Our Staff
Jonathan B. Haufler, Ph.D., Executive Director
Past-President, The Wildlife Society
Jon Haufler is a co-founder of the Ecosystem Management Research Institute. His background in ecosystem ecology and management is diverse; ranging from practical applications, to policy discussions, to theoretical evaluations. His experience includes over 13 years on the faculty of Michigan State University where he developed and taught courses in wildlife ecology and ecosystem-based management. There he had an active graduate research program, with many projects addressing varying aspects of applying ecosystem management. He later directed Boise Cascade Corporation's program for wildlife and ecology where he developed and implemented three large ecosystem management efforts in Washington, Idaho and Minnesota. These projects applied a coarse-filter/fine-filter conservation strategy for ecosystem management on landscapes of two to six million acres. Jon has an extensive background in wildlife management, forest ecology, and range ecology. His education includes a B.S. in wildlife management from the University of New Hampshire, M.S. in wildlife management from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from Colorado State University. He is a Certified Wildlife Biologist and is active in The Wildlife Society. Locally, Jon also contributes in a volunteer capacity to his professional society and other non-profit organizations. He currently serves on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Board of Directors, and also serves locally on the Clearwater Resource Council and the Seeley Lake Fuels Mitigation Task Force.
Carolyn A. Mehl, M.S., Ecosystem/Wildlife Ecologist
Carolyn Mehl is a co-founder of the Ecosystem Management Research Institute. Carolyn is a senior wildlife and ecosystem ecologist with particular expertise in landscape assessment and conservation planning to support biodiversity objectives at the landscape scale. She is skilled at developing vegetation classification systems that describe the full range of native ecosystem diversity based on historical disturbance regimes. Carolyn also has considerable experience with describing and quantifying vegetation characteristics and running spatially explicit vegetation dynamics models to quantify historical range of variablity. Carolyn obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Michigan State University and her employment background is diverse, having worked in four different regions of the United States and Canada. Previous employers include Boise Cascade Corporation in Idaho, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and US Environmental Protection Agency in Illinois, Golder Associates in Alberta, Canada, and the US Army Corps of Engineers in Mississippi. In her position with Boise Cascade Corporation, Carolyn was project ecologist for the Idaho Ecosystem Management Project. Carolyn is a certified wildlife biologist..
Scott Yeats, M.S. Wildlife/GIS Analyst
Scott Yeats holds a B.S. degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana and an M.S. in Geographic Information Science from Northwest Missouri State Univerity. Scott's diverse field experience includes wildlife related work in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Scott is responsible for GIS operations using ESRI and Manifold software, database management and programming, and is the technical coordinator for field operations. He also has expertise in wildlife habitat modeling, especially in habitat-based species viability methodologies.