About the Speakers

Governor Dave Freudenthal
Dave Freudenthal took office as Wyoming's thirty-first Governor on January 6, 2003. He was born in Thermopolis on October 12, 1950, the seventh of eight children, and grew up on the family farm north of town. To help pay for college, he worked construction during the summer. His jobs included working rigs and building tanks. After graduating from Amherst College in 1973, Freudenthal returned to Wyoming to take a position as an economist for the Wyoming Department of Economic Planning and Development. Governor Ed Herschler appointed him State Planning Coordinator in 1975. While working for the state, Freudenthal simultaneously earned a law degree from the University of Wyoming. After graduating from law school, he opened his own law office in Cheyenne in 1980; this office grew into a general practice firm that represented individuals and businesses. In 1994, he was appointed United States Attorney for Wyoming, a position that he held until May 2001.

Governor Glendening
Governors' Institute on Community Design
Parris N. Glendening is President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute. As Governor of Maryland (1995-2003), he led the creation of a groundbreaking smart growth initiative that focused on using the entire $23 billion state budget as an incentive for promoting smart growth at the local and county level. In addition, he prioritized open space preservation. During his term, 400,000 acres of land were protected, about one-third of all land ever preserved in Maryland. In addition, Governor Glendening led the way in re-engineering the historical preservation tax credit, leading to over $200 million in private investment and making the tax credit one of the state's most successful community revitalization tools. Before becoming Governor, Parris N. Glendening was a local elected official for more than 20 years.

Senator John Barrasso
U.S. Senator
After decades of service to the people of Wyoming as a physician and community leader, John Barrasso was sworn in to the United States Senate on June 25, 2007, by Vice President Dick Cheney. In the U.S. Senate, Barrasso serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Indian Affairs Committee. His Energy Committee subcommittee assignments are National Parks, Public Lands and Forest, and Water and Power. He is also the ranking member on the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee, as well as on the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health. These assignments give Senator Barrasso influence over the energy and public lands interests important to Wyoming's economy. Since being sworn in last June, Senator Barrasso has conducted 36 town meetings.

Bob Budd
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust
Before becoming the first Executive Director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, Budd was manager of Red Canyon Ranch, and Director of Land Management for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming for 12 years. In his work at The Nature Conservancy, Budd was credited with developing and maintaining large-scale ecological processes, while maintaining economic production on a working cattle ranch. Prior to that time, Budd spent 15 years with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, 10 as Executive Director. Bob has a Master of Science degree in Range Management, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Agricultural Business and Animal Science, all from the University of Wyoming. He is also trained in Holistic Resource Management, and is a Certified Professional in Rangeland Management. He is a past president of the International Society for Range Management, and has worked in North America, China and Africa to resolve natural resource issues. He has facilitated development of management plans for the Big Sandy River, sage grouse and Bighorn sheep in Wyoming.

Kent Connelly
Chairman, Lincoln County Commission
President, Wyoming County Commissioners' Association
Kent Connelly is Chairman of the Lincoln County Commission and is in the third year of his first term as a County Commissioner. He is President of the Wyoming County Commissioners' Association and is Chairman of the Coalition of Local Governments in a six-county area of southwestern Wyoming. Prior to becoming a commissioner, Mr. Connelly worked for 27 years for the FMC/Astaris Corporation, including 20 years in open-pit coal mining as an operator and supervisor, and seven years as a Maintenance Supervisor and Manager of a former coke plant outside Kemmerer. His has been a member of the Lincoln County Search and Rescue for 26 years, seven as Commander, and has served on the Governor's Council for Search and Rescue for the last nine years. He has been married to his wife, Kathy, for 33 years and has three children and seven grandchildren.

Senator Stan Cooper
Wyoming State Senator, Kemmerer
Stan Cooper is the Wyoming State Senator for Senate District #14. He is a member of the Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Committee; the Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee; and the Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee. He was elected to the Senate after being a member of the Wyoming State House of Representatives from 2003-2004. In addition to serving on the Upper Green River Basin Joint Powers Board, Senator Cooper is past president of the Southern Lincoln County Economic Development Corporation and served two terms as a Lincoln County Commissioner and two terms as Kemmerer City Councilman.

Robert Grow
Robert J. Grow, Founding Chair Emeritus, Envision Utah
Robert Grow holds degrees in engineering and law and has had a diverse career, including practicing law, being president of a large manufacturing company, chairing a national trade association, and being recognized as Utah's Entrepreneur of the Year. Mr. Grow is Founding Chair Emeritus of Envision Utah, a private/public quality growth partnership founded in 1997. Envision Utah is widely recognized as one of the country's most successful public involvement efforts for the development of a broad-based, long-term growth strategy for a major metropolitan area. As a model for regional visioning efforts nationwide, Envision Utah has been recognized with the Urban Land Institute's Award for Excellence, the Alliance for Regional Stewardship's Gold Recognition Award, and the American Planning Association's Daniel Burnham Award. For his role in helping shape the strategy for the Salt Lake region's future transportation system, Mr. Grow received the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) Distinguished Service Award in October 2003.

Ellen Hanak
Senior Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California
Ellen Hanak is a senior fellow and associate director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California. Her career has focused on the economics of natural resource management and agricultural development. At PPIC, she has launched a research program on water policy in California and other western states, publishing articles and reports on topics such as water marketing, water and land use planning, water conservation, and the challenge of balancing water supply and environmental needs. She has also investigated infrastructure planning and financing issues. Before moving to California in 2001, she held policy research positions with the French national agricultural research system, the President's Council of Economic Advisers, the World Bank and the Brookings Institution. She holds a B.A. in history from Swarthmore College, an M.A. in economics from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland.

Ryan Lance
Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the Governor
After graduating from the University of Wyoming (B.S. 1998, J.D. 2001), Ryan Lance practiced law in his hometown of Thermopolis. He then joined the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, where he served as the Tobacco Settlement Attorney for the state. In 2003, he joined the Governor's Office and worked as the state's Endangered Species Act Policy Coordinator. He was later appointed to serve as the Governor's Deputy Chief of Staff until he was asked to work as the Campaign Coordinator for the Governor's 2006 re-election campaign. After the campaign, Ryan re-joined the Governor's Office as Deputy Chief of Staff, where he currently oversees the State Planning Office and works primarily on natural resource policy issues.

Anne MacKinnon
Member, Wyoming Water Development Commission
Adjunct Professor, University of Wyoming, Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources
With an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Anne came to Wyoming in 1979 as an energy business reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, where she was a joint runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service in 1985 for coverage of natural gas consumer pricing issues in Wyoming. She became editor in chief of the paper in 1990 and left the paper in 1995. She is now a consultant in Casper in public discussion of natural resource issues. She was a visiting scholar at Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in 2005, and has published articles on Wyoming water law and policy in the Wyoming Law Review. For UW/SENR and UW/Casper College Center in fall 07, she organized the public lecture series Delicate Networks: Wyoming's Land and Water and the Decisions Demanded by Growth, along with a UW class in Casper on the same topic. (See www.uwyo.edu/uwcc/delicate.asp) She is one of the Division I commissioners on the Wyoming Water Development Commission, appointed by Governor Freudenthal in 2003 and reappointed in 2007.

Flip McConnaughey
Chief of Staff, U.S. Senator Mike Enzi
Flip McConnaughey has served as Senator Mike Enzi's Chief of Staff since 1997. Prior to joining Senator Enzi, Flip worked for 15 years as the City Manager for Laramie and for five years as the City Administrator for Gillette. Before holding these positions in Gillette and Laramie, he worked as Assistant City Manager in Casper. Flip has also served on the Board of Directors of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities and as Vice President of the International City Management Association. He holds both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Wyoming.

Terry Moore
Vice President, ECONorthwest
Terry Moore, FAICP, has been a vice president and senior planner at ECONorthwest in Portland since 1979. He has managed over 400 projects in land-use and transportation planning, policy analysis, and market analysis for private and public clients. His recent projects have focused on growth management, the interaction between land-use and transportation policies, and strategic planning for public facilities and services. Moore is an adjunct professor in the Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management at the University of Oregon, where he has taught for over 20 years. He was a Fulbright Scholar on natural-resource management and urban planning in Peru from 1986 to 1987 and in 2001 he was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. In 2007 he was a visiting scholar at the National Center for Smart Growth. He is the principal author of two books published by the American Planning Association Press: An Economic Development Toolbox (2006) and a second edition of The Transportation/Land Use Connection (2007).

Walter Nolte, Ph.D.
President, Casper College
Dr. Walter Nolte joined the Casper College staff in July, becoming the seventh chief executive officer in the 58-year history of the school. He comes to Casper from Trenton, Missouri, where he served as president of North Central Missouri College. Prior to that, Dr. Nolte was vice president/dean of instruction and student services at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. Dr. Nolte began his teaching and administrative career at Tacoma Community College in Washington, where he was a dean of continuing education and history teacher. He has a degree from Tacoma Community College and later completed his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Puget Sound, and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.

Luther Propst
Executive Director, Sonoran Institute
Luther Propst co-founded and directs the Sonoran Institute. The Sonoran Institute's mission is to inspire and enable community decisions and public policies that respect the land and people of the West. The Institute has offices in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona; Grand Junction, Colorado; Mexicali, Baja California; Bozeman and Helena, Montana and a new office in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Sonoran Institute works throughout the West assisting cities and counties to better manage growth, promoting policies to improve the management of state trust lands, and integrating conservation into land development. Propst received his law degree and master's in regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has co-authored three books, including Creating Successful Communities and Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities, published by Island Press, and frequently speaks and writes on Western conservation, growth management, economic development, and state trust lands.

Mike Purcell
Director, Wyoming Water Development Commission
Mike Purcell directed the Wyoming Water Development Commission from 1983 to 1996 and served former Governors Ed Herschler, Mike Sullivan and Jim Geringer. In 1996, he started his own consulting firm, Purcell Consulting, specializing in water resource management, environmental permitting, government liaison work and dispute resolution. Purcell Consulting assisted the state of Wyoming in the negotiations related to the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program. At Governor Freudenthal's request, Purcell returned to serve as Director of the Wyoming Water Development Commission in 2007. Purcell holds a double B.S. degree in business and civil engineering from the University of Wyoming. He is a Vietnam veteran.

Ron Surdam
Wyoming State Geologist
Ron Surdam is currently Commissioner of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and State Geologist/Director of the Wyoming State Geological Survey, which is responsible for promoting the beneficial and environmentally sound use of Wyoming's vast geologic, mineral and energy resources while helping protect the public from geologic hazards. Ron and co-authors have published over 200 articles in scientific journals and books, and he has presented at over 200 lectures across the world. In 32 years at the University of Wyoming, he has raised $32 million in research support. Ron is a past member of the Environmental Quality Council (1975-83), the Governor's Task Force on Land Use and Environmental Impact of Coal Development (1977), the Wyoming Water Quality Board (1987), and past Chairman of both the Technology and Energy Authority (1996-97) and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Permitting Task Force (2004).