Advisors Emeritii
Sherwood Shankland, 2024
Sherwood, American, is an independent facilitator based in Centennial, Colorado, with thirty years of experience in strategic and operational planning, and group facilitation methods training. He was an international staff member of the Institute of Cultural Affairs responsible for integrated rural development projects for 10 years in Indonesia and Jamaica. Sherwood is a founding member of the ToP Network of Trainers and Facilitators and is a certified mentor trainer licensed by ICA-USA in the Technology of Participation (ToP®). He is also a founding member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF).
For the past fifteen years, Sherwood has worked extensively with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome and worldwide. He has led strategy sessions and priority setting retreats with FAO departments, along with multi-stakeholder meetings from 25 to 250 participants. He has also trained over 500 FAO staff in group facilitation methods, to support productive meetings at all levels of the Organization. In the past three years, Sherwood has facilitated planning retreats for RESULTS – at Microcredit Summits in the Philippines, Mexico and UAE. These global summits have developed formal commitments from microfinance organizations to build pathways out of poverty, emphasizing multi-sector partnerships with links to health and education.
DR. ALISON ORMSBY, 2023
Alison,
American, works for Adventure Scientists as a Forest Specialist. She is
a human ecologist with over 30 years of experience working with people
and protected areas, environmental education, and sacred natural sites.
She has conducted research at sacred forests in Ghana, India, and Sierra
Leone. She is a member of the IUCN’s Specialist Group for Cultural and
Spiritual Values of Protected Areas. Alison has numerous publications
about her work, including in the books Asian Sacred Natural Sites,
Philosophy and Practice in Protected Areas and Conservation (2016),
Sacred Species and Sites: Advances in Biocultural Conservation (2012),
Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture (2010), and Greening
the Great Red Island: Madagascar in Nature and Culture (2008).
DR. STEPHEN MCCOOL, 2021
Steve, American, is professor emeritus at the University of Montana. His work over the last 40 years has emphasized interaction of people and natural resources, particularly with respect to managing visitors in national parks and wilderness, developing new ways of thinking about natural resource planning, and strengthening approaches to public engagement in planning processes. Steve graduated from the University of Idaho with a Bachelor’s degree in Forest Resource Management and continued on with his studies at the University of Minnesota receiving a Ph.D. in 1970. Since 1977, Steve has been on the faculty of the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, following appointments at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and Utah State University. Steve has also served in several research and development positions with the U.S. Forest Service as well some short appointments in National Forest Systems. Steve holds an extensive publication record with numerous refereed journal articles, several edited books, as well as the co-authored and popular UN World Tourism Organization & World Conservation Union (IUCN) Best Practices Guidelines Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: Guidelines for Planning and Management. He recently published an edited volume, Reframing Sustainable Tourism (Environmental Challenges and Solutions)
with Keith Bosak (2015) as well as the The Future Has Other Plans: Planning Holistically to Conserve Natural and Cultural Heritage
with Jon Kohl (2016).
Dr. Sam Ham, 2021
For over 30 years Sam, American, has been the leading scholar in heritage interpretation, integrating the fields of communications, psychology, and interpretation into what we now know today as thematic interpretation, popularized by his classic book, Environmental Interpretation, first published in 1992. The sequel, Interpretation — Making a Difference on Purpose came out in 2013. Ham is professor emeritus at the University of Idaho and works and consults throughout the world promoting interpretation and its application to protected area management.
