LightHawk
P.O. Box 653
Lander, WY 82520
(307)332-3242
info@lighthawk.org

Current Program Staff

C. Rudy Engholm, Executive Director (Portland, ME)
Prior to joining the LightHawk, Engholm was the founder of Northern Wings, an environmental flying organization that merged into LightHawk in 2003. Engholm joined LightHawk’s board at that time and served as Board President from 2005-2007. He holds a commercial pilot certificate and has also been active in a number of environmental issues, including the campaign to create a new Maine Woods National Park. Engholm has a B.S. in computer engineering and a law degree from the University of Michigan. He practiced law in the late 1970s with a Connecticut law firm, then served for ten years as Vice President and General Counsel of Creative Solutions, Inc., a Michigan-based tax and accounting software company. Engholm spent his childhood in Japan and speaks a modest amount of Japanese.

Sama Blackwell, Director of Programs (Boulder , CO)
Sama joined LightHawk as program manager for the Rocky Mountains in 2004 after working for the Four Corners States regional office of The Wilderness Society (TWS).  While there, she worked on public lands issues and was active in the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance, a coalition of 26 conservation groups. Prior to her job at TWS, Blackwell’s career included a long stint in the entertainment industry in New York as a production manager and producer, while volunteering for various environmental causes. She is a graduate of Wells College , where she earned a BA in Biology and Philosophy. She is a licensed private pilot.

Keri Foster, Program Associate (Lander, WY)
Keri joined LightHawk in 2006. Prior to joining LightHawk, Keri was the Director of Member & Volunteer Services for the Green Mountain Club in Vermont , and prior to that, spent several years working on primate conservation projects in Nigeria. She worked as a program manager with the Pandrillus Foundation at the Drill Rehabilitation & Breeding Center on chimpanzee population and habitat surveys in Gashaka Gumti National Park for World Wildlife Fund International. Keri also manages LightHawk’s Lander office.

Bev Gabe, Publications Manager (Portland, ME)
Bev joined the LightHawk team at the start of 2008. Before stepping into her role at LightHawk, Bev was part of the development team at the University of New England managing a fund-raising campaign, grant writing and planning events. She also spent a year and four days in Antarctica where, as she will confirm, it was indeed quite cold most of the time. In Seattle, Washington, she worked as a marketing copywriter and will corroborate reports that, despite being a lovely place, it does rain in Seattle for many months of the year. Bev has a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Maine.

Lee Pagni , Program Specialist (Tucson, AZ)
Lee has worked as a partner with LightHawk for several years organizing overflights for community leaders in the Monarch Butterfly region of Mexico. Lee works with non-profit organizations to advance conservation via outreach and education, focusing on projects in the Caribbean and Latin America. In addition to being the Interim Latin America Program Manager, he currently works on several projects to improve community awareness of issues relating to Caribbean rock iguana conservation. He has an M.S. in Natural Resources from the University of Arizona, Tucson and a B.S. in Ecology from the University of California, San Diego. In Tucson, Lee volunteers with his neighborhood association to write grants for projects to improve the well-being of citizens in his community.

Emilie Ryan, CFO (Loveland, CO)
Emilie has spent most of her 20+ year career in financial management at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), an international outdoor educational nonprofit organization based in Lander, WY.  While at NOLS she held a variety of financial management positions including Controller and Director of Finance and Facilities and served on the executive director team. Ryan was responsible for financial research and compliance domestically as well as internationally in Kenya, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Mexico, and Canada. Ryan began her association with LightHawk part-time in 2001, and joined May of 2005 as CFO, overseeing all aspects of the organization’s finances, budgeting, and human resource needs.

Christine Steele, Pacific Region Program Manager (Portland, OR)
Before joining LightHawk, Christine worked for the Johnson Creek Watershed Council in Portland, Oregon, coordinating their outreach and advocacy efforts. Trained as a wildlife biologist, Christine has studied birds in habitats as diverse as arctic tundra, Costa Rican swamp-forest, and the forests of the Pacific Northwest. She spent time rehabilitating seabirds and raptors in California, and worked with non-releasable raptors as education birds. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Aquatic Biology from UC Santa Barbara, and a Masters in Natural Resources, Wildlife from Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, where her thesis focused on avian disease ecology. Christine also volunteers locally, conducting bird and amphibian surveys as part of a monitoring project through Metro, Portland’s regional government.

Laura Stone, Rockies Region Program Manager (Fort Collins, CO)
Laura ran her own business from 2002 until she joined LightHawk in the summer of 2008, providing technical reports and grant writing services to nonprofits including The Nature Conservancy, Colorado Open Lands, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, Legacy Land Trust and the High Plains Environmental Center. Prior to that, she interned with the Jackson Hole Land Trust and was the first Executive Director for the Larimer Land Trust (now Legacy Land Trust) in Fort Collins. Laura has a B.A. in biology and environmental science from Colby College in Waterville, Maine and a M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana where she focused on international environmental policy, natural resources law and green building. Laura grew up in Boulder, Colorado returning for three summers during college to build hiking trails in Boulder’s magnificent Mountain Parks and as a seasonal backcountry park ranger after graduation.

Kelley Tucker, Eastern Region Program Manager (Sag Harbor, NY)
Kelley joined LightHawk in January 2007 and lives, works and sails near Sag Harbor, NY. Most recently, Kelley was Vice President of Programs at the International Crane Foundation, guiding conservation efforts in 22 countries. She founded and directed the American Bird Conservancy’s pesticides and birds program and was consultant to the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Kelley holds a U.S. Fish & Wildlife permit to work with raptors. She has bachelors’ degrees in economics and political science from Rice University and she completed doctoral coursework in anthropology at the University of Chicago on issues in the Muslim-Arab world.

Armando Ubeda, Mesoamerica Program Manager (Sarasota, FL)
Prior to joining LightHawk in the summer of 2008, Armando worked for the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida conducting research on movement of sharks, tag-and-recapture studies, and promoting conservation of elasmobranchs. Before that, he worked for The Nature Conservancy in Nicaragua for the Parks in Peril Project in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve supervising and planning conservation activities and working closely with indigenous communities. He also had conducted research on sea urchins, coral reef communities and manatees, and volunteered to a diverse group of projects working with endangered species from birds to marine reptiles. In 2000, Armando was granted with a Fulbright scholarship which allowed him to get his M.S. in Marine Resource Management from Oregon State University. He also has a B.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of Mobile (Latin American campus), Nicaragua.