staff

Marsha Jane Kellogg

Marsha joined the board of Native Future in January 2007 and is happy to have an active role in supporting the organization’s mission and the indigenous of Panama. For the past six years, Marsha has been working as a consultant on conservation and development projects for non-profit organizations such as the Rainforest Alliance and CARE, and on USAID-funded projects managed by private firms. Her work sends her to native lands in the Americas and Africa where she has worked with and learned from native peoples such as the Huarani of Ecuador, Maya of Guatemala, Boki tribes of Nigeria, and Mescalero Apache of New Mexico. Marsha is a natural resources planner with background in cross-cultural communications and facilitation. She works with community, government and non-governmental groups to develop action plans, make land use decisions, and to manage conflict over natural resources. She’s also a trainer and environmental assessment specialist.

A native Vermonter and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Panama 1992 – 1994) Marsha currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she happily roams the southwest desert with the roadrunners and her companion, Doug Erb.

Board

Sara Archbald, Education Project Coordinator

Sara grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch farming country, north of Philadelphia, an area from which she was happy to flee in 1962 to attend college. Upon graduation she worked, in those early heady days of Peace Corps, as a literacy volunteer in Bogota, Colombia, and later with her husband, trained volunteers for other Latin American countries. Ultimately they settled in Maine, where Sara enjoyed an active community life with many volunteer positions in rural Maine while raising her two sons.

In 2000, Sara rejoined the Peace Corps as an agroforestry volunteer and served two years with the Ngabe-Bugle indigenous peoples of Panama in the isolated Nurun village of El Jacinto. Sara supported the activities of her village communal farm, as well as regional women’s and farmer groups, teaching practices of composting, planting of tree nurseries, rice and fish tank farming – plus more. Sara returned to Portland, Maine in 2002, where she currently works at the Maine Historical Society as Executive Administrative Assistant.

While in Panama Sara helped start a scholarship fund with the El Jacinto Bugle families working in the cooperative farm: shoes and uniforms are purchased for participants’ elementary children, tuition is paid for their few high school children. A reciprocal relationship has developed between Sara, who raises the funds, and her extended family in El Jacinto and beyond, who nourish her when she returns for two weeks every year to support the work of the scholarship fund. Sara is eager to work with Native Future in the fulfillment of the education component of its mission, while expanding and bringing more sustainability to the Ngabe Bugle scholarship program.

Education Advisory Group

Carolyn Heasly

Carolyn Heasly visited the village of El Jacinto in the Ngabe-Bugle region of Panama in 2003. The remoteness, the heat and dust, the delightful children, the wandering pigs, the welcoming smiles, the mountain views, all left an indelible impression which inspires her involvement with the Basilio Perez Scholarship Fund. Carolyn teaches and creates art and is employed by the Art Gallery at the University of New England. She and her husband Joe live in Portland, Maine and have 4 children.

Ellie Mercer

In 1990 Ellie Mercer was ordained as a United Church of Christ minister and served as an associate in several churches until 2002. She then moved from parish ministry to a position as a hospice chaplain. Ellie’s passion for this work is reflected in these words:

“I am always on a rather intense spiritual journey where authenticity is at the center. The work I do with dying people and their families allows me to be in their lives at a time when the masks are dropped, when the games that consume us during our lives no longer matter. What matters is comfort, support, compassion, truth telling. What matters to me is being able to sustain a presence in the midst of death and to be able to assist people in breaking the barriers which lead us into a denial of death.”

The Basilio Perez Scholarship Program attracted Ellie from the very beginning because of her friendship with its leader, Sara Archbald, “one of the most authentic people I know. I was flattered to be asked to be on her Board of Advisors.” Ellie has put her great fiddling skills and connections to great use while helping to raise scholarship funds.

Ellie and her husband have 2 sons who live and work in NYC, and they have one grand dog.

Bill Gregory

Bill is a retired UCC minister who has been actively involved in social justice issues from the time he marched for civil rights in the south in the 60s. Retirement has given him the opportunity to continue his work and play in the many areas of life that bring him great joy: teaching and writing about the role of the Spirit in the lives of those around him, serving community and church groups with goals of peace and justice and love in the world, and most importantly, spending as much time as he can with his wonderful wife, children, and grandchildren.

Bill visited his former parishioner, Sara Archbald, in El Jacinto, Panama in 2001, with his friend Allan Lovell. He was struck by the isolation, the beauty, the poverty of the area and since then has been committed to helping in any way he can to support the Basilio Perez Scholarship Fund.

Nancy Ansheles

Nancy Ansheles has been a great friend of scholarship program director, Sara Archbald, for more than ten years. They first met working for the non-profit, The Roundtable Center, where they championed the inclusive and collaborative community dialogue process of study circles. Focused on the value of communication and education, Nancy enthusiastically supports Sara in her efforts to fund and administer the scholarship program.

Nancy has an undergraduate degree in Communication from James Madison University in Virginia, and a Masters in Corporate Education from Boston University. Her business, Catalyst & Co., facilitates results through creative learning programs for businesses and nonprofits. She has worked with many international communities in developing workplace skills, and volunteers her time in an ESL classroom, and with the Cancer Community Center. She lives in Portland, Maine.

Diane Wilbur

Diane grew up in Massachusetts and attended Colby College in Maine. She spent several years in many other parts of the country before settling back in New England where she was involved in many volunteer organizations with an emphasis on helping children. Diane returned to graduate school when her son started college and received an MBA from the University of New Haven.

Diane moved to Maine in 1998 and worked for the local NBC TV station until her retirement in 2007. Bringing her accounting and organizational skills, Diane has been involved with the Native Future's scholarship fund since its inception. Diane comes from a family with many teachers, and her parents were strong supporters of education and the opportunities it brings. She looks forward to bringing that passion to expanding the education program so more children can be served.

Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson was born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia. After graduating from the University of Richmond in 1990, he worked in 19 states for Kraft Foods over nine years. Then he came to his senses and settled in Maine and is currently a sales manager for Hallmark Cards in Maine, NH and VT.

Scott has a keen interest in Latin American history, culture, and literature (and food!). He has traveled extensively throughout Mexico and has enjoyed a few samplings of Central America in recent years.

Clive Kincaid

Clive Kincaid was born and raised in Santa Monica, California and has a B.A. in Cultural Anthropolgy from UCLA. He was the founder and first Executive Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), a non-profit environmental organization that currently has over 20,000 members and a two million dollar annual budget. He has worked closely with the Wounaan for over eight years, buying and selling Wounaan baskets. He has strong relationships with many Wounaan leaders, and an intimate understanding of Wounaan culture.

Clive currently lives in Page, Arizona with his wife Chris, a National Park Service Archaeologist, and their thirteen year-old son, Nick.

Advisory Council

Mary Ann Westfall, M.D.

Mary graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor . She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and has a Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene granted jointly by the Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventative Medicine and the Instituto de Medicina Tropical “Alexander von Humboldt.” She has done medical volunteer work in Mexico , Guatemala and the Peruvian Amazon. She became involved with the Wounaan of Panama in 2000 and attended Wounaan Congresses in Canaan Membrillo and Puerto Laura. She is especially interested in the education of Wounaan primary school teachers, and is active in the Wounaan Higher Education Fund. She lives in Canby , Oregon , with her husband Dale, and their two dogs.

Cameron Ellis, Land Tenure Project Coordinator

Cameron Ellis holds a BA in Political Science from UCLA and an MSc in Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of New Mexico. He grew up partially in central Mexico and has worked extensively in tropical Latin America - including at ecotoursim outfits in Guatemala and Mexico, and three years as the Assistant International Programs Director for The Peregrine Fund. He currently works at a cultural resources management consultancy in Santa Fe, NM and runs a freelance mapping firm (Ellis Mapping) dedicated to strategic mapping solutions for social, scientific and environmental interests in marginalized and developing communities. In 2008 he traveled to Panama with Native Future co-founder Julian Dendy to map the boundaries and illegally deforested areas within the Wounaan territories of Rio Hondo and Platanares.

Martin Heger

Martin Philipp Heger is an independent researcher working on development economics, natural resource management and international agriculture issues. In the past, he has worked as a consultant for the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University, as an intern for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

He is a published author who holds a Masters degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Management from the University of Hawaii where he has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Vienna as well as undergraduate degrees in Economics and Psychology from the University of Vienna. He has studied and worked as a research assistant at New York University and studied at the Universidad de Alicante, Spain.

Martin speaks German, English, Spanish and French and grew up surrounded by the Austrian alps in Langenwang.

Julian Dendy, President

A founding member of Native Future, Julian became interested in working with indigenous peoples as a result of his Peace Corps experience in Panama. Living in the rainforest in a Wounaan village and working side by side with the locals, he saw firsthand the issues that affect their lives and land. His main projects there were aimed at dealing with some of the local priorities; the development of a small ecotourism venture, the construction of a new water treatment system, and the expansion of the market for the local artists' crafts.

After leaving Panama and working for two years with The Nature Conservancy as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Palau, he moved to the Coral Reef Research Foundation-Palau (www.CoralReefResearchFoundation.org), where he currently works as a biological technician and collection manager.

Allen Turner

For more than 30 years, Allen has helped forest communities explore new relationships with the wider world. He helps local folk speak out more strongly in public decisions and deal more effectively in the marketplace. On his two most recent long-term projects, in Nigeria and Liberia, Allen has worked with indigenous communities, local NGOs, traders, and government agencies to conserve the remnants of a tropical rain forest that once spread across all of West Africa. Earlier, he helped develop co-management of protected areas in Nicaragua, Peru, and Sri Lanka. In the 1990s, Allen directed a project for The Nature Conservancy that strengthened community-based natural resource management by indigenous communities from Panama to Belize. From 1988 to 1995, he pioneered community forestry in Nepal. Allen holds degrees in Anthropology from Yale University and International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University.

Born in Vermont and raised in California, Allen’s early experience includes commercial beekeeping, ethnobotanical research among Mayan groups in Chiapas, Mexico, and four years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and the Dominican Republic—where he met Minga, his wife of 35 years. Allen and Minga currently live in Liberia.

Janice Jorgensen

Janice is a native rural Californian living in Massachusetts since 1971. She was a professional Peace Corps Volunteer working in Rural Community Development in Dominican Republic 1966-1968 and has professional experience in sales and marketing for small private companies to Fortune 100.

She was Peace Corps Country Director-Panama 1997-2002 and has served as a EMA Disaster Assistance Employee working in hurricanes Charley, Ivan, Jeanne,Katrina, and Rita in Disaster Field Training Operations and Individual Assistance in Disaster Recovery Centers. Janice also works as a gender consultant in Latin America and is an avid birdwatcher and basketball fan.

Megan Quenzer

Megan joined Native Future in November 2009, while living in New York, where she worked at The New York Botanical Garden. She has since relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she and her husband enjoy the many hiking trails. Megan grew up in small towns at the edge of wild places in underpopulated states in the western US. She and her family had many wilderness adventures in these beautiful places. This upbringing instilled in her a love of nature and exploration, which led her to become an ecologist . . . and to travel. Megan has a BS in conservation science from The College of Santa Fe in New Mexico and an MSc in Tropical Ecology from James Cook University in northeastern Australia. Her professional experience ranges from environmental consulting in the American Southwest to research on international conservation and land use mapping projects. She recently traveled to Papua New Guinea for a mapping project in the country’s first national conservation area. In addition to her work with Native Future, Megan has previously volunteered on projects with the American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners and on university field research projects in northern Australia and northern California. As an ecologist, Megan sees that the conservation of biodiversity is inextricably linked to the conservation of both natural and cultural resources, and she believes in and is happy to be working to help support Native Future's mission.