Board of Directors & Staff
This page is still being updated - we appreciate your patience as we bring you more up-to-date information.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
Shannon McPhail - Shannon lives and works in the watershed and grew up on a working ranch spending much of her youth fishing and hunting in the Skeena mountains with her family. She has worked as a white-water rafting guide, a big game hunting guide, a welder and a nutritionist at a women’s health center after her education in the field of chemical technology. Shannon’s diverse background allows her to understand and relate to people within the watershed that have a variety of opinions and concerns. It is important to Shannon that all voices are heard when decisions are being made regarding the future of this unique place. Her commitment is so strong that she has spent the last 4 years working for the SWCC as a volunteer. Shannon is a mother of two with her oldest at only 2 years of age. While motherhood certainly keeps her busy, it hasn’t slowed her down or prevented her from working to keep our Sacred Headwaters free of coalbed methane.
DIRECTORS:
Gene Allen - Gene’s family has 5 generations in the watershed and currently makes his living as a wilderness resort operator, rodeo stock contractor and maintains an active trapline. Gene worked as a logger and guide outfitter for most of his life and lives on his horse ranch in the Kispiox Valley. He is a leading member of the Kispiox Watershed Monitoring Committee and the Skeena Quality Waters Initiative, both of which are government recognized programs to ensure sustainable development occurs on the land. Gene was also a leading campaigner against the clear cutting of the headwaters of the Kispiox River and was successful in creating the Swan Lake Wilderness Area preventing such development from proceeding. Gene has been a director of the SWCC since its inception in 2004.
Wade Davis - Wade Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University. A native of British Columbia, Dr. Davis has worked as a park ranger, forestry engineer, logger, big game hunting guide and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies of northern Canada. He has published some fifty scientific articles on subjects ranging from Haitian vodoun to the global biodiversity crisis. His magazine articles have appeared in Newsweek, Premiere, Outside, Omni, Harpers and several other international publications. He has lectured at the American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, California Academy of Sciences, Missouri Botanical Garden, Field Museum of Natural History, New York Botanical Garden, National Geographic Society, America’s Society, Royal Ontario Museum, Royal British Columbia Museum, the Explorer’s Club as well as more than fifty major universities including Harvard, Yale, Tulane, Vanderbilt, M.I.T., University of North Carolina, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania, University of Colorado and University of Wisconsin. His photographs have been widely published and exhibited at several galleries including the International Center of Photography (I.C.P.) in New York.
Presently a Research Associate of the Instituto Caribe de Antropologia y Sociologia in Caracas, Venezuela, he is an Honorary Research Associate of the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden, a Collaborator in Botany at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biology at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Research Associate of the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, a Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Executive Director of the Endangered People’s Project.
Roy Vickers - Canadian artist Roy Henry Vickers is an accomplished carver, design advisor of prestigious public spaces, a sought-after keynote speaker, and publisher and author of several successful books. In addition, he is a recognized leader in the First Nations community, and a tireless spokesperson for recovery from addictions and abuse. Roy has received many awards and honours for his art and community involvement. Among them are a hereditary chieftainship and several hereditary names he has received from Northwest Coast First Nations. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada.
In 1994, Maclean’s magazine included Roy as the first artist ever in its Annual Honour Roll of Extraordinary Canadian Achievers. In 1998, the Province of British Columbia appointed Roy to the prestigious Order of B.C. and in 2003, Roy received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. In 2003, a video featuring Roy was part of the successful Vancouver 2010 Olympic Bid. In 1987, at the Commonwealth Summit in Vancouver, the original of Roy’s painting A Meeting of Chiefs was the official gift of the Province of British Columbia to Queen Elizabeth II. Limited edition prints of the painting were presented to the 48 Commonwealth Heads of State. During their Vancouver Summit in 1993, former Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin and former U.S. president Bill Clinton received artist’s proofs of Roy’s print The Homecoming as the Province’s official gift.
Roy’s father was a fisherman with the blood of three northwest coast First Nations’ Tsimshian, Haida and Heiltsuk flowing in his veins. Roy’s mother was a schoolteacher whose parents had immigrated to Canada from England.
Lindsay Eberts - Lindsay grew up in the Saguenay region of Quebec and attended high school and university in Montreal, graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University. He also holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
An entrepreneur for most of his career, Lindsay is President and CEO of Seattle Aero LLC, an integrator of large scale aircraft modifications such as Aviation Partners Boeing’s Blended Winglet program. Seattle Aero is also active in the export of aerospace materials internationally.
Drawn to the Stikine in the late ‘90’s by a desire to get back to the boreal forests of his youth, he and his family have spent summers in northern British Columbia for over a decade. An outdoorsman and fly fisher by upbringing, Lindsay has taken a keen interest in protecting the natural environment and challenging some of the more potentially dangerous resource development projects in the region. He and his wife Patti Paxton Eberts have four children, conveniently grouped into two sets of twins.
Lindsay was elected a Director of SWCC in 2008.
Paul Miller - Drawn to this incredible area by the giant steelhead and beautiful wilderness, Paul and his wife became landowners in the Skeena Watershed just a few short years ago. Making his living as a private investor, Paul spends his spare time as a fly-tying and fishing enthusiast. Dedicated to the conservation of this river system, he has formed a bond with the wilderness and those that choose to live here.
Doug Donaldson -
Todd Stockner - Has lived in the Kispiox Valley since 1994. An angling guide in the Skeena watershed since 1982, now operates his own angling guide business on the Kispiox and Skeena rivers. In the off season he makes his living as a fine woodworker, working out of the workshop on his hobby farm. He his received training in fine woodworking at the College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program in Fort Bragg, California in 1989/90.
As well as being a director of SWCC, He also sits on the executive steering committee of Friends of Wild Salmon, an active member of the North Coast Steelhead Alliance, as well as a member of Western Canada Wilderness Committee.
When not taking up time with all of the above, you can find him playing hockey on the pond in front of his house with friends and family during the winter; listening to and watching the amazing bird life all around us in the spring; cutting firewood, mowing the lawn, and floating the rivers in the summer; and - when not guiding - He can be found on some remote and beautiful part of our rivers fly fishing for steelhead every fall.
STAFF:
Sue Allen - Another life long resident of the Skeena with rich family roots, Sue brings her incredible personality and understanding of the concerns that arise from residents in the watershed. She works part time as an assistant manager at a luxury wilderness resort and spends her spare time training horses, offering horsemanship instruction at conservation camps for kids, and leading trail rides and pack trips into the Skeena Mountains. Sue survived 10 years as a corporate banker in Alberta and returned home to the Skeena with a wealth of professional experience in 2005.
Kateri Clay - Kateri was born and raised in the Skeena watershed in a guide outfitting family. She has continued that legacy as a coveted female fly fishing guide at BC’s most prestigious resorts including; King Pacific Lodge, the Cliffs at Kispiox River and the Dean River Lodge. Kateri is a swiftwater rescue tech and world champion fly caster who is successfully diversifying her skills by embracing responsibilities such as education/outreach coordinator, school liaison and event organizer. She is currently completing her education in Global Stewardship.
Brian Huntington - A founding member of SWCC, Brian moved to the Skeena in 2003 from Missoula, Montana to work with a senior biologist from the Ministry of Environment on a grizzly bear conservation project in the upper Skeena watershed. Brian graduated from the University of Montana with a BS in Resource Conservation and Wildlife Biology. He worked as a Biological technician for the USGS on Glacier National Park’s original grizzly bear DNA study and as a project coordinator with the MT Dept of Fish & Wildlife, the Alliance for Wild Rockies and the Great Bear Foundation from 2000- 2003. Since 2004, Brian has been organizing baseline inventory research for selected fish, wildlife and cultural resources in the upper Skeena. In 2007, he was adopted into a Gitxsan House group with territories in the upper Skeena as a result of his meaningful work.
Breeann Semeschuk- Breeann has was born and raised in Prince Rupert until her family moved to the Bulkley valley when she was 13. Professionally, Breeann has worked on forest rehabilitation projects throughout northwest BC as a field technican and project supervisor. She has also worked seasonally in the wilderness tourism industry at lodges like the Cliffs at Kispiox River resort. She is currently finishing her teaching degree with the University of Northern BC. Her life is inextricably linked to the health of our local rivers as some of her family members make a living from commercial fishing, while others are involved in guide outfitting. Breeann has been an active volunteer with SWCC since 2006.
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