Joann originally hails from the mid-Atlantic east coast having grown up in northern Virginia and spending much of her early adulthood in North Carolina. She and her husband David moved to Montana in 2004 with plans to build their retirement home in Seeley Lake. Meanwhile Joann worked as a data management specialist for The University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station. It was while at the biostation that she learned about the zebra mussels and recognized the threat they posed to the Clearwater Chain of Lakes in the Seeley-Swan Valley – her intended retirement home. She initiated an Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) outreach and monitoring program in the Seeley Lake region which connected her with the Clearwater Resource Council (CRC) where she ultimately took the position of Aquatics Program Director. Her AIS work also resulted in her first term as a director on the Missoula County Weed Board, bringing an aquatics perspective to the board. Now fully retired but still actively volunteering with CRC’s aquatic programs, Joann is serving her second term on the Weed District Board.

Karen is the botanist and noxious weed coordinator for the Lolo National Forest stationed in Missoula, MT. She has worked in noxious weed management and native vegetation restoration for the last 23 years for the federal government. She started on the Missoula County Weed Board in the winter of 2020 and provides a connection to the Forest Service managed lands in the county. Karen is a 5th generation Montanan, living most of her life in Missoula noxious weeds have always been a part of her botanical interests. Karen is an avid outdoors person, an in her spare time she like to hike, ski, raft, boat, hunt, and enjoy the great outdoors.

Andy was born a Missoula native and spent most of his life living on a 200 acre Ranch in Evaro that was put under conservation easement in 2008. He worked for the US Forest Service as a Smokejumper from 1979 through 2008 and was Operations Manager for the Missoula Smokejumper base from 2000 through 2008. He then worked for the US Ski team as chairman of the rules and officials. He was an active member of Missoula’s Open Lands Advisory Committee for about 10 or 15 years after retirement and is currently a board member for the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition. He has a 130 acre hay operation currently on the ranch and has deep routed love and appreciation for the land. He raises specialty quality horse hay in small square bales and produces Certified Weed Seed Free hay. In his spare time he is an avid skier and backpacker.

Jim Olivarez and his family moved to Missoula from Northeast Oregon in 1988.

He is retired from the USDA Forest Service after a career of 35 years as a Rangeland Management Specialist.

Jim’s interest in being on the Weed Board is founded in his relationship and respect for the Earth’s system.

Jim co-authored the Management Section of the Montana State Noxious Weed Plan, with input from across the State. His is past President of the Montana Weed Control Association.

He was instrumental in the accelerated development of the FS Northern Region’s Noxious Weed Program, including creation of Noxious Weed Prevention Measures for all resource management activities, that eventually became Regional Policy.

When asked why he still working in the area of Noxious Weed Management, his response is, “I guess it wasn’t just a job.”

Dr. Dean Pearson is a research scientist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, where he leads a research team studying the causes, consequences, and management of invasive species. Dean received his BS in wildlife biology, his MS in zoology, and his PhD in organismal biology and ecology, all from the University of Montana. He also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Montana. His research incorporates studies of invasive plants in their native and introduced ranges to understand how some invaders transmogrify into problem species in new regions, with research and collaborations in Argentina, Turkey, Germany, Poland, and China. Dean’s primary interest lies in studying community ecology (how species come together to form the ecological communities we see) in order to apply community-based understandings to conservation management. When he is not home gardening or landscaping, he spends up to six weeks each year in the backcountry of the West naturalizing, birding, pack rafting mountain lakes, exploring the desert, or hunting for big game or fossils. To be a good ecologist, you need to spend a lot of time in nature!

My name is Pat Sweeney and I live and garden in the Nine Mile Valley. I retired from the Forest Service as a wildlife biologist working on Forest Plans for the Lolo, Bitterroot and Flathead National Forests. Almost my entire working and volunteering life has been on natural resource management in several states along with one assignment in Lesotho, Southern Africa, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. 

I now serve on several boards where I continue to work in resource management and offer my ideas and experiences to the teams as one perspective. Perhaps more importantly, other board members and staff teach me through sharing their experiences and knowledge.

I thoroughly enjoy being a member of the Missoula County Weed Board and working with their dedicated staff. My time spent on the board motivates me and provides me with more tools to better manage weeds on my 7 acres and enhances my ability to influence my friends, neighbors, and nearby land management agencies to do the same.

John Rimel is the publisher at Mountain Press Publishing in Missoula, Montana, an independent press that has achieved national recognition for its books for both young and old on natural history and history. A native Montanan, John is active locally, serving as co-chair of the Inspire campaign to build a permanent home for the Missoula Butterfly House, Missoula County Weed Department, and Missoula County Extension Department. He’s also a trustee of the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, and serves on the Missoula County Weed Board, the Five Valleys Land Trust board and formerly on the Missoula County Open Lands Committee. In his spare time, he lives to sail on Flathead Lake, horseback ride, run rivers, take off in his sea kayak or motorcycle, or ski when there’s snow. He and his wife Karen are now proud grandparents to three granddaughters. Until they’re old enough to help, he and Karen are left to do the chores themselves on the family ranch in the foothills of the Sapphire Mountains south of town.

Leyla Eraybar came to Montana from Colorado. She has always had a great love for the outdoors. She is an avid fly fisher and hiker. Leyla volunteers for the Great Burn Conservation Alliance as a Trail Ambassador. Leyla brings a diverse background to the board. While she currently works as a software project manager, she has a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina and jokes that she is a recovering lawyer. Leyla has a juris doctorate from the University of Denver.