Shelley Silbert, Executive Director

Shelley Silbert

Shelley joined Broads in 2012, bringing 20 years of experience in the fields of conservation and sustainability. She served as Associate Director for San Juan Citizens Alliance from 2011–2012, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Northern Arizona University from 2003–2011 where she advanced environmental and Native American programs. From 1994–2003, she directed The Nature Conservancy’s Northern Arizona Program, managing three nature preserves and working on conservation priorities, ecological restoration, regional planning, and public open space campaigns. She grew up in Tennessee, and fell in love with the wide open spaces of the west on a backpacking trip. Fluent in Spanish, she has worked in various Latin American countries.

Shelley has an M.A. in Watershed Management (Dryland Forestry specializations) from the University of Arizona. As Executive Director, she is responsible for the implementation of the Strategic Plan and setting the vision and direction of the organization, along with the Board of Directors. She determines the wild lands advocacy agenda, achieves fundraising goals, and represents Broads to the media, to our members, to our partner organizations, and to the great wild world.

Lauren Berutich, Associate Director

Lauren Berutich

Lauren has more than 10 years of experience in environmental education, grassroots organizing, conservation and stewardship coordination, and public work for sustainable community development. She served as Broads’ Grassroots Leadership Director for nearly four years, overseeing the training, guidance, and support of volunteer chapter leaders across the country.

Prior to that, she managed Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) Campus and Community Based Action Research Teams, to support democratic, civic action for justice and sustainability through education, outreach, and advocacy campaigns. She has served as Volunteer Coordinator with the Grand Canyon Trust engaging stewards of all ages in conservation and preservation activities across the Colorado Plateau. Lauren also joined the Friends of Camp Colton EE Board in 2004, serving as president for two years. She has a Bachelors in Environmental Geography and a Masters in Sustainable Communities from Northern Arizona University. When she can’t be found at a Broadwalk, talk, or local event, she is in the mountains, on a river, at the beach, in the desert, playing disc golf, enjoying local tunes, or romping somewhere wild with her pup, Lili.

Susan Kearns, Communications Director

Susan Kearns

Susan has a diverse background in communications, graphic design, and marketing. For 20+ years, she has dreamed up ways to promote everything from widgets to wildfire awareness. Susan helped develop the San Gabriel Mountains Bighorn Sheep Restoration Strategy, and as a board member of the Wrightwood Fire Safe Council helped to write the first Community Wildfire Protection Plan approved by the state of California. She holds an Art degree from California State University, Long Beach, where she also studied Illustration. She is an avid hiker, camper, and backpacker and enjoys drawing, painting, and using printmaking techniques to capture and share with others her love of the outdoors. To sum up her enthusiasm for Broads work: “I can’t think of anything more important than preserving wilderness. It is the greatest gift we can give to all living things now, and after we are gone.”

Lisa Pool, Grassroots Leadership Director

Lisa Pool comes to Great Old Broads with a decade of experience in grassroots organizing, advocacy, and directing campaigns. Most recently, she worked with Conservation Colorado, where she developed strategies to grow community voices and involvement in conservation issues, including close collaboration with several Colorado Broadbands. Prior to that, Lisa was the Field Director for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG), where she developed and executed statewide campaigns and ran the New Voters Project, managing paid and volunteer organizers to register and get young voters to the polls.

Lisa cares deeply about women’s rights and has worked for 9to5 Colorado, which is a women’s workers’ rights organization. While Lisa has worked on several progressive campaigns throughout the years, she keeps coming back to conservation. Lisa’s passion for the environmental movement grew from her incredible experiences on our nation’s public lands—from summers spent fishing in the north woods of Wisconsin with her dad, to rafting trips with her husband on the mighty rivers of Colorado and Utah.

Joyce Thomsen, Membership Maven

Joyce Thomsen

Joyce took a break from a 23-year stint at chiropractic in Durango to participate actively in the preservation of the “back country,” which incidentally is also the name of her practice where she enjoyed hiking, biking, and skiing in her spare time for most of those 23 years. Ya, ya betcha she grew up on a farm in Minnesota, and credits her parents with showing her the beauty and value of open country on their many family vacations, especially to the American west.  She earned bachelor degrees in physical education and distributive science at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, then continued her education with a bachelor of science in human biology and a doctor of chiropractic degree from National College of Chiropractic, Lombard, Illinois. Joyce loves  interacting with other Broads and helping to make a difference!

Katya Spiecker, Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator

Katya grew up exploring the old-growth juniper and towering ponderosa woodlands of central Oregon, where the sweeping sage of the Great Basin meets the majestic Cascade Mountains. Inspired by nature’s wonders, she eventually acquired a Bachelor’s in Environmental Science from Oregon Institute of Technology and has worked and volunteered for over a decade in the environmental field. Throughout her career, she developed a diverse knowledge of natural history, grassroots organizing and event management. Her interest in public lands advocacy grew while working on wilderness campaigns for Oregon Natural Desert Association and serving three years on the Bitterbrush Broadband leadership team. Katya also has a passion for pollinators and founded Monarch Advocates of Central Oregon, a group working to restore monarch butterfly habitat. When she’s not channeling her inner-geek with insects and botany, Katya enjoys hiking, birding and discovering the natural/cultural treasures of the southwest.

As the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator, Katya researches various environmental issues, develops advocacy materials for national and local campaigns, and assists Broad members in speaking out for wildlife, wilderness and America’s public lands.

Claire Attkisson, Communications Assistant

Claire brings more than 20 years of marketing and branding experience in various leadership roles as a consultant and entrepreneur in the non-profit and private sectors. She holds a BA in Women’s Studies with an emphasis in Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz; and, an MBA in Sustainable Management, Entrepreneurship & Marketing from Pinchot University (now Presidio Graduate School)—the first “green MBA” program in the United States.

Claire joins the Broads team as a way of getting back to her roots. Early in her career, Claire co-founded and directed Common Earth, an outdoor adventure company for women and girls in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she is not busy with creative and entrepreneurial endeavors, she enjoys yoga, traveling, and hiking with her life-partner and their blended gaggle of four teenagers. 

Ellie Stevenson, Operations Manager

Ellie settled down in Durango after a year of road-tripping and backpacking around the West, and joined Great Old Broads soon afterward. Throughout her career she has worked in a variety of roles for non-profit organizations with missions ranging from youth workforce development to preventive health education, sparked by a term serving with the AmeriCorps VISTA program. Raised in a family where vacation time meant a camping trip, she has always had a special place in her heart for the natural world and is grateful for the opportunity to work to protect the places and spaces that mean so much to her personally. In her free time, she enjoys backpacking, hiking, biking, experimenting in the kitchen, making travel plans, and reading a good book with her cat in her lap.

Rachel Green, Climate Education & Stewardship Program Manager

Rachel Green earned her Master’s of Science from Colorado State University in Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management. Her graduate work explored community understandings of Tribal buffalo restoration on the Wind River Reservation. This work solidified her passion for collaborative and equitable community-based conservation. Prior to attending graduate school, Rachel worked throughout the West in the action-packed field of environmental education. She was a Master Instructor at the Keystone Science School where she explored ecosystems with students of diverse backgrounds and ages, bringing abstract concepts and complex environmental challenges to life.

Ever since a high-school backpacking trip to Yellowstone first ignited her love of wild places, she has sought opportunities to share these experiences with others. Rachel explores the vital relationships between our communities and the public lands we love and depend upon, which face pressing challenges due to climate change. Rachel is also a rescue dog mom, avid backpacker, fly fisherwoman, and insatiable tinkerer.