Understory Initiative Board of Directors
Kevin Talbert
Board Chair
Kevin Talbert is an active volunteer in many community and conservation organizations. He is currently Board member and past president of the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy as well as a board member of the Crater Lake Natural History Association and the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. Kevin enjoys hiking, rafting, camping, birding and reading.
Tom Doolittle
Board Treasurer
Tom Doolittle is a retired IT Manager who is dedicating some of his time to worthwhile environmental and socially beneficial organizations as well as running a small 6 acre hay farm and a 40 acre forest/riparian protection project.
Molly Morison
Board Member
Molly served for 25 years as the Preserve Manager for The Nature Conservancy’s SW Oregon field office where she stewarded TNC’s conserved lands, coordinated volunteers, led education programs and cultivated diverse partnerships. Previous work included 9 years as a District Botanist on the Mt. Hood NF. With her business partner she produces vibrant wines from their 4-acre certified biodynamic vineyard (Upper Five Winery) in Talent. Molly has held leadership roles with Southern Oregon Land Conservancy and collaborated with many conservation organizations throughout southern Oregon.
Kathy Kentta-Robinson
Board Member
Kathy currently is the Project Coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, (CTSI) Healthy Traditions program. She is an enrolled member of CTSI and serves her community as an educator, culture bearer, promotes healthy lifeways, leading native plant restoration and enhancement projects on tribal lands, and harvesting traditional foods and medicines. Her family made it a social family activity to gather roots, berries, as well as harvest Clams, Mussels, Dungeness crab, and fish the Siletz River. Healthy Traditions activities reinforce our connection to the land, rivers and sea. Kathy directed the development of curriculum for 6th grade students in a partnership with The Institute for Applied Ecology. The workbooks “Estuaries Ecology Curriculum” and “Wetlands Ecology Curriculum” are available as free downloads from the Institute for Applied Ecology website, or CTSI website.
Kathryn Prive
Executive Director & Board Secretary
Kathryn grew up in Minnesota but has called the west coast home since 2003. She has a M.S. in population genetics and ecological restoration from Oregon State University and a B.S in Environmental Science from the University of Oregon. Kathryn has expertise in partnership coordination, population genetics, ecological restoration and botany. She is passionate about native plant community restoration and seed production.
Kathryn is a founding member and previous board chair of The Understory Initiative. Her role as executive director at The Understory Initiative is to guide program development and foster greater support for herbaceous plant community restoration in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
John Villella
Board Member
John has had a lifelong fascination with nature and has spent the last two decades studying and documenting the biodiversity of the Pacific Northwest as an environmental educator and an ecological consultant specializing in rare species. He is especially interested in plants and their invertebrate pollinators.
John has served on the board of directors for several non-profits including the Northwest Scientific Association and the Northwest Lichenologists. He is a founding member of the Biodiversity Research Collective, a non-profit research institute dedicated to biodiversity studies. John has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers and was recently awarded the Letharia Award by the California Lichen Society for his years of service as Editor of the CALS Bulletin. He also regularly leads natural history related hikes and workshops in southwest Oregon and the broader Pacific Northwest.
Jason Clark
Board Member
Jason Clark has over twenty years of experience as a professional field botanist, plant ecologist, and wetland scientist in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. His expertise includes vascular and non-vascular plant and fungi surveys, plant community mapping, ecological restoration design, and ecological monitoring. As a company manager for Siskiyou BioSurvey, a Southern Oregon ecological consulting company, Jason provides leadership for project logistics, coordinates field crews, manages and processes data, and coordinates client communications. He is also active in municipal government in Talent, Oregon, having served on the City Council from 2019 to 2024 and presently serving on the Planning Commission and the Urban Forestry Committee.