Sue Sill,PhD – President and Executive Director, LCHPP, Inc is a botanist who works on the systematics of Tillandsia of the Bromeliaceae. She lived in Michoacán, Mexico for eight years and is familiar with the culture and the environmental challenges of the area. She recently retired from a career in botanical garden administration. She continues to work in plant conservation and habitat restoration. With a strong commitment to reforestation, the teaching of sustainable forest management, and the development of non-timber forest project, believes LCHPP is a good model for other restoration projects across Latin America. Her goal is to help address the urgent need for forest restoration to provide for a healthy global environment while helping rural families raise their standard of living.
Ed Rashin, Vice-President of LCHPP, Inc is a Forester and Forest Hydrologist. Ed has been a technical advisor to the LCHPP project almost since its inception, working with Jose Luis Alvarez since 1997. He was in the field on the project from 1998 – 2002 and from 2006 – 2010 monitoring the reforestation sites, collecting basic site data, evaluating overall site conditions and maintenance needs and program success. Ed prepares the maps and reports, including inventory of reforestation sites and participants in the program, helps Jose Luis Alvarez provide participants with technical assistance for tree planting and ongoing care and maintenance of reforested sites. He was a founding Board member of Michoacán Reforestation Fund where he served for nine years. Under his guidance and expertise, with help from U.S. financing, the Mexican reforestation program (LCHPP-Mexico) has grown from 7,000 tree seedlings planted in 1997 to nearly 700,000 in 2010.
Deborah Gangloff, PhD –President & CEO of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, CO. Prior to her work at Crow Canyon, Deborah worked at the non-profit conservation organization, American Forests in Washington, DC. She served as American Forests’ executive director from 1996 to 2010, vice president of programs from 1990 to 1996, and Director of Communications from 1986 to 1990. She was instrumental in the success of American Forests’ Global ReLeaf campaign that has planted millions of trees around the world for ecological restoration. Deborah holds a Ph.D. and an MA in anthropology from Rutgers University, and received her BA from York College, City University of New York. Deborah serves on the board of the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project, the International Society of Arboriculture’s certification board, and the board of KSJD, the local public radio station in Cortez, CO.
Board of Advisors
Jose Luis Alvarez Alcala is a tree nurseryman who implements the tree distribution and education program in Mexico. As owner of Vivero La Cruz, a forest tree nursery in Santa Clara de Cobre, it was his vision that initiated the forest restoration and reforestation project that became LCHPP in 1997, in response to the widespread deforestation in and around the monarch butterfly over-wintering habitats. Under his guidance and expertise, with help from U.S. financing, the program has grown from 7,000 tree seedlings planted the first year, 1997, to 673,040 trees in 2010. This brings the cumulative total in 2010 to over 5 million trees planted on over 2,000 hectares, or 5,000 acres. The success of the program is in large part due to the ingenuity of Jose Luis Alvarez, whose innovative techniques have produced and coordinated the planting of these healthy and hardy trees. He is our reforestation specialist and field program coordinator, and is responsible for carrying out our reforestation projects and environmental education initiatives in Michoacán. His education initiatives in communities and schools have encompassed forest ecology, watershed protection, and sustainable living from and with forests, while planning for future generations.
Dr. Lincoln Brower is Research Professor of Biology at Sweet Briar College and Distinguished Service Professor of Zoology, Emeritus at the University of Florida. Brower’s passion for monarchs began when he was a graduate student at Yale in the 1950s, and his research interests include the overwintering and migration biology of the monarch butterfly, chemical defense, ecological chemistry, mimicry, scientific film making, and the conservation of endangered biological phenomena and ecosystems. He is recipient of the Gold Medal of Zoology from the Linnean Society of London and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animal Behavior Society. Dr. Brower has published over 200 scientific papers and edited two books. He has served as Presidents of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Lepidopterists’ Society, and the International Society of Chemical Ecology.
Field Representative
Forest Engineer Francisco Javier Hinojosa serves as LCHPP’s technical specialist in the Mexico project areas, working with Jose Luis Alvarez to select planting sites, conduct follow-up verification of tree planting and reforestation site monitoring, provide technical assistance and educational materials, and prepare data reports of the reforestation project accomplishments. Engineer Hinojosa also serves as the Operations Coordinator for Asociación Regional de Silvicultores de la Unidad de Manejo Forestal “Patzcuaro-Tierra Caliente”, A.C., the Regional Association of Foresters of the Pátzcuaro-Tierra Caliente Management Unit, where he coordinates the management needs of private and communal forest land owners. He has over 20 years of experience in forest management in Michoacan, including the development and operation of regional tree nurseries, development of forest plantation management plans, forest fire prevention and control, and implementation of forest regulations in the monarch butterfly overwintering area.
