Help plant, animal, and human communities thrive through our land stewardship.
Please support the Climate Land Leaders Initiative today!
Dismiss Message
Board of Directors
Jackie Armstrong
From a sharecropper’s granddaughter to a landowner, from in-house legal counsel in the fossil fuel industry to a climate activist, from the streets of Detroit to the banks of the Cedar River in Iowa, Jackie Armstrong traveled a circuitous route to her work as an impassioned advocate for the environment. She practiced corporate law with Schlumberger Ltd. at multiple Schlumberger companies and employment law in Mason City, Iowa, with Brown, Kinsey, Funkhouser & Lander. Following retirement in 2015 from her legal career, she obtained a biology degree with an ecology emphasis. She was elected a Soil and Water Commissioner in Mitchell County, Iowa, in 2020. Jackie lives with her husband, Gary Levinson, on the Cedar River, restores prairies, manages woodlands and agricultural land, kayaks and plays with grandchildren.
Gail Hickenbottom, Treasurer
Gail was reared on a grain and livestock farm in Central Illinois. It was a farm where caring for the land and discovering the values of nature were a foundation for his future endeavors. Today the corn and soybean family farm is managed by Gail and his brother. Early in his work career, he was a high school agriculture instructor, where he offered one of the first Commodity Marketing classes in the State of Illinois. Most of his career, he worked for Pioneer Hi-Bred (now DuPont) as a Senior Marketing Analyst. He has served on the Board of Directors for Practical Farmers of Iowa and for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He currently serves on the Finance Committee at Practical Farmers. Gail lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, where he is an avid gardener and user of the trails in nearby parks.
Rozina Kanchwala
Rozina is an energy and environmental professional with global academic and field experience. As a Fulbright Scholar, she spent a year in India researching agrarian distress, which led her to pursue a Master’s in Environment and Sustainable Development from University College London. Now, back in Illinois, she is working with her family’s farm in Kane County, leasing it to transition from conventional to organic farming. She is leading a prairie and wetland restoration project on three acres of the farm. Rozina founded Eco.Logic, a nonprofit that intertwines activism with the arts, and she is also a playwright. Her debut play, Love in the Time of Climate Change, premiered at theater festivals in Washington, DC. Her second play, Come Along for the Ride: A Journey through Climate Grief, is set to take the stage in Summer 2025. Rozina also serves as the Director of an internship at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute. Rozina has bylines in Teen Vogue, Foreign Affairs, Common Dreams and more.
Paul Mairet
Paul Mairet is a beginning farmer and manager of Nine Hazels Farm, a hybrid hazelnut farm and nursery in Lake City, MN. He brings a background in arts and education and recent years of mentorship from hazelnut farmers, researchers, and artisans to his work. For the last five years, he and his partner Sanna have been fixing up, expanding, and diversifying an established hazelnut farm, a landscape that was once defined by conventionally tilled monoculuture but has been the site of inspiring regeneration for the last 20 years. Some of Paul’s current projects include developing sustainability-focused perennial nursery infrastructure and processes and researching the potential value and uses of coppiced hybrid hazel wood.
Michelle Montgomery, PhD
Michelle is a Haliwa Saponi (enrolled)/Eastern Band Cherokee (descendant). At the University of Washington, Tacoma, she is: Associate Professor of Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies; Chair, Division of Social and Historical Studies; Interim Cohort Director for Muckleshoot Programs; Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Education; Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Bioethics and Humanities; Adjunct Associate Professor School of Medicine; and Assistant Director, Office of Undergraduate Education. She serves as the External Indigenous Advisor for the Sustainable Leadership Program for the University of Minnesota, Morris, and founded the Indigenous Speakers Series. Michelle lives in what is now Washington State and participates with Climate Land Leaders in a Midwest-based coalition called Rural Regeneration Through Climate Action.
Kate Moos, President
Kate Moos grew up in central Minnesota and began her career in journalism covering the farm crisis of the 1980s and the emerging AIDS epidemic for Minnesota Public Radio. She helped build the MPR Newsroom as a Managing Editor and later helped create Speaking of Faith/On Being with Krista Tippett. As an Executive Producer, Kate worked to uplift new voices for the public media audience by partnering with the Fond du Lac Band and food and environmental groups in North Minneapolis. She was instrumental in the 2019 founding and launch of Sahan Journal and served as its first Managing Director. Sahan Journal is a nationally acclaimed new digital news organization that centers the experiences of Minnesotans who are immigrants, Black, Indigenous and People of Color. Kate recently retired and lives on a farm in Central Iowa with her spouse, Valerie Arganbright, and a yellow dog named Raven.
Angela Smith Harris
Angela grew up on an 180 acre “Iowa Century” farm, around 20 acres of which she still stewards with her husband Tom. She has fond memories of a supportive neighborhood community, which fuels her passion to find practical ways to support, advocate for, and implement sustainable food and farming practices in rural Iowa. With an undergraduate degree in biology, training as a physical therapist, and a Finance MBA, Angela thinks of herself as a utility player. She worked primarily in the financial industry, including roles at the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis, a consulting firm, and Ameriprise Financial as an Enterprise Implementation Senior Director. Angela resides in Eden Prairie, MN, with her husband Tom. The outdoors is Angela’s happy place, and she often grabs the grandkids for nature hikes.
Sylvia Spalding
Sylvia has managed her family’s farmland near Oskaloosa, Iowa, since 2006. A resident of Honolulu, Sylvia retired in 2021 from a career as the Communications Officer for the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. She is co-author of the 2022 book U.S. Pacific Islanders and the Sea: A History of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. Sylvia chaired the Traditional Knowledge Committee of the National Marine Educators for 15 years and was a member of the NOAA Fisheries Climate and Marine Resources Task Force. She has served as a board member of Hawai’i Interfaith Power and Light and has been active fighting various pipeline projects that impact her family farmland.