Jim Enote, Chair
Zuni, NM
Jim Enote is a Zuni tribal member and CEO of the Colorado Plateau Foundation, which invests in Native-led organizations on the Colorado Plateau. As a counselor to the philanthropic community, he connects, engages, and leverages funding to support regional issues. Enote’s service over the past 45 years includes natural resources, cultural resources, philanthropic, and art assignments for many domestic and international organizations. He serves on the governing council of the Wilderness Society and the Trust for Mutual Understanding board. He is a Carnegie Foundation Senior Fellow and National Geographic Society Explorer. He lives in his work-in-progress home at Zuni, New Mexico, where he is also a lifelong traditional farmer.
Pam Eaton, Vice-Chair
Boulder, CO
Pam Eaton is the founder and owner of Green West Strategies, a consulting firm focused on conservation and renewable energy and equity for all communities. With more than a 30-year career at The Wilderness Society, Eaton has extensive expertise in energy and climate change issues, wilderness protection, conservation policy, and campaign strategy related to Western public lands. Before joining The Wilderness Society, Eaton worked for the National Park Service in Alaska and for the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming. She received a master’s degree from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and a bachelor’s in geology from Yale University.
Holly Holtz, Secretary-Treasurer
New York, NY
Holly Holtz is a finance professional with experience investing in private markets, restructuring corporate debt and contributing to for-profit and nonprofit boards. Prior to founding Shinrun Advisors in 2012, she held many positions, including senior director, at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and several New York-based banks. She received an MBA from Columbia Business School, a M.A. in Chinese art history from the University of California-Berkeley, a B.A. from the University of Michigan, and was a curator at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Her favorite activities are hiking in the Grand Canyon and visiting other parks and wilderness areas on the Colorado Plateau.
Rachel Beda
Seattle, WA
Rachel Beda is the medical director and co-owner of Wise Patient Internal Medicine in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Beda specializes in gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse people, LGBTQ+ healthcare, mental health care, and adult primary care. She has a biology degree from Harvey Mudd College and completed medical school and residency at the University of Washington. She previously worked as a supervising physician in the emergency department of Seattle’s level 1 trauma center and has provided primary care to Seattle’s underserved and unhoused population at Pike Market Medical Clinic. She is the board chair of Northwest Harvest, Washington’s largest hunger-relief agency. She spends as much time as possible trail running through wild places.
David Bonderman
Ft. Worth, TX
David Bonderman is chairman and a founding partner of TPG Capital, an investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. He is a private investor with holdings in banking, media, and other areas. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Bonderman was previously special assistant to the attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, an assistant law professor at Tulane University, and a partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter. He also serves on the governing council of The Wilderness Society.
Bonderman has a long-standing interest in the Colorado Plateau. While in college, he worked on archaeological surveys in Glen Canyon before the gates of Glen Canyon Dam closed and Lake Powell flooded the canyon.
Karletta Chief
Kayenta, AZ
Dr. Karletta Chief (Diné) is a professor and extension specialist in the department of environmental science at the University of Arizona. Dr. Chief grew up on the Navajo Nation, within the Peabody coal company leasehold area, without electricity or running water. Her lived personal experiences of environmental injustice and as a first-generation graduate motivate her to devote her environmental research to supporting the resilience of Indigenous communities and training students in sustainable technologies. She is the director of the Indigenous Resilience Center and lead for a National Science Foundation program focused on Indigenous food, energy, water security, and sovereignty.
John Echohawk
Boulder, CO
John Echohawk is the executive director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a nonprofit law firm dedicated to protecting Indigenous rights. Echohawk has been with NARF since its inception in 1970, having served continuously as executive director since 1977. He was the first graduate of the University of New Mexico's program to train Indian lawyers and was a founding member of the American Indian Law Students Association. He has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and has received numerous awards and recognition for his leadership. Echohawk received his bachelor’s and law degree from the University of New Mexico and was a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow.
Terry Goddard
Phoenix, AZ
Terry Goddard practices law in Phoenix and is president of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District. He served as Arizona attorney general, Arizona director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, mayor of Phoenix, president of the National League of Cities, a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and chair of its for-profit subsidiary, the National Trust Community Investment Corporation. Goddard teaches a course on the law of state attorneys general at Arizona State University College of Law. Goddard is a sometime gardener, hiker, backpacker, and photographer. He lives in downtown Phoenix with his wife and son, who are both enthusiastic hikers and fans of the Grand Canyon and Colorado Plateau.
William Grabe
Sanibel, FL
Bill Grabe is a private investor. He joined General Atlantic, a global private equity firm, in 1992 as a managing director. He brought broad international operations experience and an extensive sales and marketing background to the company and was instrumental in General Atlantic’s global expansion to Europe, China, and India. Previously, Grabe served as a vice president and corporate officer at IBM. He was responsible for the launch of the AS400 computer system and for founding IBM Global Services. He currently serves on the boards of Lenovo Group Limited, Gartner Inc., the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute. Bill holds a bachelor’s in engineering from New York University and received his MBA from UCLA.
John Leshy
San Francisco, CA
John Leshy is an emeritus professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and has spent much of the past five decades working on public lands issues. He was solicitor (general counsel) of the Department of the Interior during the Clinton administration, where he played a key role in the creation of national monuments. He’s also worked for the House Committee on Natural Resources, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Department of Justice, and he's been a law professor at Arizona State University. Leshy is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. His comprehensive political history of America’s public lands, “Our Common Ground,” was published by Yale University Press in 2022.
Pete McBride
Basalt, CO
Pete McBride is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and writer who has worked on assignment in over 75 countries for the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, and Google and presented on stages for the World Economic Forum, Nat Geo Live, Pixar, and more. In 2016, McBride hiked the entire length of Grand Canyon National Park — over 750 miles without a trail — to highlight threats facing this iconic landscape. The resulting book, “Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim,” won a National Outdoor Book Award and feature documentary, “Into the Grand Canyon,” was nominated for an Emmy. McBride resides in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Sarah Cottrell Propst
Santa Fe, NM
Sarah Cottrell Propst was appointed by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to serve as the cabinet secretary of the Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department. Previously, she served as the executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a nonprofit trade association that represents the nation's leading companies in the renewable energy industry. Cottrell Propst also served as deputy cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department and energy and environmental policy advisor to former Gov. Bill Richardson. She worked as a research fellow for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She earned a master’s degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Cottrell Propst was also an air and energy intern with the Trust.
Jennifer Speers
Salt Lake City, UT
Jennifer Speers grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York with a strong tradition of farming and conservation. She carries her values of land stewardship into the management of her own ranching properties along the Colorado River, raising mostly alfalfa and crops that provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife. Prior to becoming a full-time farmer, Speers worked for 18 years as a surgical technician in Salt Lake City. In addition to her service on the Grand Canyon Trust board, Speers is a current board member of The Nature Conservancy of Utah, Artspace, Wave Hill, the Glynnwood Center for Regional Food and Farming, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She is a former board member of HawkWatch International.
Rhea Suh
Mill Valley, CA
Rhea Suh is president and CEO of Marin Community Foundation, one of the country’s largest community foundations. Prior to this, she served as president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. During the Obama administration, she served as the assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Before this appointment, she worked for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Suh earned her bachelor’s in environmental science from Barnard College and received a Fulbright fellowship to Seoul, South Korea. She served as a senior legislative assistant for Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and earned a master's degree in education, administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.
David Tedesco
Paradise Valley, AZ
David Tedesco founded his first software business at age 15. Today, he is the CEO of Outlier, a private company that buys and grows businesses. He blends deep interests in strategic theory, product design, engineering, and finance into a creative, ever-evolving approach to business and investing. Tedesco is an active member of the board of directors of many private and public companies and is a regular strategic advisor to numerous private equity firms. He is also a lifelong philanthropist. Tedesco is an alumnus of Harvard Business School. He is an active pilot, pianist, photographer, cyclist, mountaineer, and world traveler. He lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona and Sun Valley, Idaho with his wife and four young daughters.
Rebecca Tsosie
Phoenix, AZ
Rebecca Tsosie is a regent’s professor and Morris K. Udall professor of law at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Previously, she was a regent’s professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she served as vice provost for inclusion and community engagement and directed the Indian Legal Program. Tsosie, who is of Yaqui descent, is recognized nationally and internationally for her work in federal Indian law and Indigenous peoples’ human rights. She is a member of the bar in Arizona and California and serves as an appellate judge for the Supreme Court of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, and the San Carlos Tribal Court of Appeals.
Mark Udall
Eldorado Springs, CO
Mark Udall represented the people of Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 2009-2015 and the 2nd Congressional District from 1999-2009. He led numerous bipartisan initiatives to protect the land, air, water, and communities of the Southwest. Prior to serving in Congress, Udall had a 20-year career as an instructor and executive director at the Colorado Outward Bound School. Udall’s parents instilled a deep reverence for the cultural traditions, diverse communities, and landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. He has participated in nine Himalayan expeditions, including summiting the third highest peak in the world, trekked 1,200 miles in the Four Corners region, and paddled solo for three weeks in Baja California’s Sea of Cortez.
Trudy Vincent
Washington, DC
Trudy Vincent is the senior vice president of federal relations in the Office of Civic Engagement at the University of Chicago. She has spent decades advising members of Congress. Vincent was chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., serving as the senator’s primary political advisor, and she was a chief advisor to U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., and to U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-M.D. In 2008, she served on the Obama-Biden presidential transition team as the energy and environment lead. Vincent earned a bachelor’s in psychology from Duke University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Patrick Von Bargen
Palm Springs, CA
Patrick Von Bargen is the founder of Harley St. Associates, which provides leadership coaching and consulting services for leaders in the government, private, and nonprofit sectors. His focus is on clean technology, renewable energy, and natural resources. Previously, Von Bargen co-founded the government relations and public affairs firm 38 North Solutions. He also worked as chief of staff to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., helping protect the Valles Caldera that he hopes one day will be a national park. Von Bargen earned a bachelor’s in history from Stanford University, a law degree from Stanford Law School, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is a member of the bar in the states of California and Colorado.
Libby Washburn
San Diego, CA
Libby Washburn serves as the director of ethics and compliance for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She previously served as special assistant to the president for the White House Council on Native American Affairs under the Biden administration. Washburn served in senior leadership roles at New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico, focusing on building compliance structures and strengthening ethics requirements. She worked in the Obama administration at the U.S. Department of the Interior, as state director and legislative counsel for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, and practiced Native American law. Washburn graduated from the University of Oklahoma and University of New Mexico School of Law. She is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Hansjoerg Wyss
Jackson, WY
Hansjoerg Wyss developed a lifelong love for America’s national parks and public lands working for the Colorado Highway Department in 1958. He attended Harvard Business School after receiving a master’s in civil engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. With his Swiss American education, he started a successful medical research and design company, Synthes Inc., whose products have helped millions of patients recover from skeletal and soft tissue trauma and injuries. Grateful for opportunities in the United States and its lands, Wyss created a philanthropic foundation in 1998. Practical and innovative by nature, The Wyss Foundation supports social justice, the creation of national parks, and new ideas in areas of medicine, education, arts, and economic opportunity.
Bert Fingerhut, Counselor to the Board
Palo Alto, CA