Lisa Brush has been leading collaborative conservation initiatives in the environmental sector for more than twenty years. In her role as CEO and Founder of The Stewardship Network, she has engaged thousands of professionals and volunteers in identifying community and stewardship needs of the 21^st century. She has facilitated the initiation, growth, and ongoing support of networks and collaborations at all scales across the country. Lisa has worked with all volunteer nonprofits to global NGOs; municipal, state, federal and tribal governments; consultants and contractors; students and researchers; private property owners and more. She has facilitated strategic planning sessions, focus groups, citizen task forces, community visioning sessions, and public involvement and feedback meetings with groups ranging in size from four to four hundred. Lisa believes deeply in the power of people to create positive community change and works to support people and institutions in this endeavor. She has been involved in all aspects of organizational management including: foundation/agency relationships; grant based project funding; budget tracking; contract negotiation, implementation, accountability; staff and board development. Lisa serves on numerous boards of directors, has a BA in Science in Society from Wesleyan University, an MS from University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, and is a graduate of Michigan State University’s Great Lakes Leadership Academy.

Bob Grese is a Professor Emeritus in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and the former director of the University’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. He formerly taught in the landscape architecture program and is a strong advocate of ecologically-based design and ecological restoration. He has researched the work of early landscape architects who advocated such an approach to design, especially the work of O.C. Simonds and Jens Jensen who worked throughout the Midwest and were known for the “Prairie style” of landscape gardening. Bob is the author of Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens and The Native Landscape Reader and co-edited Passion for Peonies with David Michener. He is a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as in the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. He also is an honorary member of the Garden Club of America and serves as the past president of the Ann Arbor Chapter of the Wild Ones.

Dave Borneman was the Natural Area Preservation Manager for the City of Ann Arbor for 28 years, retiring in February, 2022. He now has more time to devote to his private business doing controlled ecological burns throughout the Midwest. Dave is a former board member of the Stewardship Network, the Natural Areas Association, and the Midwest Invasive Plant Network, but still serves on the Steering Committee of the Michigan Prescribed Fire Council. Outside of burn season, he splits his time between Ann Arbor and a newly acquired lake cabin in northeast Michigan.