The SWCS Board of Directors consists of one director elected by SWCS members from each of SWCS’s regions in the United States (Northwest, North Central, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast). Additionally, four At-Large Directors are appointed by the Board itself. The SWCS CEO serves ex-officio as a non-voting member.

Regional Directors represent the interests of all SWCS members, with specific responsibilities to the members and chapters within their respective regions as required by the Board. At-Large Directors assure that the Board represents public policy and natural resource knowledge, and maintains contact with federal, state, and provincial agencies; other societies; and environmental, agricultural, conservation, and other groups.

Rebecca Power

Chair and At-Large Director

Rebecca Power is Director of the 12-state North Central Region Water Network and leads a range of other water outreach programs at the University of Wisconsin-Extension. During her 20 years with UW-Extension, she co-directed the six-state Great Lakes Regional Water Program and served as a local natural resource educator in...

Ellen Gilinsky

Vice-Chair and At-Large Director

Ellen Gilinsky, PhD is president of Ellen Gilinsky, LLC, which she started in January 2017 to work with government, industry, and the private sector on finding environmental solutions to water challenges. Her clients include Resources for the Future, National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, University of North Carolina at...

Amanda Gumbert

Secretary and Southeast Region Director

Amanda Gumbert serves as an Extension Water Quality Specialist with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food & Environment. Amanda collaborates with university personnel and federal/state/local agency partners to deliver water quality information and technical assistance to Kentuckians through the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. A major program focus is...

Roger Wolf

Treasurer and North Central Region Director

Roger Wolf is a lifelong native Iowan, current farmer landowner, and President of Wolf Brothers Wildlife Enterprises, LLC headquartered in Osceola, Iowa. He has over 33 years of professional experience working in soil and water conservation. He started his career as a Watershed Project Coordinator in 1989 working in the...

Christopher Hartley

Northeast Regional Director

Christopher Hartley is the Senior Environmental Markets Analyst with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Office of Environmental Markets. He is responsible for the development of policy, tools, and metrics to facilitate private investment in conservation and the participation of farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners in emerging environmental markets. He...

Keith Berns

Northwest Regional Director

Keith Berns combines over 20 years of no-till farming with 10 years of teaching agriculture and computers. In addition to no-tilling 2,500 acres of irrigated and dryland corn, soybeans, rye, triticale, peas, sunflowers, and buckwheat in south central Nebraska, he also co-owns and operates Green Cover Seed, one of the...

Steve Kadas

Southwest Region Director

Steve is the owner/operator of Soil Health LLC. He is currently working with the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts as their soil health specialist and program manager. Steve retired in 2021 after a 34-year career with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as the New Mexico State Resource...

Jerry Hatfield

At-Large Director

Jerry Hatfield received his PhD from Iowa State University in 1975 in the area of agricultural climatology and is the retired director of the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, Iowa. His research focuses on the interactions among the components of the...

Leonard Jordan

At-Large Director

Leonard Jordan has spent more than four decades building a portfolio focused on conserving our natural resources. Having worked across the nation, Jordan has worked with several interest groups, government agencies and non-profit organizations to ensure that our environment is protected. His passion is to work with the American public,...