Meryl has a varied background in natural resource management, outdoor alternative education and veterinary medicine. Growing up in Detroit, she fell in love with the untouched acres of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She attended Northern Michigan University, earning a bachelor’s degree in outdoor recreation leadership and management, with the skills to connect people to the environment that surrounds them. After graduation, she moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota to work as a veterinary technician. Impressed with the green spaces afforded by the Twin Cities metro area, Meryl interned with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota, combining her love of animals, wildlife management and public health. Traveling to the Dakotas and Montana has reinforced Meryl’s desire to educate others about the conservation of these wild lands. Meryl will be starting veterinary school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the fall of 2014. Upon graduation, she hopes to pursue a career with a mixed animal practice or in public health.
Team: Board of Directors
Paul Janda
Paul has a life-long interest prairie conservation and habitat restoration. He grew up on a small southeastern Nebraska farm that still has draws that have never been plowed. He has lived most of his life on Midwestern land that was historically prairie, with the exception of a few years spent in graduate school earning a Masters degree in trombone performance. Paul attends law school at the University of Colorado, where he has focused on Energy and Environmental Law. He is the Managing Editor of the Environmental Law Review, and has competed in several mock trial and moot court competitions, including the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition. Paul has also written about agriculture policy, and his paper arguing that federal crop insurance policy should consider the predicted effects of climate change will be published in the fall of 2014. Paul has worked as an intern at the Department of Energy in Golden, CO, the Byron R. White Center for the study of American Constitutional Law, the Boulder County Courts, and the Denver District Attorney’s Office appellate and county court divisions. After graduation, Paul hopes to work as a trial attorney in Colorado.
Harmon Zuckerman
Harmon is a CPI Board member with a background in city, regional, and environmental planning. In the last ten years, he directed the update of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s regional plan and served as the head planner for Douglas County, Nevada, updating the county’s master and open space plan documents while also drafting numerous ordinances that preserve ranchland while increasing the economic vitality and enhancing the built environment of the Carson Valley’s small towns. Harmon and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado in 2012 so that Harmon could attend law school at the University of Colorado. He has interned for a Federal District Court judge, is an editor of the Environmental Law Review, and currently works as a law clerk for a midsize law firm in Boulder. He intends to specialize in land use, environmental, and public interest law after graduation.
Trevor Pellerite
Trevor is the founder and President of the Colorado Prairie Initiative. After earning a writing degree at Northern Michigan University, he moved to Montana where he worked as a hunting guide in the plains of northeastern Montana. While chasing mule deer and antelope through the sage, Trevor fell in love with the expansive grasslands of the American heartland, and eventually decided to pursue a career in public land law. While at the University of Colorado, Trevor has participated in environmental student groups and serves as the Executive Editor of the Environmental Law Review, for which he wrote an article about the role of private conservation efforts in prairie restoration. He has worked for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as well as a private law firm. After graduating, Trevor hopes to continue to pursue a career in public lands and natural resources law.