Sue Crispin has been director of the Montana Natural Heritage Program since 1998. She grew up in Michigan, where she earned her M.S. degree in Botany and served as Botanist and Coordinator for that state’s natural heritage program. She worked for several years in Canada, helping Canadian provinces establish similar data centers, and also worked regionally with 8 states and two provinces to document areas of biological significance around the Great Lakes. Altogether, she has spent 26 years working with natural heritage programs, their customers, and partners. She loves living in Montana, where she enjoys camping, hiking, fishing, photography, and "weekend botany."  View Resume

Darlene Patzer has been with the Natural Heritage Program since July 2004. She supports the Heritage Project Managers with grants and finance administration. Darlene earned her Associates Degree in Business Administration from Carroll College while working full-time and raising two daughters.

Prior to joining the Heritage Program, Darlene spent a great 16 years with the Helena Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. She learned everything from running check sorters to being the lead accounting analyst and finally the check transportation coordinator in Montana.

A native Montanan, Darlene enjoys working with the Heritage staff to support responsible stewardship of Montana’s natural resources. Her own time is spent pursuing her interest in horses with her daughter and learning new things.

Allan Cox is the Systems and Services Manager for the Montana Natural Heritage Program where he manages the Program’s information services—databases, web services and geographic information systems. Allan has more than 20 years of GIS, natural resource program, and project management experience. Prior to coming to the Natural Heritage Program in 2001, Allan was the Program Manager for the Montana Census and Economic Information Center (CEIC) at the Montana Department of Commerce. From 1998 to 2000, Allan provided private GIS consulting and contracting services. From 1992 to 1998 Allan was Director of the Natural Resource Information System (NRIS), at the Montana State Library. In 1987, Allan joined the Natural Resource Information System and was responsible for the establishment of its GIS Program and served as its GIS Coordinator until 1992. Prior to moving to Montana, Allan worked for the Virginia GIS Project (VIRGIS). Allan has a BA in Communications and an MS in Geography from Virginia Tech.

Martin has been wrangling data for the Montana Natural Heritage Program for more than ten years. The early days included working with the Point Observation Database (POD) from very near its inception, and plotting Element Occurrences on paper quad maps using adhesive dots, map margin notes and a mylar overlay to calculate the latitude and longitude. Needless to say, the advancement of GIS capabilities have made those activities seem like relics of the Stone Age. Somewhere along the line, he acquired the responsibility of responding to requests. This is another process that has been evolving, from paper reports provided via snail mail to large zip files accessed on the ftp site.

When it’s time to get out of town, the preferred mode is ultramarathon running. Over a 15 year period, Martin has participated in over 50 ultramarathon events, ranging from 50 km to 100 miles, and include a 24 hour track run and a 48 hour event. Some of the hundred milers he has completed include Western States, Leadville and Hardrock (twice).
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Prior to working at Heritage, Scott spent 8 plus years working on various fire ecology research projects at the Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula. These projects included the effects of fire on invasive weeds, the ecology and restoration of whitebark pine in the Northern Rockies and the mapping of vegetation and fuels in large areas of New Mexico and Utah. In 2003, after leaving Missoula, he completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Afterwards, he continued his affiliation with the Firelab, working for a short while on the interagency LANDFIRE national fuels mapping project, before coming to the Heritage Program. Scott has a B.S. in Forest Resource Management from the University of Montana (1995) and a diverse background and interest in botany and plant ecology. Botanical interests include many different vascular plant families and genera with a particular interest in Montana Salix.

Area of Expertise: Watershed and wetland assessment, monitoring and analysis; landscape ecology; geospatial analysis; environmental law and policy.     View Resume

David has 12 years of professional experience in stream & river ecological studies. Principal areas of expertise include the field collection, ecology and taxonomy of aquatic invertebrates, mussels and fish communities for use in environmental assessments of stream and river integrity. Additional expertise includes landscape-level ecological studies and conservation of aquatic ecosystems, including work wth threatened & endangered species. View Resume

Meghan Burns began working for the Montana Natural Heritage Program December 2007 as a Wetlands Digitizing Technician. After receiving a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Geographic Information Science from Michigan State University, Meghan worked as an Environmental Health Specialist at the Ingham County Health Department in Lansing, Michigan and then returned to the Center for Global Change & Earth Observations at Michigan State University to study Buruli Ulcer, an emerging infectious disease. Additionally, Meghan was employed with the Michigan Natural Features Inventory, from 2002 – 2004, where she updated the database of threatened and endangered species.

Bryce Maxell grew up dogsledding in the mountains of Utah, swam competitively in high school and college, and is passionate about natural history. Bryce completed a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Economics at the University of Puget Sound in 1994 where he studied the demography of kelp species in the Puget Sound and was an NAIA All-American in the 200-yard Breaststroke in 1992 and 1993. After undergrad, he received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year long independent study of the Natural History of Australia and New Zealand in 1994 and 1995. Bryce went to graduate school in the Wildlife Biology Program at the University of Montana with a focus on Montana's amphibian species and is still in the process of finishing his dissertation research on the landscape ecology and demography of Columbia Spotted Frogs. Bryce has spent the last nine years conducting field inventories and demographic studies of a number of Montana's amphibians. During his time in Montana he has authored or coauthored two books, eight peer reviewed publications, and 25-plus professional reports on amphibians, reptiles, and fish. Bryce's main interests are natural history, conservation biology, biogeography, and the effects of exotic species. He is also interested in conducting broad based, statistically sound, baseline surveys for, and applying advanced techniques in conservation biology to, a wide variety of non-game taxa. Although interested in working with all taxa, Bryce is especially interested in working with amphibians, reptiles, mollusks, bats, and birds. Bryce is also interested in raising awareness about the natural history and status of these species so that issues associated with their management are properly addressed in management plans and so that they can be properly appreciated by current and future generations.     View Resume

Paul Hendricks has been a zoologist with the Montana Natural Heritage Program since 1996. After spending most of his formative years in Billings, Paul received his education at the University of Montana in Missoula (B.A. 1975, M.A. 1987) and Washington State University in Pullman (Ph.D. 1993). Paul has a broad interest in natural history, and his work for the Natural Heritage Program has allowed him to pursue this interest with a variety of invertebrates as well as the vertebrates he is most familiar with. He is co-author of the book “Amphibians and Reptiles of Montana” (Mountain Press 2004). When not working, he is dreaming of or pursuing birds and alpine experiences.     View Resume

In her off-work time, Susan’s tries to find a balance between a love of being outdoors and a variety of recreational activities, an appreciation of fine food and drink, and her arts addiction – being involved in an assortment of hand crafts such as spinning (wool), weaving (fiber), throwing (pottery), and dyeing, especially experimenting with natural dyes (sometimes, by chance, rather malodorous ones), much to the dismay of both of her housemates – husband Phil, and dog Teasel.

For the Zoology program Coburn works on a wide variety of taxa including grassland birds, forest raptors, bats, and terrestrial mollusks. His personal and professional passion has always been with birds, bird distribution, and bird conservation. However, he has more recently been focusing his attention and personal interest towards other flying creatures, mainly dragonflies and butterflies; the latter with his 6 year old daughter who loves to catch them in her butterfly net – she leaves the identification to dad.

For the past 15 years, she has worked at the Spatial Analysis Lab on a variety of wildlife-related projects, from passerine birds to wolverines. She was project coordinator for Montana Gap Analysis, completed in 1998. Currently she is assisting with the development of an Ecosystem Management Decision Support system for the Northern Region of the Forest Service. Her most time-consuming project over the past 5 years has been Margaret (pictured).