CAREER SUMMARY

-During almost 30 years, I have worked as an administrator, consultant, professor, thesis advisor, and field researcher in environmental studies, behavior and ecology in Costa Rica. My administrative duties included: a) cofounder and director of Latin America’s first Wildlife Management graduate program (Regional Wildlife Management Program, Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica), b) director and organizer of the inaugural year of the Costa Rican Center for Sustainable Development (School for Field Studies), c) science coordinator of the Costa Rica Field Studies program (Associated Colleges of the Midwest), d) coordinator of a neotropical tropical wildlife project (Organization of American States, Costa Rica) and e) coordinator of the Biodiversity section of the Costa Rican government First National Strategy for Sustainable Development. Presently I am coordinator of the Chocolate Biodiversity and Productivity Project (Milwaukee Public Museum-University of Wisconsin-USDA) and coeditor of the international scientific journal, Vida Silvestre Neotropical (Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica).

-As a university professor, I taught seven undergraduate and seven graduate level courses in the natural resources field over a 25-year period, co-directed undergraduate and graduate courses in tropical field/wildlife ecology and wildlands management (Regional Wildlife Management Program, Organization of Tropical Studies, St. Olaf College and Hamline University) and advised 15 M.S. theses and over 70 undergraduate research projects. Based on my original research, my colleagues, students, I have authored or coauthored almost 100 scientific papers, seven books and I have presented over 50 papers in international symposia and congresses. I widely publish in Latin American journals to make the information accessible to those who need it most.

-I have demonstrated leadership, communication and fund-raising abilities in the conservation field by directing several organizations and projects, and have raised over $2 million in a 6-year period in Central America while director of the graduate program.. From my years as a field ecologist, I have grown to believe that sustainable development and conservation are ultimately in the hands of local communities working with national and international collaborators. I have insisted on spending quality time with local community members and other stakeholders, discussing with them research efforts, methodologies, results and applications. With local community leaders, I participated in founding a regional conservation organization in a small community of Costa Rica to work with scarlet macaw conservation and management, made up of local stakeholders.

-Following a decision to return to the United States with my family, I retired from my university position in Costa Rica in September of 2000; began doctorate studies at the University of Wisconsin the same month. I completed my PhD in June 2002. My dissertation summarized research begun in 1990 on the scarlet macaw and local human communities, which coexist with it. My childhood was spent in the Midwest and I have just recently settled in Madison after spending almost 30 years in Costa Rica and four in Wisconsin as a visiting professor. It was difficult to leave our farm, my professorship, research, and friends in Costa Rica. However, several years before, I concluded that my professional experiences in a developing country could be useful in the United States, which has the economic base and power to control the direction of conservation worldwide. At present, I continue to publish, present papers at meetings, give short courses for Latin American graduate students in Costa Rica, conduct research/outreach on biodiversity/economic productivity of chocolate plantations in Costa Rica with the Milwaukee Public Museum and scarlet macaws in Costa Rica and teach courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Presently I work in the Dept. of Wildlife Ecology at UW-Madison and the Milwaukee Public Museum, spending 4 months a year in Costa Rica.