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Staff Bios
Headquarters
Bill Carmean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, is a lawyer and retired corporate executive, most recently as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Millennium Chemicals, Inc. His long love for the mountains and deep respect for the work done by TMI’s staff caused him to volunteer to join TMI’s Board, become the Board’s Chairman, and then become its CEO in January 2010. He has extensive experience guiding and managing large, complex organizations and is now attempting to apply those skills to a small, complex organization. He received his B.A. from Yale, his law degree from New York University and his sense of humor from his four children.
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Bob
Davis, Chief Operating Officer, holds an M.S. in organization development from American University,
and an M.A. in religious studies from Yale University. He
is skilled in the areas of project administration, financial
management, personnel management, program logistics, conservation
area project design and appraisal, organizational development
and management, and facilitation. Having joined TMI in 1979,
Mr. Davis has worked in many of the organization's programs
and regional projects. He has extensive international conservation
and development experience from his fifteen years of involvement
in the Himalayan Program. He is a long time resident of Pendleton
County, West Virginia and held the position of Appalachian
Program Director from September, 2001 to June 2003. Mr.
Davis also serves on the board of directors of a number of
non-profit organizations, consults on organizational issues,
and has taught university courses in organizational development
and management.
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Elsie
Walker, Senior Fundraiser,
is the founder of TMI’s Peak Enterprise Program
in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China
and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. She has worked
for 25 years on projects and programs benefiting mountain
people, particularly in India and China, and is interested
in the design of programs that integrate economic development
with cultural and environmental conservation. She has a background
in NGO and program development and management; fundraising;
project design and implementation; private sector collaboration;
small enterprise development strategies, and citizen exchanges.
In 2002, she arranged the first exchange between the U.S.
Supreme Court and the Supreme People's Court of China, led
by Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She is on the Board
of First Voice Iinternational and of The U.S. East Timor Society.
She received a B.A. from
Sarah Lawrence College in 1969.
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Alton C. Byers, Director of Science, is a mountain geographer and climber specializing in applied research, high altitude (alpine) conservation and restoration programs, climate change impacts in the mountains, highland-lowland interactive system approaches to conservation, and mountain photography. He received his doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1987, focusing on contemporary landscape change in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu, Nepal. In 1990, following two years of integrated conservation and development work in the Virunga Volcanoes region of Rwanda, he joined The Mountain Institute (TMI) as Environmental Advisor. Since then he has lived and worked in Nepal with TMI's Himal Programs; worked as founder and Director of Andean Programs in the Huascaran National Park, Peru; directed TMI's Appalachian Program and Spruce Knob Mountain Center (SKMC) in West Virginia; and currently works as Director of Research and Conservation in support of all programs. He is the recipient of the Association of American Geographer's Distinguished Career Award from the Mountain Geographer Specialty Group; David Brower Conservation Award from the American Alpine Club; and Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal from the Nepali NGO Mountain Legacy. Dr. Byers lives in West Virginia.
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Vicky Shears, Corporate Business Manager, is a native of West Virginia.
She has a Masters in Professional Accountancy and a Certificate in
Forensic Accounting from West Virginia University. Prior to joining TMI
in 2002 as the Office Administrator for the Appalachian Program Office,
Vicky worked for 13 years with the federal government as a Contract
Specialist and Contracting Cost/Price Analyst for the U.S. Department
of Energy.
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Asia Programs
Christopher Ladue, Asia Programs Director and Country Director of the
China Program, brings more than 12 years of combined professional and
scholastic experience in Chinese, Tibetan, and Nepali languages, cultures,
economics, and development policies to his work in China and Asia. He was
the Director of the Peak Enterprise Program, an innovative economic
development learning laboratory in the Tibet Autonomous Region
from 1995 to 2004. He is a seasoned enterprise development professional
with experience in sub sector analysis, business service assessment, development
finance, integrated conservation and development program design,
evaluation, implementation and monitoring. Mr. Ladue received his
Bachelor's degree in East Asian Language and Cultures, with a concentration
in Chinese economics, from Columbia University. He subsequently worked in the
private sector, primarily in banking, before joining TMI in 2000.
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Brian Peniston, Nepal and India Country Director, has Master's degrees in
Forestry (Yale, 1992) and Public Health (University of Hawaii, 1982). He has
worked on international conservation and development projects since
1975, and has overseas work experience in Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Cambodia, and Peru. Mr. Peniston has also helped design
integrated conservation and development projects in Bhutan, Papua New
Guinea, Vietnam, Tibet Autonomous Region of China, and Central Asia.
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Ang Rita Sherpa, Senior Program Manager, Asia (Nepal) Program, has 18
years of experience in management of protected areas, eco-tourism, and
sustainable development projects. He also has extensive experience in
project design, development, and monitoring and evaluation, and he has
facilitated many workshops on ecotourism and sustainable development.
He has a Master's degree in Protected Landscape Management from the
University of Wales, UK, and an undergraduate degree in Parks, Recreation
and Tourism from Lincoln University, New Zealand. He served
as a volunteer for the National Parks Service in the United States, where he
spent nine months working in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National. Click here to view an article about Ang Rita's work.
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North America Programs
Brent Bailey, Director of the North America Programs, is based in West Virginia, drawing on more than 20 years of experience in forestry, natural resource management, environmental education, and local community development on three continents. Prior to joining TMI in 2004, he was a Senior Technical Director for Conservation International, managing biodiversity projects in Latin America and West Africa. He holds a Bachelor's degree in biology and French (Kalamazoo College, 1977); a Master's in environmental studies (Yale, 1985); and a Ph.D. in Forest Resources Science (West Virginia University, 1999). He also has a faculty appointment in biology with West Virginia University. A West Virginia native, he has presented and written extensively on the harvest and economic uses of wild products such as ginseng, goldenseal, and black cohosh. At the local level, he is active as a volunteer in urban forestry, land conservation, and citizen science.
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Jonah Steinberg, Senior Program Manager, specializes in anthropology,
ethnography, and sociology, and the cultures of South Asia, Central Asia, and
the Islamic world, with a specific emphasis on the peoples of the Hindu
Kush, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains. He speaks Urdu, Hindi, French,
Tajiki, Russian, Romani (Gypsy), and Balkan Dialects. He is on the faculty
at the University of Vermont in Anthropology, and he received his M.A. from
the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. from Swarthmore College.
Jonah's background in cultural understanding and interpretation serve him well in the North America Program's National Parks Partnership.
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Dave Martin, Program Coordinator for Mountain Learning and the Spruce Knob Mountain Center, is based on Spruce Knob Mountain, West
Virginia. Dave has a BA in American Studies from Hampshire College.
Prior to his current role at TMI, Dave worked as a climbing guide at
Seneca Rocks Mountain Guides. He has been with TMI in various
capacities since 1993.
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South America Programs
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the South America Programs
Jorge Recharte, Director of the South America Programs, is based in Huaraz and
Lima, Peru, and holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University,
1989. Jorge joined TMI in 1997 after spending three
years in Ecuador (1994-1996) working for the Latin American
Social Science Faculty (FLACSO), designing and heading the graduate
education and research program in Mountain Societies and Sustainable
Development. Between 1980-1981 and 1990-1993, Dr. Recharte was an
associate researcher at the International Potato Center, where he worked
developing participatory research methodologies in agriculture. He
currently serves on the Board of The Common Good Institute and is a
member of the Andes Chapter of the International Mountain Society
(IMS).
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Miriam Torres, Protected Areas and Ecotourism specialist, Andes Program,
joined TMI in 1995. She graduated from the National Parks and
Wildlife Management program of Peru's National Agrarian University in
1987. She has a professional history devoted to working with mountain
protected areas in Peru, particularly conducting participatory management
plans. Miriam was a member of the team that produced the first management
plan of Huascaran National Park in 1990, the leader of its Ecotourism
Plan in 1997, the leader of its second Management Plan elaborated in
2002, and the National Master Plan for the Peruvian protected areas
system in 1995. Before joining TMI, from 1988 - 1995, she was a staff
member of Pro Naturaleza, supporting several of Peru's protected areas.
She is a member of the Andes Chapter of the International Mountain Society (IMS) and the IUCN Commission on Protected Areas, Mountain
Areas and Non Material Values.
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