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Board of Directors
MEIC's Board of Directors
The board of directors has complete legal control of MEIC and overall responsibility for its well-being and success.
- Sarah Merrill, President (Bozeman)
- Zack Winestine, Vice President (New York City)
- Ken Wallace, Treasurer (Helena)
- Anne Johnson, Secretary (Bozeman)
- Gary Aitken (Ovando)
- Lila Cleminshaw (Missoula)
- Paul Edwards (Missoula)
- Mark Gerlach (Missoula)
- Steve Gilbert (Helena)
- Steve Scarff (Bozeman)
- Roger Sullivan (Kalispell)
Sarah Merrill, President (Bozeman)
Sarah was born and raised in the Midwest, and moved to Bozeman to attend Montana State University, where she received a degree in English Literature. She has worked for the university, a literary journal, humanities programs, environmental groups, retail establishments, and most recently a non-profit medical clinic. Much of her energy has been devoted to raising a son and daughter.
Sarah was a founding member of Montanans Against Toxic Burning (MATB), a grassroots organization formed to oppose the burning of wastes in cement kilns. Her association with MEIC began in 1991, when MEIC took the fledgling MATB under its wing. Together, MEIC and MATB educated the public, legislators and regulators about the dangers of waste burning, and were successful at passing legislation, which strengthened air quality standards and public participation requirements for waste burning permit applicants.
Zack Winestine (New York City), Vice President
Zack’s family extends back four generations in Helena, MT, and the extraordinary uniqueness of Montana’s wild places were made vivid to him as a child. Zack and his wife have a cabin north of Helena and spend as much time in Montana’s backcountry as they can.
Zack has been active in community organizing around land-use, zoning, and development issues since 1993, serving as President of West Villagers for Responsible Development from 1994-2000, and Co-Chair of the Greenwich Village Community Task Force from 1994 to the present.
Over the past eight years Zack has also been active in the anti-corporate globalization movement, which has provided him with extensive experience in consensus decision making and working with diverse groups of people to find agreement on tactics and goals. He recently completed a feature-length documentary film about a bicycle caravan traveling across Europe to join protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Prague.
Ken Wallace (Helena), Treasurer
Ken is a geologist who has worked for more than 23 years on environmental projects: regulatory analysis, ground water contamination, Superfund sites, mine waste reclamation, oil and gas waste remediation, and others. Most of Ken’s recent work has been evaluating impacts associated with projects falling under jurisdiction of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Ken is committed to volunteer advocacy, and has served on the boards of several local and regional non-profit environmental groups. He is particularly interested in working on water quality protection, limiting population growth, renewable energy, emerging health risks, local zoning and land use regulations, and protection of the Continental Divide. Ken currently serves on the Lewis and Clark City-County Board of Health, and represents the Board of Health on the Water Quality Protection District Board.
Anne Johnson, Secretary (Bozeman)
The first non-profit Anne joined was MEIC back in its earliest days and she’s been a member ever since. Born and raised in Montana, Anne’s been involved in environmental issues for over 35 years; environmental non-profit administration and management for 12 years; board service for 10 years. She’s currently the Human Resource Manager at the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman. Anne holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Adult Education and is pleased to bring her passion for fair play and respect for the natural world and its systems to the MEIC board.
Gary Aitken (Ovando)
Gary grew up in the soggy Pacific Northwest, falling into rivers and tumbling down snowfields. He spent twenty years in Colorado raising sheep
and writing computer software. A Montana resident since 1992, he began telecommuting from a trashed out mobile home with the phone outside under an antifreeze can nailed to a tree stump. Along the way he has spent a lot of time exploring crazy places by various non-motorized means.
Somewhat of a minimalist, he gets pretty pissed off at corporate and personal greed, and would love nothing more than to overturn the 1886 non-ruling by the Supreme Court which effectively granted "personhood" to corporations.
Gary has always felt that we have an obligation to leave this place in better shape than when we arrived, and is disgusted with our record in that regard. In the last forty years we have missed huge opportunities and squandered much of our natural wealth, things which have cost us dearly in the long run.
Gary would like to help MEIC and Montana citizens forcefully and without compromise reassert their right to a clean and healthy environment, one they can pass down to future generations with pride.
Lila Cleminshaw (Missoula)
Lila worked as MEIC’s Missoula staff person from 1995 until 1998, focusing on energy and hardrock mining issues. As part of that position, she worked with policy makers in state and regional governments, organized public information meetings, coordinated volunteer efforts, and participated in fundraising efforts for MEIC. During that time, she also coordinated the Missoula volunteer efforts for the Clean Water Initiative (I-122) campaign.
For the past four years Lila has served on the board of the Temagami Community Foundation in Ontario, Canada, assisting with fundraising, board development, budget issues, public education, and granting decisions.
As an MEIC board member, Lila is particularly interested in energy issues and land-use planning.
Paul EdwardsPaul Edwards is a lifelong opponent of exploitative, predatory Corporate Capitalism that has raped and robbed the West from the first white influx to today, and criminally created the current wholesale meltdown of the American economy.
He is, for the same reasons, a radical environmentalist who knows legislated wilderness is the only way to check that rapacity and to preserve the most valuable assets Montanans still possess: the last of its wild land, relatively pure air, and what is left of its clean water.
Mark Gerlach (Missoula)
Mark has had an association with MEIC since 1975. He lived in the Blackfoot River Valley for 35 years; the first 20 years in the Lincoln Valley at the headwaters, and then 15 years in the Greenough Valley in the middle reaches of the Blackfoot. Twenty-five of the years were spent as a ranch hand and ranch manager, while the other 10 years included working for the U.S. Forest Service; as a logger and horse logger; and as a sawmill owner and operator. He has often called upon MEIC’s resources and expertise to help in current and historic mining issues, in water quality issues, and in the arenas of State and federal politics.
Having chosen to to live in rural Montana, Mark believes that Quality of Life is the first paycheck, and in his experience, MEIC is at the pinnacle of all environmental and conservation organizations in helping to recover and maintain the criteria of his definition of Quality of Life.
Steve Gilbert (Helena)
Steve has been a Montana resident since 1967. For 37 of these years he has worked as a biological consultant, 25 of which he was part-owner and president of an environmental consulting company that specialized in wildlife, aquatics/fisheries, soils, vegetation, forestry, range, and hydrology.
Steve is a strong environmental advocate and previously served on the board of Northern Plains Resource Council. He was chosen the MEIC Community Activist of the Year in 2003. He’s presently also a board member of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, a national organization based in Durango, Colorado.
For 20 years Steve was a professional licensed Montana fly fishing guide, and voted Orvis National Guide-of-the-Year in 1990. Steve presently does some biological consulting and is the state non-motorized trails specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. As such, he helps administer the federally-funded Recreational Trails Program and gets to inspect trails projects funded by the program, walking 200-300 miles a year in the back country.
Steve Scarff (Bozeman)
Steve moved to Montana in 1988. He was born in Iowa, got his B.S. in general science and psychology from the University of Iowa, then worked in construction for a few years. An early member of Friends of the Earth, he has long admired the work of David Brower and Amory Lovins. He also joined some state and local groups and worked on environmental and energy issues.
Upon arriving in Montana, Steve and his wife spent two years in Billings, then settled in Bozeman, where they raised two children. The whole family has a great appreciation for Montana's clean air, clean water, and natural beauty. Steve studied computer science at Montana State University, and has worked as programmer for ten years. Since joining the board, he's been happy to use his computer skills for the benefit of MEIC.
When he's not on a computer, Steve has a few hobbies. He has explored many wild caves, mostly in his wild younger days. He learned to ski after moving to Montana, and has recently taken up snowboarding after prodding and lessons from his daughter. During the warmer months he enjoys camping, hiking in the woods, and hunting mushrooms. He also plays a fair game of chess, runs a chess club, and organizes and directs tournaments.
Steve's primary reason for joining MEIC is his concern about global warming. He believes rapid climate change threatens to destroy not only Earth's biological diversity, but also human civilization. He wants people and governments the world over to realize the magnitude of the threat and to take action before it's too late. Steve believes that along with protecting our clean water and our right to a healthy environment, MEIC accomplishes more in the fight against global warming than any organization in the state.
Roger Sullivan (Kalispell)
Roger is an attorney whose law practice has for a number of years included environmental, land use, and public policy issues. He has regularly advocated on behalf of such issues in the courtroom and occasionally at the legislature.
Roger has been an MEIC member for many years, appreciating its efforts to protect Montana’s environmental quality and occasionally assisting in those efforts. Perhaps stimulated by the birth of his first grandchild, he finds himself even more drawn to protecting the environment for this and future generations.