Board of Directors
A diverse board includes participants from across the watershed and different sectors.
Kimberly A. Lutz, Executive Director
Kimberly A. Lutz (Kim) is the Executive Director of America’s Watershed Initiative (AWI), a collaboration working with hundreds of business, government, academic, and civic organizations to find solutions to the challenges facing the Mississippi River and the more than 250 rivers that flow into it. Formed in 2010, AWI engages leaders throughout the watershed with a diversity of perspectives and sectors including conservation, navigation, agriculture, flood control and risk reduction, industry, academics, basin associations, local, state, and federal government agencies. AWI published the Mississippi River Watershed Report Card, designed to provide decision makers, watershed leaders and the public with easy-to-understand information about the state of the watershed’s health to aid them in developing a collaborative approach to managing America’s Watershed. Report Cards are published every five years beginning in 2015.
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Lutz joins AWI from The Nature Conservancy, where she initiated and successfully led two multi-state watershed programs along the Savannah and Connecticut Rivers. Under her leadership, these programs improved river flows, restored large-scale floodplain forests, protected more than 6,000 acres, and achieved a significant refuge expansion. She was a founding member and former chair of the Friends of the Silvio O. Conte Refuge, a 70-member partner organization and multi-state watershed coalition where she helped successfully build congressional relationships that resulted in $23 million in federal funding for the Connecticut River Watershed. She also served in the U.S. Department of the Interior, working directly for the Senior Advisor to the Secretary to develop a national program for protecting and restoring nationally significant rivers and associated watersheds.
In 2015-2016, Lutz joined fellow conservation leaders in Massachusetts in a US State Department, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs program where she mentored emerging environmental leaders from Peru, Uruguay, and Mexico. She was also selected as a Global Sawhill Fellow, a senior leadership program of The Nature Conservancy. As part of this program, Lutz and her team developed the Conservancy’s first affinity group, Women in Nature (WIN), and established diversity and inclusion criteria for all managers.
Lutz obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio in 1982 where she majored in Biology and Psychology. In 1987, she graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a Master of Science Degree in Biology. Her thesis research explored prairie restoration and resulted in a restoration plan for a county park.
Lutz and her husband John, a non-profit leader in Elder Care, have two adult children. She has also been an active community volunteer, serving in leadership positions at her children’s schools, and with their church.
A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Rivers have shaped me like they shape the landscape. Growing up mostly in cities, on the east and west coasts, summers spent fishing with my grandfather on a tributary to the Illinois River or motoring out on Uncle’s boat along the Upper Mississippi were precious times. These experiences had a profound impact on me and when it came time to pick an undergraduate major, biology was an obvious choice. Since then, I have had the good fortune to have my career shaped by rivers—the Savannah River, the Connecticut River, and now back to where this love of rivers started, America’s Great River, the Mississippi.
As I start this next chapter, I am reminded of all this great River provides— abundant wildlife, unmatched beauty, our home, our livelihoods. And all of us have a stake in what the watershed provides for our future. When America’s Watershed Initiative (AWI) envisioned a Mississippi River Watershed report card five years ago, we took great care to listen to, and measure, all aspects of the River’s health that we heard were important to you.
The results of the 2020 Mississippi River Watershed Report Card allow us to see how those important features are trending by assigning letter grades. Some grades and their stories illustrate what is working so that the next time we measure progress we see improvement. Some grades tell us that the Mississippi River Watershed faces urgent challenges with implications for the health and safety of Americans and the American economy. These challenges are national issues, impacting all of us.
Therefore, it is imperative to protect the Mississippi River Watershed through investment, learning, education and action. We hope you will join efforts to protect and strengthen the Watershed, so that it might continue to power our economy and livelihoods, today and for coming generations.
Board Members
Bob Beduhn
HDR
Bob Beduhn began his career during the heyday of Superfund investigations throughout Minnesota in the mid- to late-1980s. After several years of tyvec, respirators and inclement weather, he returned to school to receive his bachelors and masters degrees in civil and water resources engineering. For over 30 years, Bob has worked on increasingly larger flood control and infrastructure projects, improving sustainability and resiliency from a number of natural and man-made shocks and stresses. An accomplished program/project manager, Bob has led some of HDR’s most complex engineering assignments. He is currently leading HDR’s Civil Works program and driving the integration of community resiliency approaches throughout our engineering programs.
Sean Duffy Sr.
Big River Coalition
Sean assumed the duties of Executive Vice President-Maritime Advocate with the Louisiana Maritime Association in 2011, and was hired to promote improvements beneficial to maritime stakeholders along the Lower Mississippi River. He also currently serves as the Executive Director of the Big River Coalition.
Under his tutelage, the Big River Coalition has grown and now represents navigation interests across the entire Mississippi River basin. He continues in this role to passionately represent the economic engine of navigation on the largest and most dynamic river system in the world. The term he prefers is the “world’s economic superhighway.”
Sean served as the President and Chief Executive Officer for the Gulf States Maritime Association from 2005 to 2011. During his previous tenure, Sean became a proponent for local industry and specialized in lobbying Capitol Hill for supplemental funds for maintenance dredging and waterway maintenance. As the third generation of his family to work in the maritime industry, Sean began working on the docks in the Port of New Orleans in his early teen years during breaks from school Previous employment experiences include various management duties, Boarding Agent, Deckhand, Stevedore General Superintendent and Marine Surveyor. Sean is intimately familiar with obstacles faced by the maritime industry, both nationally and those specific to Louisiana, and he has become an expert on coastal restoration and maintenance dredging.
His many professional associations include Congressman Scalise’s Maritime Advisory Group; the National Association of Maritime Organization; America’s Wetlands Foundation Big River Works Initiative, and the Louisiana Freight Advisory Council, to name only a few.
Joan C. Freitag
Hanson Professional Services
Joan C. Freitag is senior vice president of Federal Services for Hanson Professional Services. She manages the federal business and clients and Hanson’s engineers and scientists who work for the Federal Government. With more than 30 years of experience in the engineering world, she has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. She is a Fellow in the Society of American Military Engineers, a member of the Society for Marketing of Professional Services, is past national chair of the American Council of Engineering Company’s Federal Agencies and Procurement Advocacy Committee.
Sean served as the President and Chief Executive Officer for the Gulf States Maritime Association from 2005 to 2011. During his previous tenure, Sean became a proponent for local industry and specialized in lobbying Capitol Hill for supplemental funds for maintenance dredging and waterway maintenance. As the third generation of his family to work in the maritime industry, Sean began working on the docks in the Port of New Orleans in his early teen years during breaks from school Previous employment experiences include various management duties, Boarding Agent, Deckhand, Stevedore General Superintendent and Marine Surveyor. Sean is intimately familiar with obstacles faced by the maritime industry, both nationally and those specific to Louisiana, and he has become an expert on coastal restoration and maintenance dredging.
His many professional associations include Congressman Scalise’s Maritime Advisory Group; the National Association of Maritime Organization; America’s Wetlands Foundation Big River Works Initiative, and the Louisiana Freight Advisory Council, to name only a few.
T. Stephen Gambrell
Mississippi Valley Flood Control Assocation. Vicksburg, Miss.
Stephen has served in the delivery of water solutions on the ground and in the political arena for more than three decades. He has listened to and engaged in every aspect of water challenges from North to South in the USA (Canada to the Gulf of Mexico), and East to West (Helena, Montana to Pennsylvania).
Stephen has traveled to more than 24 countries speaking in local public schools helping students “build and reach their dreams” and participating in water dialogues related to the challenges and solutions of complex water resources.
He holds a bachelor of science in civil engineering, Clemson University, SC, and a majority of hours for a Masters’ of Divinity from New Orleans Seminary, LA. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Senior Executive Fellows and numerous executive programs at Harvard.
Mr. Gambrell, his wife and son, live near the mighty Mississippi River where they serve a local church and serve international missions to help people in remote areas. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Ducks Unlimited, and a Regional Vice President for the Society of American Military Engineers.
Steve Mathies
New Orleans, Louisiana
For more than 30 years Steve’s professional focus has been on ecosystem restoration and/or hurricane protection in the Gulf of Mexico coastal region serving in both private and public sector positions. His public sector service included serving as Executive Director of the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, Deputy Secretary for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, and Chief of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) Project Management Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District.
All of these positions required management of individual projects as well as coordination of numerous projects simultaneously to ensure accomplishment of overall program objectives while fostering trusting relationships with agency representatives, area stakeholders, and the general public. Accomplishments were recognized by Governor Mike Foster, the CWPPRA Task Force, the American Planning Association, and by the Louisiana Wildlife Federation with selection as the “Professional Conservationist of the Year.”
Dan Mecklenborg
Ingram Barge Company. Nashville, Tennessee
Dan joined Ingram Barge Company in 1996 as Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, and was promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer in 2002. He is responsible for the company’s Legal, Claims, Safety, Environmental and Governmental Affairs functions. He also leads Custom Fuel Services, which is an Ingram subsidiary engaged in the sale and distribution of marine fuels and lubricants at ten locations throughout the inland river system.
Dan has been actively involved in civic and professional organizations throughout his career. In 2003 he completed a four-year term as a Member and then Chairman of the Inland Waterways Users Board. He rejoined the Users Board in 2013 as Ingram’s representative. Dan currently serves on the Board and Executive Committee of Waterways Council, Inc. and was its Chairman from 2007 through 2009. Since 2010, Dan has served on the Board of The Nature Conservancy’s Great Rivers Partnership. He also serves on the Steering Committee for America’s Watershed Initiative.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Dan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Dayton in 1977, and his Juris Doctor degree from Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1981. He is licensed to practice law in both Tennessee and Ohio.
Frank Morton
Turn Services, LLC
Frank uses his interest and experience in all aspects of the Mississippi River Watershed to support AWI’s mission of convening diverse stakeholders to collaborate to chart a course for the future of the watershed.
Frank brings to AWI a decades-long career in the inland marine industry. From 1990 to 2012, he served as founder and president of Turn Services, a full-service barge towing, shifting, fleeting, cleaning, repair, and barge inspection company operating in eight locations on the Lower Mississippi River. Frank has served in a variety of leadership roles with the American Waterways Operators, the leading trade association for the U.S. tugboat, towboat and barge industry, including a term as national chairman in 2014-2015, as well as on its Leadership Council, Executive Committee, and National Board of Directors. He is also a member of the Waterways Council, Inc. the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association, and the Louisiana Association of Waterways and Shipyards, among other professional memberships. In 2016, he was named the Propeller Club Port of New Orleans Maritime Person of the Year.
Frank holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Mississippi, and completed post-graduate work in Business Administration at the University of New Orleans. He and his wife Virginia have three children and four grandchildren.
Rachel Orf
National Corn Growers Association
Rachel is the Director of Stewardship and Sustainability at National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), a membership organization representing over 40,000 active growers from 28 affiliated state corn organizations.
Rachel started her career with an internship at DuPont Pioneer, were she was a maize breeding intern. Her major project was pollinating corn plants to create new hybrids. Rachel has also worked for Monsanto where she tested software on a user perspective that was developed for the Sales Reps to use while out in the field. Rachel started her career with NCGA as the manager of the National Corn Yield Contest. This involved testing the contest software; collecting and processing all the entry and harvest forms; maintaining a positive relationship with seed companies, supervisors and growers; and recognizing the winners at Commodity Classic – the annual joint venture event hosted by NCGA, ASA, NAWG and NSP. Rachel is currently the Director of Stewardship and Sustainability where she works with the affiliated corn states on water quality, conservation, and air quality. She also oversees the National Corn Yield Contest, Good Steward Recognition Program and is the lead staff on the Stewardship Action Team.
She received her BS from Missouri State University in Ag Business with a minor in Agronomy and her MBA from Lindenwood University.
Michael Reuter
The Nature Conservancy. Kirkwood, Missouri
Michael Reuter is director of the Midwest Division and member of the North America Leadership Team for The Nature Conservancy, a global organization working to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. The Midwest Division is focused on the Great Lakes and Mississippi River systems, and attendant food, water and energy issues encountered in working landscapes and cities across Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
For more than 25 years in the U.S. and around the world, Michael has designed and collaborated in systems-based approaches to large-scale societal challenges, generating tangible, lasting impacts for the environment and the people that rely on it. He has extensive experience facilitating sustainable and equitable use of our vital rivers, lakes and aquifers, and has focused on shared solutions that integrate nature with agriculture, navigation, flood control, and other needs of people and communities. This approach underpins many of The Nature Conservancy’s goals for water conservation around the world.
Michael led the creation of the Great Rivers Partnership (GRP) in 2004, which expanded TNC’s water programs globally to more than a dozen countries in South America, Asia and Africa. Through the GRP, the Conservancy focused on building strong partnerships with governments and business to design and achieve a broad set of sustainable and equitable solutions to recurring water management challenges. Michael and his colleagues designed and advanced comprehensive, collaborative approaches to management of the Yangtze and Mekong rivers in Asia, the Zambezi, and Ogooué rivers in Africa, the Colorado and Mississippi rivers in North America, and the Magdalena, Paraguay-Parana and Tapajós rivers in South America.
Michael also led the creation and development of the North America Water Program which engaged and supported more than 50 state chapters and 400 water staff as well as a wide variety of external partners working on some of the nation’s most significant water challenges, including protecting water supplies, reducing flood risk, building multi-purpose infrastructure, and conserving vital ecosystems. Michael is a founding member of the steering committee for America’s Watershed Initiative—an effort that engaged more than 400 organizations in establishing a vision and integrated management approach for the entire Mississippi River Basin as a national and global model. Michael has also filled leadership roles in national and multi-national initiatives such as the Field to Market Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, the International Society for River Science, U.S. Water Partnership, and Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service. He has received the Silver Eagle Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and One Conservancy Award from The Nature Conservancy. He holds a B.S. degree in Agricultural Economics from Iowa State University and a Master of Liberal Studies from Bradley University.
Michael received the Silver Eagle Award from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and One Conservancy Award from The Nature Conservancy. He holds a B.S. degree in Agricultural Economics from Iowa State University and a Master of Liberal Studies from Bradley University.
Michael lives in the St. Louis area with his wife and three children.
Rainy Shorey
Caterpillar Inc. Peoria, Illinois
Rainy joined Caterpillar in 2007 and has spent most of her career there as an Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Professional and Manager in Central Illinois. Rainy is currently a Project Manager for New Products Introduction at Caterpillar’s Sosnowiec, Poland facility. Prior to joining Caterpillar, Rainy worked as a Professor of Natural Sciences at both Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan and Illinois Central College in Peoria, Illinois.
She has extensive laboratory and field research experience, including international projects based in remote locations such as Kenya and the North Slope of Alaska. Rainy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Environmental Studies from Alma College. She completed both her Master’s and dual Ph.D. degrees from Michigan State University in the areas of Fisheries and Wildlife Management; and Ecology, Evolution and Behavioral Biology.
Robert Sinkler
Streamside Systems, Inc., and Dawson & Associates
Robert “Bob” Sinkler is a senior advisor at Dawson & Associates, which is a firm that’s well known for resolving complex challenges involving Federal water resources and environmental regulatory policy and procedures. Previously, Bob was the director of water infrastructure for The Nature Conservancy’s North America Water Program. In this position, he and his team focused on implementing interagency integrated water resources management in large watersheds—particularly with the nation’s largest river systems.
Prior to joining the Conservancy, Bob served as principle strategic advisor to the Chief of Engineers and Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), where he assisted the Chief of Engineers in setting the strategic direction for USACE, the world’s largest public engineering, design, and construction management agency.
He also served as Chief of Army Environmental Programs in the Pentagon where he developed and managed $1.5 B in annual environmental programs that enabled the Army to maintain compliance with environmental laws worldwide, and execute environmental clean-up and remediation actions.
From 2009 to 2011, Bob commanded a USACE task force responsible for designing and constructing the segment of the $14.4 billion Hurricane Storm Surge System for the greater New Orleans area in the places hardest hit in 2005 by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (primarily Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes).
Bob also commanded the Rock Island District (USACE) where he led the planning for, operations and maintenance of, and construction to support more than $30 billion of Federal navigation, flood risk reduction, hydropower, environmental and recreational infrastructure in parts of the five Upper Mississippi River Basin states. He led the on the ground execution of the Corps’ response to the devastating Midwest floods in 2008.
Bob has served as the federal representative on the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East Coastal Advisory Committee, the Illinois River Coordinating Council and the Iowa Water Resources Coordinating Council. Bob is currently a senior advisor to Dawson & Associates, the nation’s premier firm for resolving complex challenges involving Federal water resources and environmental regulatory policy and procedures.
Brigadier General (Ret.) C. David Turner
President, American Water Military Services Group & Contract Services Group
David leads American Water’s Military Services Group (MSG) and Contract Services Group (CSG). MSG works with the United States Military to treat and supply water and to collect and treat wastewater for military installations all over the country as part of the federal government’s Utility Privatization Program. CSG provides water and wastewater treatment to local municipalities.
David is a retired Army general officer with 35 plus years of military service. He served as Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, South Atlantic Division. In this position, he oversaw planning, design and construction of projects to support the military, protect water resources, and restore and enhance the environment in eight southeastern states. General Turner also served as Commanding General, South Pacific Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
David graduated from the University of Central Missouri with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Sciences and has been named one of the university’s Distinguished Alumni. He also holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Wichita State University and a Master of Strategic Studies degree from the U.S. Army War College. He is a Harvard Senior Executive Fellow. Webster Groves High School Wall of Fame (2015).
Kirsten Wallace
Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMRBA). St. Paul, Minn.
Kirsten Wallace is the Executive Director for the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association. The Association is a 5-state interstate organization formed by the Governors of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin to coordinate the states’ river-related programs and policies and work with federal agencies that have river responsibilities. In her position, Wallace develops regional positions, advocates the states’ collective interests before Congress and the federal agencies, and facilitates and fosters interagency coordination, cooperation, and communication.
Larry Weber
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa. Iowa City, Iowa
Larry Weber is the Chair in Hydraulics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and director of Hydroscience & Engineering at the University of Iowa. His leadership of that world-renowned institute has advanced it to even greater prominence, doubling its number of graduate students and tripling its grant- and contract-supported research. In 2009 Weber co-founded the Iowa Flood Center, which has provided superb services to the state to help Iowans prepare for flooding events more effectively. The center has taken on a national profile, sharing valuable knowledge with communities and institutions across the country. In 2013, Weber led a collaborative effort with the Iowa Legislature, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa to form the Iowa Nutrient Research Center (administered by ISU), a Regents Center focused on developing science-based approaches to understanding point source and non-point source nutrients discharges in Iowa. Recently, Weber led a collaborative process that brought the Iowa Geological Survey to IIHR, expanding its role in better understanding the state’s precious groundwater resources. Weber serves the state on the Iowa Water Resources Coordinating Council and routinely provides guidance on water science and policy related matters to the legislature and various state/federal agencies. Through Weber’s leadership, IIHR has broadened its research, outreach and educational programs to cover groundwater to surface water flows, water quantity and water quality issues, by studying conditions ranging from drought to flood, and everything in between.