Board

ELAINE CATON

Elaine is the Education Coordinator and Trumpeter Swan Program Coordinator for the Blackfoot Challenge. She moved from her family’s ranch in Missouri to attend the University of Montana after high school, and could never bring herself to leave Montana. She spent ten years as a biologist in Glacier National Park and studying birds in the Everglades and Central America. Later, a postdoc in science education helped her combine her interests in conservation, science, and how people learn to help her share her own love of learning and teaching about the natural world. She enjoys nothing more than seeing people of all ages discover new things about the world around them. She feels herself so fortunate to live in the beautiful Blackfoot valley near Ovando, with her husband and two daughters, where they ski, hike, ride horses, float the rivers, and explore western Montana.

JENNI CHAFFIN

Jenni grew up along the banks of the Snake River in Southern Idaho and developed a love for rivers, mountains, and wildlife at an early age. After graduating from University of Idaho, Jenni started working at NRS and has been with the company for 16 years. When not managing inventory of rafts and PFDs at NRS, Jenni can be found behind the lens of her camera documenting everything from bird life on the Clark Fork, to multi-day river trips on western rivers. Jenni is also a founding and current board member of The Redside Foundation, an Idaho nonprofit supporting the health and strength of the outdoor guiding community. Redside provides seasonal guides with access to confidential mental healthcare, educational scholarships, professional training grants and community building programs. Jenni and her husband Brian live in Missoula, chasing the seasons in western MT through a mix of birdwatching, rafting, hiking, and camping, occasionally accompanied by their Alaskan malamutes and adventurous cats.

TIM FLYNN

Tim is a fifth generation Montanan. His family has lived primarily in the southwestern part of the state. The past three years spent as a fishing guide have enabled him to spend countless hours in direct touch with the environment that we Montanans hold dear. Always an advocate for plentiful clean water and healthy communities, Tim finds his current profession allows him to engage an ever-changing audience on the importance of the Clark Fork Coalition and its mission. Tim and his family are proud to support our public lands and waterways, and the various organizations that help to improve and maintain them. An opportunity to come back and work with a truly professional and passionate staff to set policy and raise money for the river is a challenge he will enjoy. The rivers and corridor communities all need planning and thoughtful co-existence. Tim believes the CFC has always helped educate and guide communities in a way that helps achieve clean, plentiful water and healthy communities. Tim looks forward to helping advance that mission for another term on the board.

JENNIFER HARRINGTON

Jennifer Harrington is a daughter, a niece, a sister, a cousin, and a mother and she is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Jennifer grew up on Missoula’s Northside, spending most of her life in and around the Missoula valley, attending school at Whittier, Hellgate, and the University of Montana. In January of 2021, Jennifer successfully defended her master’s Thesis: “Tribal Consultation policy and practice: A case study of the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes and nmisuletkʷ (the Middle Fork of the Clark Fork River) as a Tribal Trust Resource.”  She is the Director of the Native American Natural Resource Program in the Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. She is a member of the Missoula County Water Quality Advisory Council, All Nations Health Center Board of Directors, Missoula Youth Homes Culture Council, and the Frenchtown Community Advisory Group. Jen knows the Clark Fork River as a relative and would like to work toward protective policy that will give the river the same legal rights as the humans who depend upon her.

CODY HARRIS

Cody is the co-founder and lead instructor of the Whitewater Rescue Institute, which provides training in swiftwater rescue and outdoor technical rescue throughout the United States and internationally. Cody also manages Montana River Guides, a whitewater rafting company based out of Missoula, and has worked as a wilderness EMT and a professional ski patroller. Cody began his life on rivers kayaking in Durango, Colorado. For the past two decades, he has worked and played on as many different rivers as possible. He is a past member of the U.S. Canoe and Kayak Olympic Development Team, and has paddled and rowed on three continents. When not on the water professionally, Cody is busy getting his three kids out on the river and in the mountains as much as possible. 

KATELYN HEPBURN

Katelyn is an attorney for a multinational computer software company and is based in Missoula. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest where she developed a love for recreating in the mountains, along the coast, and on the rivers in between. She studied wildlife biology, environmental science, and sustainability in Montana, Oregon, and Ireland. While obtaining her undergraduate degree, she spent her springs and summers exploring and guiding river trips in Montana, Idaho, Southern Oregon, and Northern California. She graduated from University of Montana School of Law with a certificate in Environmental Law and now practices in a variety of legal areas with an emphasis in water and natural resources. Katelyn also serves on the Board of Directors of the Wild Rockies Field Institute, an experiential outdoor education institute based in Missoula. She is on the advisory board of the Freeflow Institute, a place-based outdoor education collaborative offering seminars, workshops, and adventures for writers, law students, legal professionals, journalists, and more. When not at the office, she can be found floating rivers, running trails, or skiing slopes with her husband Jim, their daughter Marion, and their two dogs, Sawyer and Bonnie.

JOHN MILLER

John Miller is a family physician at Western Montana Clinic in Missoula. John grew up in Moab, Utah and Wallace, Idaho where he spent time splashing in streams and floating on rivers. Growing up in mining towns, he has been aware of the health impact of environmental degradation from an early age. His mother worked as a social worker, legislator and project manager on Superfund stream and soil restoration projects in the Silver Valley in northern Idaho. In college, John studied sociology and completed a masters in public health. After his medical residency, he worked with the Indian Health Service in Zuni, New Mexico. He and his wife, physician Nerissa Koehn, then moved to Missoula in 2011 to help start the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana sponsored by the University of Montana. John is an avid rafter, and has completed at least one multi-day rafting trip every year for the past twenty years on multiple rivers throughout the west. He supports the Clark Fork Coalition’s important work by providing medical and public health perspectives to board discussions and projects.

Caryn for board pageCARYN MISKE 

Caryn Miske currently serves as the Executive Director for Watershed Protection Advocates (WPA) of Northwest Montana. She also in the principal of CM Consulting, which provides natural resources management services to a range of governmental clients.  Prior to her work with WPA, Miske served for 12 years as the Executive Director of the Flathead Basin Commission (FBC), a state agency statutorily charged with protecting the headwaters of the Columbia Basin. Miske obtained her law degree from the University of Montana in 2001 and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University in 1993.

WENDY MORRIS – Treasurer

Wendy is a practicing anesthesiologist in Missoula, Montana for the past 14 years. She is also a rancher and co-owns Oxbow Cattle Company with her husband Bart. Having grown up on a ranch and now ranching in Miller Creek, Wendy has a deep appreciation of the value of water resources for agriculture. As a fly-fisherman with a sincere respect for nature and ecosystems, she also understands the need to balance the multiple values and uses of our water. In her free time, Wendy enjoys fresh and saltwater fly-fishing, riding horses, roping, packing, reading and bird hunting.

TOM PARKER

is President of Geum Environmental Consulting, Inc. in Hamilton, Montana. He came to Missoula after high school in Connecticut, never having been to Montana but convinced it was the right place for him based on time spent staring at maps. Tom graduated from The University of Montana with a degree in Forestry, and returned after a few years of running a wilderness stewardship program in New York’s Adirondacks to complete a Master of Science degree. Tom’s interests have paralleled those of CFC and its staff, including collaborating on the Bitterroot Subbasin Plan, and working as part of restoration design teams for Milltown Dam removal and Upper Clark Fork cleanup. Tom spends his spare time gardening, training for long mountain bike races, and generally enjoying Montana with his wife and two children.

ANDY PUCKETT

Andy is an orthopedic hand surgeon who has called Missoula home for nearly 20 years. He and his wife have raised two young men floating the rivers of Montana, teaching them to respect and care for their environs. Andy is a board member of RATPOD, a fundraising bike tour for Camp Make A Dream—a camp for children and young adults with cancer—as well as Missoula Medical Aid. He travels annually to provide orthopedic care to underserved Hondurans. A dedicated angler, Andy is frequently found knee deep in the Clark Fork River, or admiring it from a mountain bike trail vista.

JOELLEN SHANNON

Joellen Shannon is the Interim Head of School at Sussex School in Missoula. In her nine years at Sussex, Joellen has helped the school build capacity, refine messaging, and move through a global pandemic. Hailing from Philadelphia, Joellen was raised in a big family that loved being outside. Joellen left the east coast to earn her undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame and went on to obtain a Masters in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana in 2004. Joellen has dedicated her entire career to social and environmental impact work. In addition to education, her career has spanned work in affordable housing and community agriculture. When not at Sussex School, Joellen enjoys mountain biking, skiing, running, and paddleboarding in the great wilds of Montana with her husband and two sons.

BRENT TAYLOR

Brent Taylor is a Consumer Loan Officer and Branch Manager at First Security Bank here in Missoula. He didn’t have to travel too far to get here, being a born and bred Missoula native, then staying in Missoula to study at the U of M. He did, however, start his banking career in 2008 after relocating to Portland Oregon. It didn’t take long for him to start missing Montana so he was able to find his way home in the spring of 2011. Not long after that he was able to join First Security Bank, an organization that prides itself as a community involved organization. Which in turned inspired him to get involved with several non-profits including volunteering for Montana Special Olympics and serving for the last 5 years on the board of directors for Home ReSource. As a river enthusiast, Brent spends most of his free time around local rivers looking for fish or whitewater with his girlfriend Jess and their Springer Spaniel Norman. When the weather isn’t conducive to river running they spend their time hiking and XC skiing. Mainly just checking out the snowpack in anticipation of spring.