The Hawk Ridge staff consists of
employees, volunteers and contractors.
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218.428.6209
jlong@hawkridge.org |
Janelle Long
grew up in Greenfield, WI where her
childhood days were filled with explorations
of any nearby forest, field, or pond.
The connections she made
with nature
had a lifelong impact on her career
interests. She attended the University of
WI - Stevens Point to complete degrees in
Wildlife Management and Biology with a minor
in Conservation Biology. A whole new world
in the outdoors was revealed to her through
the hands-on courses, field trips, and
enthusiastic professors. She vividly
remembers the excitement she felt seeing her
first Sandhill Crane and Pileated
Woodpecker. From that point on, she was
hooked on birds and couldn't wait to see and
learn more. Janelle spent three summers
helping out with Ph.D. bird research
projects at Great Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park
in TN, the grasslands of southwestern WI,
and the Shawnee Nat'l Forest in IL. Her
passion and concern for birds and the
environment were heightened as she witnessed
population declines due to habitat loss,
cowbird parasitism, predation, etc.
This led her to the
next phase in her career in the field of
environmental education. Janelle's journey
began by spending a year teaching at four
Audubon Centers in NM, CT, VT, and ME. In
2003 she began a graduate naturalist program
at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center
in Minnesota. From Wolf Ridge she continued
her graduate work and completed her M.Ed. in
Environmental Education at the University of
Minnesota Duluth in 2005. Janelle worked for two
years for the Bureau of Land Management as
the Education Coordinator at Yaquina Head
Outstanding Natural Area on the Oregon
coast. She
continues to
dedicate her time and share her interests
for bird conservation and environmental
education as the executive director. She
hopes to promote stewardship for Hawk Ridge
and help others establish their special
lifelong connection to nature. |
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Frank Nicoletti
grew up in New York State along the Hudson
River where he started watching raptors at
the age of 11. His passion for raptors and
other birds fueled him to work at various
locations including Cape May and Sandy Hook
NJ, Braddock Bay NY and in Israel. From 1984
until 1996 he traveled throughout the
country and conducted various raptor related
projects which included nesting surveys,
tracking winter raptors and migration work.
He arrived in Duluth in 1991 to count
raptors and to witness the invasion of the
Northern Goshawk and he conducted the count
until 2005. After moving to Duluth
permanently in the fall of 1996, he
conducted the first spring count of raptors
migrating north in Minnesota along the West
Skyline Parkway of Duluth. Frank continues
to study raptors and has been concentrating
on boreal forest owls and managing raptor
banding sites. He has published a number of
papers on birds and has helped with many
authors working on books and articles.
He lives just north of Duluth with his wife,
Kate and dog Chester. Frank’s excited to
take on the fall
migration as our new director of banding.
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Although Karl
Bardon has
traveled around the country doing various
field projects with birds, his favorite jobs
are those spent counting birds. The road to Hawk Ridge has included
such diverse projects as radio-tracking
eiders in the Arctic, studying trans-Gulf
migration from an oil-platform off
Louisiana, and nest searching for Tapaculos
in the temperate rainforests of Chile. When
it comes to counting birds, Karl’s specialty
has been waterbirds, having spent many
seasons as the waterbird counter at
Whitefish Point, Michigan, and Cape May, New
Jersey. But
after witnessing the awesome migration
through Veracruz, Mexico as an official hawk
counter in 2006, he has decided
raptors are pretty
cool, too.
Karl is back for his fourth season as a
raptor counter and also the passerine
counter! |
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Cory Ritter |
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Chris Neri |
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Nova Mackentley |
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Debbie Waters grew up near Marquette in
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She first became
enamored with birds while studying
ornithology at Northern Michigan University,
from which she received her B.S. in Ecology
in 1996. Debbie has worked on many avian
research projects: banding woodcock,
surveying loons, wetland bird surveys,
passerine surveys, raptor surveys and both
passerine and raptor nest monitoring, as
well as studying deer populations and
amphibians. She received her M.Ed. in
Environmental Education from the University
of Minnesota Duluth. Debbie
began her career as the Hawk Ridge
naturalist in the 2001 season, became the
education director in 2005, and continues to
enjoy sharing her passion for birds with
visitors. |
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218.348.2291
joconnor@hawkridge.org |
Julie O'Connor
is a Duluth original! Her family moved
to Alaska when she was young, where her dad
first introduced her to birds of prey--an
injured owl was dropped off at their house,
and he rehabilitated it (it was the 70's!).
After moving back to Minnesota, a few years
of "life on the farm" exposed her to
Minnesota's abundant ecosystem. Julie
spent ten years in
restaurant management before deciding to
return to the University of Minnesota
Duluth, where she earned her B.S.
in Outdoor Recreation and Environmental
Education. Her re-introduction to Hawk
Ridge as an adult occurred in 2001 while
attending a spring banding program with Dave
Grosshuesch and volunteering at the Main
Overlook that same fall. In 2002 she became
the volunteer coordinator and has been
leading the success of the volunteer program
ever since. |
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Gail Johnejack grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. She has
lived and worked in Utah, California,
Arkansas, Alaska, and Minnesota. Her love of
nature began early, during
family backpacking trips across the western
United States and from her mother’s passion
for environmental education with
children. Gail began her nature work as a
camper with the Youth Conservation Corps,
following up as a counselor a few years
later. She worked for the Forest Service for
13 years as a hydrologist and botanist.
After a break for two children, she
taught pre-school at a nature center. It was
there that she recognized the same fit her
mother had discovered years before:
sharing love of nature with others.
She recently earned her Post-Graduate
Certificate in Environmental Education at
the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Working with raptors and people at
Hawk Ridge is, for Gail, “Livin’ the Dream.” |
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Sarah Glesner
has lived in Duluth her entire life, most of
that time spent looking up at Hawk Ridge.
Her love of the outdoors and of birds began
at an early age when her mother would take
her outside to watch kettles of hawks over
their home. This love of animals transformed
into a desire to educate. As a result, Sarah
spent two years volunteering at
the Lake Superior Zoo as a docent,
then working as the Junior Docent Coordinator
and now as their Volunteer Coordinator.
During her time at the zoo, she was able to
handle some wonderful little birds. After
staring into their beady little eyes, she
decided it was true love! This is Sarah's
fourth year up at the ridge as
staff; she was a
count
interpreter in 2007,
became a
naturalist in 2008 and she is thrilled to be part
of the team as a
naturalist/count interpreter again this
fall. |
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Tessa Enroth is originally
from White Bear Lake, MN. She graduated from
the University of Minnesota Duluth with a
degree in Environmental Science. Last season
Tessa volunteered at Hawk Ridge. Since then
she has worked at the Minnesota Wildlife
Rehabilitation Center in the avian and
waterfowl nurseries as well as with the
Farthest North Girl Scout Council in Alaska
as an environmental educator. |
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Jenni Poliseno
grew up in the Twin Cities
and has lived on the North Shore now for
about two
years. She is currently a graduate student
in Environmental Education at
the University of
Minnesota Duluth. Her first memorable
bird experience was when she was
three years old
and was attacked
by a Blue Jay as she was helping its chick
cross the road.
Ever since then she has been fascinated with
birds. This is her
first season as a naturalist
at Hawk Ridge and is super excited!
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Margie Menzies:
One part educator, one part naturalist, and
two parts bird nerd! Who says slow and
steady wins the race? After years in the
formal classroom, this educator has once
again abandoned the indoors to return to the
great outdoor classroom. Loves birds, loves
learning, loves sharing the natural world
with people of all ages. It may not be a
recipe to get rich, but it provides many
colorful and meaningful experiences with
every day on the job. Thanks for the
opportunity to apply my skills at Hawk Ridge
this fall. |
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Erik Bruhnke grew up in
Waukehsa, WI, and has been enthusiastic
about nature and the environment ever since
he was a young boy. In 2008 he graduated
from Northland College in Ashland, WI with a
B.S. in Natural Resources and Biology. Erik
teacher-assisted field ornithology twice and
ornithology once, then he
was privileged to teach his own field
ornithology course. He also received the
‘Volunteer of the Year Award’ from the
Ashland Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Office for conducting weekly migratory
waterfowl surveys throughout his college
career. Erik has
worked on various projects, including
surveys in Pictured Rocks National
Lakeshore (Upper Michigan)
and the Chequemagon/Nicolet,
Superior, and Chippewa National Forests,
surveying the shortgrass prairies for
breeding birds and
monitoring the populations of Greater
Prairie Chickens & Sharp-tailed Grouse in
North Dakota. Erik spent this past summer
working in the mountains of western Oregon
conducting cavity
nest surveys. This
fall season is his third year as a count
interpreter at Hawk Ridge, and
he is
fantastically thrilled to teach visitors all
about raptors and migration! |
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Beth Miller grew up in
Duluth about two miles from the Ridge as the
hawk flies, or about three miles as the bike
rides. She has visited Hawk Ridge since
about 1973, riding over on bikes with
friends during junior and senior high
school. (Never skipping class to do this, of
course.) Inspired by the "old" John Denver
song "The Eagle and The Hawk," she caught
the raptor bug in the early 1970's as a
result of these early visits to the Ridge.
She has been passionate (or obsessed) about
raptors ever since.
Beth has volunteered at the Ridge since the
volunteer program began in 2002, and joined
the staff in 2006. She got her B.A.S. in
Education from UMD too many years ago to
mention, and her M.Ed in Educational
Media/Technology from St. Scholastica in
1993. She moonlights as a fourth grade
science teacher in one of Duluth's public
schools, teaching science to fourth graders
for the last 16 years. She teaches her
students that migrating hawks are a
perfectly good reason to drop everything,
grab some binoculars and got outside to
check out the flight. Students have been
known to summon her from her from the
teachers' lounge if they spot a good hawk
flight during lunch recess, because spotting
a good hawk flight is worth extra credit in
science. |
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Gretchen McDaniel was
raised in the Detroit, MI area and went to
school at Michigan State University in E.
Lansing, MI. She
became a veterinary technician and worked in
a local clinic for a year and then at the
Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Michigan
State for eighteen years.
Gretchen also received a BS in
horticulture and completed massage therapy
program while working at MSU.
After moving to Duluth in 2003,
she became a Hawk
Ridge volunteer and quickly became "hooked"
on birds and the people of HRBO. In 2010
Gretchen completed
the Minnesota Master Naturalist Northwoods
course to facilitate her
other volunteer interests. As a substitute
naturalist, she
looks forward to
the experience of
learning more about raptors and their
migration so she
can share it with
the public. |
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Katie Borg |
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Jessamy Schwartz grew up in
Maple Grove, MN
and began her love of the outdoors through climbing
trees in the nearby county park and
attending youth naturalist programs at Eastman
Nature Center. Her addiction to birds really
took off as an intern at The Raptor Center.
Thinking that she would never get that
amazing opportunity with
raptors again, she went head first
into the world of Environmental Education
and ended up working with raptors at
Carpenter Nature Center, Wolf Ridge
Environmental Learning Center, and most
recently the Vermont Institute of Natural
Science. Thus she learned the valuable
lesson "never say never." Six years ago, she
visited Hawk Ridge during Hawk Weekend and
it was rainy and cold and very few birds.
Despite the weather, she never forgot the
dedicated and passionate people that worked
at and visited the Ridge. As a graduate
student in Environmental Education at the
University of Minnesota Duluth, Jessamy
decided there was no better way to spend a
day than up at Hawk Ridge surrounded by
raptors and bird enthusiasts. |
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Lizzy Schnabel grew up in Lino Lakes,
MN. She is finishing her senior year at UMD
majoring in biology, and plans to attend
veterinary school after she graduates. Lizzy
first became interested in birds when her
dad taught her how to identify Red-tailed
hawks when she was five. In addition to
volunteering at Hawk Ridge, Lizzy spent a
summer working at the National Eagle Center
in Wabasha and has volunteered with other
banding projects in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Her favorite bird of prey is the Osprey. |
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Kaitlin Erpestad:
Hawk Ridge has been one of my haunts ever
since I was a little girl. I grew up in
Duluth running and biking through the area
and enjoying the view. Now, it's a pleasure
to be up at the overlook in a different
context learning and enjoying the birds
together with the birding community. After
college at St. Olaf I spent
three years living
and teaching in Finland, Europe. In 2006 I
moved to Finland, MN, to teach, learn, and
play at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning
Center with my husband, Matti. Some of the
learning opportunities included bird banding
and identification and how to handle the
education raptors. I jump at any chance to
handle and learn about birds, little and
big, and to be out in the fresh air learning
and teaching. |
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Matti Erpestad:
Looking towards Lake
Superior from the
overlook at Hawk
Ridge I see Lakeside School, where I spent
my childhood
playing endlessly on the playground. After
high school in Duluth I ended up in Saint
Paul at Macalester College studying Hispanic
Studies and Political Science, but during my
summers I worked in the North Woods leading
canoe trips in the Boundary Waters. After
college, my home moved further north and
much further east to Joensuu in North
Karelia, Finland. Throughout those four
years I acquainted myself with the woods
studying plants, animals, rocks, stars,
mushrooms, and Finnish wilderness skills and
ways of hiking and camping at an outdoor
school. In 2009 I moved from Finland to
Finland, MN with my wife Kaitlin to
reacquaint myself with my
new home with two years as a
naturalist at Wolf
Ridge Environmental Learning Center. There I
worked with education raptors and fell in
love with bird banding. I am now returning
to Duluth after ten years to complete the
Master of Environmental Education at
the University of
Minnesota Duluth, and you will surely
find me at the overlook
sharing my love of birds both large and
small with whoever comes to listen. |
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