has lead bird trips through the Point Reyes Field Seminars (PRNSA) and also banded with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (Point Blue). Pamela studied Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, is also nature photographer and artist and leads private birding trips in the Bay Area.
Russ Namitz
Russ Namitz, currently a wildlife biologist, spent the year 2011 chasing birds around the state in an attempt to break the Big Year record for Oregon. He drove 41,000 miles, ate 48.5 feet of Subway sandwiches and pushed the record up by 18 species. |
Scott Thomas
Mr. Thomas is a raptor biologist and project manager for Kidd Biological, Inc, a small consulting firm based in Anacortes, WA. Scott maintains state and federal permits authorizing capture and take of various threatened and endangered species ranging from California Gnatcatchers to Golden Eagles. Since 1985, Scott has concentrated his efforts in raptor research and banded approximately 5,000 nestling and adult raptors throughout the western U.S. and Scandinavia.
Steve Rooker
Steve Rooker has worked as a conservation officer for twelve years with both the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He started his career as a Ranger Naturalist at Shenandoah National Park in 1998 and transferred to the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, Florida one year later. Since then, he has worked as a Park Ranger at Saguaro National Park in Arizona, Wrangell St. Elias National Preserve in Alaska, and the Black Hills of South Dakota. Rooker grew up in Staunton, Virginia and earned a bachelor’s degree in Forest Recreation Management from Mississippi State University in 1997, and attended graduate school at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources in 2005 and 2006. He currently is employed as the Visitor Services Specialist at the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Tulelake California.
Tim Boyer
Tim Boyer is an award winning,full time nature photographer whose images have been published in many bird and nature magazines. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of photography and birds through workshops and presentations. In October of 2017 he started a YouTube channel where he posts bird photography tutorials every Wednesday and has just published Learn the Art of Bird Photography, The Complete Field Guide for Beginning and Intermediate Photographers and Birders.
Tom Essex
Tom Essex is a retired former secondary educator, specializing in physical sciences and environmental sciences. He is primarily involved in a variety of conservation organizations, including the National Audubon Society and local Klamath Basin Audubon Chapter, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and a local trout fishery conservation group.
William L. Sullivan
William L. Sullivan is the author is 20 books about Oregon travel, history, mystery, and adventure. His memoir of a 1000-mile hike across the state was chosen one of Oregon’s “100 Books” – the most significant books in the state’s history. He lwrites an outdoor column for the newspapers in Eugene and Salem. In summers he lives in a log cabin he built by hand in the wilds of Oregon’s Coast Range.