176 Home Street
P.O. Box 755, Bishop, CA 93515

Telephone: 760-873-4554
Facsimile: 760-873-9277
Email: info@eslt.org

©Eastern Sierra Land Trust
2001-2008

Who We Are

Board of Directors | Advisory Board | Staff | Annual Report

Board of Directors

President: Tony Taylor — Tony is retired after 29 years in technical marketing and management for the IBM Corporation. He has served the University of Redlands in Southern California as president of the Alumni Association and is a member of the Board of Trustees.

Vice President: Orrin Sage — Orrin received a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1973. He taught there in the environmental studies program for 15 years and has been an agricultural and environmental consultant for 37 years. He is a principal with Sage Associates and specializes in working with land trust organizations and land owners to craft conservation easements.

Treasurer: Mary Pipersky — Mary has lived in the Eastern Sierra since graduation from UC Berkeley in 1977. She is a former member of the Mono County Board of Supervisors and a small business owner for the past 20 years. She is a partner in Anything Goes Fine Catering in Mammoth Lakes.

Secretary: Rick Kattelmann — Rick is a consulting hydrologist, specializing in water resources of mountain areas.

Director: Herb Benham—Herb was a CEO for a large agricultural land company in Kern County where he was also a water district chairman for 20 years. He remains active in California water issues.

Director: Stephen Ingram — Stephen is a freelance nature photographer and writer. He is also a botanist and is past-president of the local Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

Director: Stan Hunewill — Stan is a 4th generation rancher and President of the Hunewill Land & Livestock Co. The Hunewill family has owned and operated the Hunewill Ranch in the Bridgeport Valley of Mono County since 1861. They have a second ranch in Smith Valley, Nevada. The Hunewill Guest Ranch has operated on the Bridgeport ranch since 1931. With six grandchildren living on the Bridgeport ranch, six generations of the Hunewill family have made this beautiful place their home.

Advisory Board

Staff

Larry Freilich - Executive Director: Larry joined the ESLT in February of 2008. He has worked in the Texas Hill Country as the Development Director for Westcave Nature Preserve and he established the Sierra Club's Texas and Arkansas Field Office. Larry lived in the Eastern Sierra in the 1980's and worked as a fisheries biologist.  Larry graduated from The University of California in 1985 with a BA in Biology. He is an outdoor enthusiast who enjoys biking, hiking, kayaking and camping with his wife and daughter. He is also an accomplished photographer, metal sculptor and woodworker.

Karen Ferrell-Ingram - Lands Director: Karen has been part of the Lands Program for the Eastern Sierra Land Trust (ESLT) since early 2005.  She was a founding Board member of this organization in 2001 and served as secretary, Projects Committee chair and on the Executive Committee until accepting a staff position.  Karen and her husband, Stephen Ingram, donated the first conservation easement to the ESLT, which protects a critical wildlife migration corridor found on their twenty acres in Swall Meadows, southern Mono County.

Before returning to her hometown of Bishop in 1994, Karen was a teaching tennis professionally in California, Alaska and Germany.  She also worked as an orchid propagator and researcher in California, Costa Rica and Florida.  Once back in the Eastern Sierra, she spent about ten years learning about and propagating native plants for restoration and home garden purposes.  Karen graduated with a degree in English from California State University, Chico. 

Cheryl Chipman - Investment Opportunities Coordinator: Cheryl has been a resident of Bishop since 2002 and started with the ESLT in early 2007. She earned a degree in Economics from Antioch College and a Masters of Environmental Policy and Management at the University of Denver.  Her resume includes work for nonprofits, federal and tribal governments. Before coming to the Eastern Sierra, she developed wetland and wildlife education programs for the Yolo Basin Foundation and the Dept. of Fish and Game in Davis, CA. Cheryl spends as much time as possible enjoying the outdoors while skiing, hiking, cycling or kayaking. She is active with the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society and serves on their Board of Directors. 

Heather deBethizy - Membership and Office Coordinator: Heather joined ESLT in September 2007 after moving to Mammoth Lakes in the summer of 2007.  Heather grew up in rural North Carolina and in 2006 graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Political Science and minor in Environmental Studies.  In college, she pioneered the creation of a bike-loan program for the surrounding community and university as an intern with SURGE, Students United for a Responsible Global Environment.   During her summers, Heather interned with Student Conservation Association as a ranger and interpreter for the White Mountain Ranger Station, discovering Bishop, California.  Before moving back to the Eastern Sierra, Heather traveled for 5 months in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, volunteering and learning Spanish. 

Katie Hergenrather - Lands Associate: Katie started with the ESLT in January 2007 as an AmeriCorps volunteer. After her year of service, she was invited to join ESLT’s staff as their Lands Associate and continue working to manage their easement stewardship, monitoring and mapping needs. She has a passion for sustainable communities, rooted in local agriculture and economies. Some of her favorite activities include telemark skiing, mountain biking, landscape architecture, as well as training horses and competing in dressage. Aspiring to improve the quality of life and make better use of the resources around us, she is active in her church and other non-profit organizations.

John McGurke is ESLT’s Agricultural Lands Specialist, a new position funded by the Department of Conservation’s California Farmland Conservancy Program. John will work in collaboration with landowners to preserve the scenic and economic value of Eastern Sierra agricultural lands. John became a permanent resident of Bishop in 2006 when he and his wife, Mary, volunteered for a season with the wilderness program at White Mountain Ranger Station. After five months of exploring the incredible backcountry on the Inyo National Forest, they are now here to stay. Before being hired by the ESLT, John spent over 12 years managing several education and conservation programs for non-profit organizations in California. When not working for the ESLT, you can usually find John doing something outdoors—hiking, running, climbing, scaring fish with his fly rod, or coaching the Varsity Boys Soccer Team at Bishop High School.

Katie Nelson - Outreach and Education Specialist: Katie is working to develop sustainable education and volunteer programs for ESLT as their new AmeriCorps member for 2008.  She graduated with a degree in Global Studies with minors in African Studies and French from St. Lawrence University in upstate New York.  Her desire to experience new cultures and environments led her to study abroad for semesters in France and Kenya.  She later returned to Kenya on a grant to conduct research for her Honors Thesis concerning the new role of non-governmental organizations working in Kenya during the era of globalization.  Her experience abroad taught her the importance of a holistic view of interactions between development, economics, culture, and conservation.  Following graduation, Katie accepted a Student Conservation Association internship as a Wilderness Restoration Volunteer with Inyo National Forest in Mammoth Lakes.  Her desire to learn more about wildlife issues led her to the edges of the continent working as a technician for doctoral research projects—from a hawk study in south Texas to a cougar project in the Canadian Rockies.  Back in the Eastern Sierra working as ESLT’s Education and Outreach Specialist, Katie spends her free time volunteering for other local organizations, backpacking, running, biking, learning to fly-fish and exploring a new slice of this fantastic region.