Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D. (he/him)
Executive Director
Home base: Eugene, OR
fire(at)efn.org
Timothy started his fire career as a wildland firefighter for both the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, and is now a certified senior wildland fire ecologist. He earned his Ph.D. in environmental sociology with a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from the University of Oregon where he is also an adjunct Instructor and Faculty Research Associate. He was named Oregon's Conservationist of the Year in 1993.
Emily Kostuch, B.A. (she/her)
Administrative Manager
Home Base: Eugene, OR
emily(at)fusee.org
Emily is originally from Wisconsin and has Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Gender & Women’s Studies as well as a Certificate in Paralegal Studies. She worked for several years in various mental health roles. She also serves as a Board Member of Walnut Street Co-op. Emily is passionate about a range of social justice issues, particularly gender and race equity, climate change, and food insecurity. When she’s not working, Emily enjoys reading, crafting, cooking, hiking, gardening, camping, traveling, and yoga.
Helena Virga, M.S., MNM (she/her)
Engagement Director
Home base: Eugene, OR
helena(at)fusee.org
Hailing from sunny Southern California, Helena now calls Oregon home and is a proud University of Oregon double duck. She graduated in 2023 with two graduate degrees in Nonprofit Management and Environmental Studies, with a focus in environmental advocacy, fire, and environmental education. Helena is passionate about supporting fledgling nonprofits in growing their internal capacity, facilitating environmental education and advocacy programs, and holistic community engagement. When she is not managing nonprofits, you can find her rock climbing, doing yoga, running rivers, or spinning fire.
Ryan Reed, B.S. (he/him)
FireGeneration Collaborative Program Director
Home Base: Somes Bar, CA
ryanrayme01(at)gmail.com
Ayukii everyone! Ryan is from the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok tribes in Northern California. In the Spring of 2022, Ryan received a Bachelor of Science Cum Laude in Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. He will be pursuing his Master’s in Forestry at UC Berkeley in the fall of 2023. Ryan is an Indigenous Fire Practitioner, wildland firefighter, and pride’s himself as a Karuk Medicine person and is strongly connected to his cultural practices and Pikyavish (World Renewal) ceremonies. He prioritizes his inherent responsibility to center and elevate Indigenous Science and knowledge into fire policy and ecosystem management paradigms. Fun facts about Ryan: he loves to hunt, fish, play basketball, and has traveled to 3 different countries.
Kyle Trefny (he/him)
FireGeneration Collaborative Research Coordinator
Homebase: Spokane, WA
kyle(at)firegencollab.org
Kyle is a wildland firefighter, economics student, and award-winning organizer and artist, with work reaching millions of people, featured by Youtube Originals, Penguin Random House, the Getty Museum, Forbes, Amplifier Art and more. Behind what he does is the force of community, family, and other young creatives. He grew up in the Bay Area, where local disasters and ecological passions drew him to the element of fire. Kyle believes in solutions that work for most-impacted communities, the more-than-human world, and future generations. He’s also queer and prioritizes creating a fire space in which all people can belong and be their full selves.
Ayuthea LaPier (she/they)
FireGeneration Collaborative Communications Coordinator
Home Base: Florence, OR
ayuthea(at)firegencollab.org
Dai Estes, Hello all! My name is Ayuthea LaPier, I am Hanis Coos from my maternal lineage as well as Amskapi Pikuni/Blackfeet and Tlingit (Chookeneidi clan) from my paternal lineage.
My communities guide my work as a cultural artist, organizer, and fire practitioner. As an Indigenous fire practitioner I believe in the power of fire to restore the health of the land, as well as the people. My favorite experiences have been witnessing youth reclaim these tools and find roles as young stewards.
Fun facts about me: I love canoe journeys and collecting vintage beads!
Isa Eisenberg (she/they)
Digital Storyteller
Home Base: Eugene, OR
isa(at)fusee.org
Isa is currently an undergrad student at University of Oregon where she studies psychology, environmental studies and science communication. She is overjoyed to be a part of the FUSEE team and has a background in ecological advocacy and community organizing. Isa is passionate about connecting with others through art, activism, and storytelling, which she aims to showcase in her social media work at FUSEE. When she is not in class or in meetings, Isa can be found doodling, nature journaling, making ceramics, hiking, skiing and fawning over each dog she passes!
Michael Beasley, B.A.
Board President
Retired USFS Forest Fire Chief, NPS Prescribed Fire Manager
Home base: Eugene, OR
Mike is a co-founding Board member of FUSEE. Originally from Northwest Arkansas, he attended Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where he received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry. He received his first wildland firefighting “red card” as a volunteer in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1984. His first land management post was as a Park Naturalist at Mt. Rainier National Park in 1987. He was on an NPS hotshot crew and started one of the first NPS Fire Use Modules, acting as its Module Leader from 1995 through 1998. Mike was the Deputy Fire Chief while working eight years at Yosemite National Park between 2001 and 2009. In 2009 Mike moved to Humboldt County and served as Deputy Fire Chief of the Six Rivers National Forest and finished his federal career in 2015 as the Interagency Fire Chief for the Inyo National Forest and Bishop BLM in Bishop, CA. Mike continues to assist with large fire management as a Fire Behavior Analyst on one of California’s incident management teams, and is a Burn Boss and Fire Planner for community-led prescribed fires in the Willamette Valley, working with nonprofit watershed restoration groups and Indigenous cultural burn practitioners. Mike is also an instructor in the Wildland Fire Certificate program at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR.
Megan Bolten, B.A.
Board Vice President
Wildland Firefighter, Oregon Woods
Home Base: Eugene, OR
Megan is a student of fire and certified FFT2 wildland firefighter. She has years of experience working for and with various nonprofit organizations committed to ecological stewardship, forest defense, water defense, and climate action, all of which played a huge role in her decision to move to Eugene, Oregon from Virginia in 2020. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and years of experience in nonprofit board operations and governance. Her engagement with fire continues to deepen and evolve, and her aim is to help improve and support the use of safe, ecological, and cultural fire efforts wherever and however possible.
Tom Ribe, M.A.
Board Secretary
Owner-Operator, Southwest Adventures
Home base: Santa Fe, NM
Tom Ribe is a co-founding Board member of FUSEE and a long-time public land and national park advocate based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has his MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon and has worked in interpretation and fire for the National Park Service at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Yosemite, and Bandelier National Monument. He is author of Inferno by Committee: A History of the Cerro Grande Fire and the Rise of New Mexico Megafires, published June 2010. He is Executive Director of Caldera Action, advocating for National Park Service management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve and works on a variety of issues related to national parks and personal health.
Karen Wood, B.S., C.P.A.
Board Treasurer
Not-for-profit CFO, Creating Answers, LLC.
Home base: Pittsburgh, PA
Karen has served in many roles in the environmental and nonprofit communities in both Oregon and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she currently resides. Karen's work as a grassroots ancient forest protection activist in the 80's and 90's included advocacy and outreach on the necessity of wildfire in western forests and the damage caused by aggressive fire suppression and salvage logging operations. A bookkeeper specializing in nonprofits by trade, Karen served as board member or treasurer for several nonprofit organizations that were key participants in the movement to stop clearcutting of ancient forests. She continued those roles with several conservation organizations in the Pittsburgh area, where she entered public accounting and later served as a shared CFO for several environmental nonprofits where she earned the "CFO of the Year" award in 2019 from the Pittsburgh Business Times. Karen now works as a Non-for-profit CFO at Creating Answers, LLC. Karen is looking forward to using her experience with forest conservation and nonprofit finance to help FUSEE grow and reach its mission.
Rich Fairbanks, M.S.
Board Member
Retired U.S. Forest Service fire planner, hotshot crew foreman
Home base: Jacksonville, OR
Rich is a co-founding Board member and former president of FUSEE and has held various positions in the fire organization, including Interagency Hotshot Crew Foreman, BD Crew Foreman, Division Supervisor, Complex Burn Boss, and others. Retiring after a 32-year career with the Forest Service, Rich worked 6 years for The Wilderness Society, leading their California fire program. He currently owns a small forest management company. He studied fire behavior as a graduate student (UW fire science program 1979-80). Rich is a certified silviculturist and holds a Master’s degree. He and his wife own some mixed conifer forest in the Applegate, where they do quite a bit of controlled burning.
Joseph Fox, Ph.D., J.D.
Board Member
Retired USFS Smokejumper
Home base: McCall, ID
Joe is a co-founding Board member and former president of FUSEE who served as a wildland firefighter for the USFS for 25 years. The majority of his career was as a smokejumper out of the McCall base. He was a Regent's Fellow at U.C. Berkeley where he earned a Ph.D. in forest entomology. He later earned a law degree from the University of Idaho Law School. Joe is a writer, cartoonist, urban farmer, outdoor adventurer, and fire philosophizer.
Jessica Conrad, B.A.
Board Member
Restoration Crew Member, Karuk Tribe Dept. of Natural Resources
Home base: Somes Bar, CA
Jessica Conrad grew up in northern California along the Klamath and Salmon rivers within what is now known as the Klamath National Forest that is the homelands of her people, the Karuk Tribe. The Karuk have a fire-dependent culture with cultural burning practices that since time immemorial have maintained rich habitats for plants and animals that her people consider to be kin. Jessica and her people hold an identity as "fix the world people," an identity that is manifested in the annual world renewal ceremony (Pikyavish) and their daily interactions with the environment. Jessica and her family depend heavily on the land for food and other resources, and continue to carry out traditional practices of hunting, fishing, and gathering. Jessica is a graduate of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon, and currently works for the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources doing research and restoration projects that are helping restore elk habitat.
Alex Froom, M.Div, M.S.W.
Board Member
Owner-Operator, Watershed Row
Home Base: Klamath Falls, Oregon
Alex is a theologian, social worker, and nonprofit leader who works at the intersection of food, land, and community. He holds a Master of Divinity and Master of Social Work from Boston University. He and his wife, Malu, are creating Watershed Row—a vibrant pedestrian oriented block in downtown Klamath Falls that introduces people to local food, art and nature. Alex worked in community organizing, nonprofit development, youth development, and food systems in New England, the American Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest. Alex deeply wants to help create a resilient local food web that is good for people, the land, and all our plant and animal relatives. A lover of mountains, trees, and water, he is thrilled to be a part of FUSEE's work in the seismic human-ecological shift taking place in our lands and communities. For leisure, when he isn’t in his garden with Malu and their son, he hikes, bikes, skis, and paddles.
Meredith Jacobson, PhD Student
Board Member
Ph.D. Student
Home base: Eugene, OR
Meredith is a PhD student at the University of Oregon studying social and cultural dimensions of land management. As a white non-Native person, she thinks about the politics of allyship and settler colonialism in fire management. She is a Research Associate with the FireGeneration Collaborative, a volunteer with Willamette Valley Fire Collaboration, and a teacher seeking to engage students in enacting a more socially and ecologically just world. She has a B.S. in Forestry from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Forest Ecosystems and Society from Oregon State University. Before graduate school, she was a Forestry Aide for CAL FIRE and an Environmental Educator with the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. During her graduate studies, she has worked on applied social science research in collaboration with the InterTribal Timber Council, the Ecosystem Workforce Program, and the Watershed Research and Training Center.
Angela Sondenaa, Ph.D., C.S.E.
Board Member
Natural Resources Director, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Home base: Logsden, OR
Angela is a Siletz Tribal member from the coastal rainforests of Oregon. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University before moving to Idaho to work as a wildlife biologist with the US Forest Service. She later acted as director of the Stillinger Herbarium at the University of Idaho for three years during her graduate program. She joined the Nez Perce Tribe as a project biologist while finishing her PhD, and for many years, worked to safeguard treaty rights, conserve old growth forests, restore degraded ecosystems, and provide wise stewardship of the lifesources of importance to the Nimiipuu. She has now returned to her homeland as the Natural Resources Director for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. She hopes to grow a vibrant fire program there that combines the best of cultural stewardship with modern wildland fire science. Angela has had a long engagement with federal land management policy including two appointments to federal advisory committees with the US Forest Service.
Eve Deierling, Master’s Student
Board Member
Master’s Student
Home base: Eugene, OR
Eve is a development professional with deep roots in the Lane County nonprofit sector. She earned her B.S. in Planning, Public Policy, and Management from the University of Oregon and has since worked alongside community organizations in nonprofit development, volunteer engagement, and donor relations, with a focus on forging philanthropic partnerships that strengthen communities. She has hands-on experience recruiting volunteers and coordinating restoration efforts in rural communities affected by wildfires. Living in communities where fire management is a hot topic inspired her commitment to advancing modern fire management and Indigenous fire stewardship. Eve is currently pursuing her Master’s in Nonprofit Management and remains dedicated to education and advocacy that foster ecosystem resilience and mitigate climate change impacts. When she isn't working in the community, she spends her time backpacking in the Cascades, playing music with friends, and exploring her creativity through art.