Kari was hired in May of 2018, starting as the Land Protection Coordinator and now as Director. She is responsible for stewardship of NWLT’s-owned conservation properties and the project management for new conservation easement and conservation land donations and purchases.

For 12 years Kari worked with the U.S. Forest Service as a wildlife biologist. During her time with the Forest Service, she worked in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota on the Allegheny, Wayne, Superior and Chippewa National Forests. She worked on a wide array of projects including forest, wetland and grassland restorations. With the Forest Service she develop a broad background in planning and management of natural resources, including monitoring and management for wildlife, rare plants, ecosystem diversity and public use through a variety of tools, including timber harvest and prescribed fire.

Kari grew up in Green Bay, WI. She attended UW-Madison, where she earned a B.S. in Biochemistry. She then attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a M.S. in Natural Resource Ecology & Management, studying the reproductive ecology of osprey in the Chesapeake Bay.

After graduate school she worked for The Nature Conservancy in Michigan, running the volunteer program and implementing management on a preserve in southeast Michigan. She then worked in eastern Kentucky as a private lands biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources, where she helped private landowners develop conservation plans for their land and find funding to implement those plans. In 2006 she joined the U.S. Forest Service.

Kari lives in Eagle River, WI with her husband and two sons. She spends her free time with her family, skiing, camping, raising chickens and bees, remodeling, travelling, camping, hiking, and anything involving water, including a few annual Boundary Waters canoe trips.