Barb Phillips

As President of AZNPS I welcome the opportunity to further conservation of Arizona’s rare species and  to promote healthy conditions for all native plants throughout the state. Since 1990 I have administered the Botany Program on three national forests (Coconino, Kaibab and Prescott). We conduct botanical research and monitoring on rare and invasive plants and look after the well-being of all the understory species on these forests. I received my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona in 1976. My undergraduate work was at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, and Cornell University where I received my B. S. in 1967. For 15 years (1976-1990), I was a research botanist at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

State Treasurer

(February 2010)

Finance Committee Chair

Linda Marschner

State Secretary

(February 2009)

Suzanne Cash

Suzanne Pratt Cash was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brought up in Belleville, Illinois and has lived in Phoenix since 1965.  She received her BS from University of Arizona and MS from Arizona State University, both on Paleontology. Her career was teaching Biology and Earth Science at Cortez High School, and has been retired since 1992.  A widow, she is the mother of three grown children and grandmother of eight.  Always interested in nature, she has hiked and studied rocks and vegetation in all ecological areas of Arizona.  Other organization memberships include: Friends of the Desert Outdoor Center at Lake Pleasant, Arizona Science Center, Audubon, and The Nature Conservancy.

Director

(February 2010)

Conservation Committee Chair

Andy Laurenzi

Andy Laurenzi is currently employed with the Center for Desert Archaeology as their Southwest Field Representative. Andy manages the Center’s land protection efforts in AZ and NM to promote an Archaeology Preservation Network across the Southwest. Andy’s prior experience includes five years with the Sonoran Institute where he was the Land and Water Policy Program Director managing the Sonoran Institute’s research and training activities. With The Nature Conservancy of Arizona, he oversaw the Conservancy's land and water protection activities.  He has served as the Environmental Director of the Town of Marana  and on the boards of ANPS, Southern Arizona Water Resources Association, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Arizona Water Protection Fund. Andy has a B.S. of Biology from Fairfield University and M.S. in Ecology from Arizona State University.

Director

(2005)

Education and Outreach Committee Chair

Wendy Hodgson

Wendy has been with the Desert Botanical Garden for 35 years, currently as the Curator of the Herbarium and a Research Botanist. She has lived in the desert for 40 years, having come to Arizona from upstate New York in 1969.  Her areas of interest include southwest US and northern Mexico floristics and taxonomy of Southwest plants. Current projects include Agave and Yucca work, including the study of pre-Columbian agave cultivars and studying and documenting plants within Grand Canyon National Park. She is also helping coordinate the Cactus family treatment for Intermountain Flora and Arizona Cactaceae publications. She is an avid plant collector, having collected nearly 25,000 herbarium specimens and over 1000 living collections.

Director

(April 2004)

Yuma Chapter President

(February 2009)

Director

Prescott Chapter President

Director

Tucson Chapter President

(Jan 2008)

Doug Ripley

Doug studied botany and plant ecology at San Francisco and Oregon State Universities. Doug continued his interest in biology and natural resources conservation during a 35 year career with the U.S. Air Force where he taught biology and botany at the Air Force Academy before spending 19 years at Air Force Headquarters in the Pentagon managing the natural resources programs on Air Force lands. Shortly after retiring to Tucson with his wife Arlene, Doug joined AZNPS, becoming President of the Tucson Chapter. He now works part time as an environmental consultant.

Director-at-Large

(February 2009)

Tom Van Devender

Thomas R. Van Devender was the Senior Research Scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum from 1983 to 2009, where he conducted research on a broad range of natural history activities. He has published over a hundred research publications on the desert grassland, the cacti of Sonora, the Sonoran desert tortoise, and packrat middens and the paleoecology of the southwestern deserts. He has a long-term interest in the flora of the Sonoran Desert Region, and has collected over 25,000 herbarium specimens. He has surveyed local floras in many vegetation types in the Sonoran Desert Region. Currently he is helping Mexican conservationists develop a new Área Natural Protegida in tropical semi-deciduous forest in southern Sinaloa.

Director-at-Large

(February 2009)

Ana Lilia Reina-Guerrero received an undergraduate degree from the Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo in Agricultural Sciences. She has been involved in ethnobotanical studies with the Seri and Mayo Indians, including the Mayo Ethnobotany book with David Yetman and Tom Van Devender. She is interested in the ethnobotany of Sonoran cacti and was a collaborator in the Cáctaceas de Sonora and My Nana’s Remedies books.  Since 1990 she has been involved in floristic surveys in eastern Sonora and the Arizona-Sonora border region in association with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Director

(February 2009)

Membership and Chapter Development

Kendall Kroesen 

Kendall has worked for Tucson Audubon since 2002. Starting in fall 2006 he has been Habitat Restoration Program Manager. His responsibilities include grant writing, planning and implementing habitat restoration projects, managing a small staff, overseeing a 300-acre conservation easement and helping Tucson Audubon track conservation issues. He has a BS in anthropology from the UC-Riverside and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the UC-San Diego. He currently is helping Tucson Audubon refocus its efforts on urban sustainability with an initial emphasis on landscaping. He is leading the effort to develop a recognition program for landscapes that support wildlife and achieve these other goals.

Director-at-Large

(February 2009)

Andrew Salywon    

Andrew is Assistant Herbarium Curator at the Desert Botanical Garden. His research interests are in endemic, rare and endangered plants in Arizona and the Sonoran Desert, floristics, ethnobotany, plant natural products and systematics using both traditional and molecular data. He received his BS degree from the UA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Plant Biology in 2003.
He has contributed family taxonomic treatments for the Vascular Plants of Arizona Project and has been a co-organizer of the Arizona Botany Meetings since its inception.

The Plant Press Layout Editor

(August 2005)

Julie St. John

Although Julie's interest in plants began in her childhood backyard in Ohio, she fully adopted the plants of the Sky Islands as her native flora when she transplanted herself to Tucson in 1990. Inspired by the landscape of her adopted home, she soon began contributing her communication skills to protect wildlife, conserve habitat and restore ecological health to the landscape. She now serves as a freelance designer/editor for some of the finest nonprofit conservation organizations in the Desert Southwest, including the Arizona Native Plant Society.

Administrative Assistant

(June 2003)

Nancy Zierenberg

Nancy joined the AZNPS Prescott Chapter in 1987, excited to learn about Arizona native plants, having arrived from California's Bristlecone Chapter (CNPS) along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She and her husband have been in Tucson since 1988 doing conservation work and love being in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.

Web Editor

(August 2008)

Marilyn Hanson

Marilyn moved to Tucson in 1999 after 33 years of high school biology teaching in Madison, WI. She joined AZNPS as a way to learn the AZ flora. She was the group’s Recording Secretary from 2001-2004. And she is now an active member of the Tucson Chapter’s Conservation Committee. She is passionate about preserving the native flora by using Sonoran Desert natives in the landscaping around her home. She also is the Volunteer Coordinator of the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers.