I come from a blue collar family in northwest Indiana. I am the first person in my family to graduate from a four year college. My Mother cut slabs of steel and my Dad started out pumping gas at a full-service gas station. I spent as much time as I could building three story tree houses and catching crayfish and snapping turtles in the local stream.

I moved to Missoula in 1999 and received a B.A. in Biology and Spanish from the University of Montana in 2003. I helped start Students for Economic and Social Justice while in Missoula, which has been credited for getting UM to break its contract with a clothing manufacturer because of workplace conditions.

After graduation, I worked seasonally for the Flathead and Tongass National Forests in Montana and Alaska as a biological and timber technician. Surveying for rare and threatened plants alone in grizzly bear country in northwest Montana is the best job I have ever had. As a timber technician, I watched as the Forest Service failed to protect streams and wildlife from timber sales. My work for the Forest Service made me decide to go to law school.

I graduated with honors from Vermont Law School in 2009 and immediately moved back to Montana where I started Cottonwood Environmental Law Center. Cottonwood is a group of free-thinking rabble rousers dedicated to protecting the people, forests, water and wildlife of the West. Cottonwood has stopped the construction of a $550 million coal railroad in southeast Montana, settled a major Clean Water Act lawsuit against the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and used the Endangered Species Act to protect critical habitat for Canada lynx and elk.

When I am not working to protect our public lands and water I like to use it to hunt, climb, back country ski and mountain bike.