Holly Ballantyne, Hydrologist, U.S. Army Fort Huachuca
Holly has over 20 years of environmental compliance experience. With an B.S. degree in Environmental Science and Biology from Washington State University. Currently enrolled in the University of Arizona master’s Certification in Hydrology. She has previously worked as a fisheries biologist/technician for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and Columbian Intertribal Fish Commission in the Pacific Northwest. Holly started out her career in natural resources as a contractor for NOAA, as a fisheries observer on commercial fishing boats. The last 7 years have been spent at Fort Huachuca in environmental compliance, some different areas of expertise is: Natural Resources, Pollution Prevention, Air compliance, hazardous waste/hazardous materials, wastewater and hydrology.
Sharon Flissar, Public Works Director, City of Sierra Vista
Mrs. Flissar’s background is in engineering, and she has been a Registered Professional Civil Engineer in the State of Arizona for approximately 14 years. Sharon has worked with the City of Sierra Vista for the entirety of her 19-year career, which has given her the opportunity to become very familiar with the challenges of resource management in the Sierra Vista subwatershed. She is currently the City’s designated technical representative to the Upper San Pedro Partnership, the Cochise Conservation and Recharge Network, and the Fort Huachuca Sentinel Landscape Restoration Partnership. As the director, she oversees the operation of the City’s Environmental Operations Park, which recharges about 2700 ac-ft of treated effluent to the aquifer each year. She has also been involved in the planning, design, and construction of a variety of stormwater detention facilities.
Dana Lapides, Ph.D., Research Hydrologist, USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center
Dr. Lapides has been a research hydrologist for the USDA-ARS in Tucson since 2023. She received a Ph.D. in hydrology from the Earth Science department at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies interactions between plant water use and water supply, water supply forecasting, and impacts of anthropogenic water use and land management on water resources. Since joining USDA-ARS, she has been continuing the monitoring of surface water presence in the Upper San Pedro Basin and developing tools to expand the scope of surface water presence observations.
Dick Larry, Friends of the San Pedro River
Dick served in the US Army for 30 years, 4 years in the USAF stationed at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, 3 ½ years as a Tucson Police officer and 3 ½ years as a AZ DPS patrolman in Winslow AZ. Presently he is President of the Wild Horse Homeowners Association (just south of 3 Canyons HOA). Dick has attended Upper San Pedro Partnership (USPP) Technical Committee Science and Technical Advisors meetings in the past as an alternate representative of the Friends of the San Pedro River and would like to continue supporting. As a layman he is very interested in all aspects of discussion of the USPP especially groundwater usage and recharge as this directly affects residents of Wild Horse HOA.
David Eduardo Morales, Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey
David joined the U.S. Geological Survey as a Hydrologist after completing his M.S. Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona in 2023. His thesis explored the combined use of multistakeholder decision frameworks and ensemble groundwater model analyses to better communicate and avoid the risks of overreliance on uncertain predictions—while considering the interests of diverse stakeholder groups. His experience working with multiple stakeholder groups extends to his Peace Corps service in Madagascar (2016-2018) where he taught English and led teacher-trainings embedded with youth development competencies, student-centered pedagogy, and gender-empowerment initiatives. In 2023, David came aboard the Upper San Pedro Basin project, which he now manages on behalf of the USGS.
Steven Prager, Director, Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch of the National Audubon Society
Steven Prager has been with Audubon Southwest for over a dozen years serving in a variety of capacities including field biologist, frontline educator, conservation planner, science communicator, policy advocate, community organizer, agency liaison, and most recently Director of the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch. Steven earned a Bachelor of Science in Conservation Biology and Ecological Sustainability from Arizona State University, is a skilled conservation practitioner and naturalist, and has a special interest in birds, reptiles, invertebrates, and water policy. He believes that to authentically and effectively engage people in conservation action, we must seek to build with our collaborators common ground, trust, and a mutual understanding of our working relationship and goals. In his work, he aims to center the expressed interests of those most impacted by environmental issues, collaborate with communities and partners that have been historically excluded by the conservation movement, understand and be responsive to individual communities’ cultures, needs, views, and expectations, and respect the rights of communities to maintain power over their own goals and outcomes.
Dave Pratt, Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey
Dave started with the USGS as a student intern in 1991 while working towards a B.S. in Hydrology at the University of Arizona. After graduating, his USGS career took him to northern California where he honed his skills in surface water hydrology for several years before moving on to managing USGS-cooperative groundwater data collection programs in southern California. His career then led to the data management side of the house where he led a group of data managers ensuring the quality of hydrologic data entered in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS). Dave is back to the science side again in Tucson as the Tucson Studies Section lead at the Arizona Water Science Center.
Holly Richter, Ph.D., Resilient Rivers
Holly Richter founded Resilient Rivers, LLC in 2022 after a 35-year career in land and water conservation with The Nature Conservancy. Holly’s work with the Conservancy spanned several tributaries within the Colorado River Basin during her career. She completed her PhD at Colorado State University focusing on the development of a riparian ecology, geomorphology, hydrology simulation model for the Yampa River. She later worked on other western slope rivers in Colorado, before moving to southeastern Arizona. Holly was a founding member of both the Upper San Pedro Partnership in 1998 and served as Chairperson for the Partnership’s Technical Committee (from 2000-2007), and later as Chairperson for the Partnership’s Executive Committee (2008-2011). She was also appointed to the Organizing Board for the Upper San Pedro Water District by Governor Napolitano and served as their Vice Chairperson from 2007-2011. She was later a founding member of the Cochise Conservation and Recharge Network in 2015. She initiated the wet dry mapping project for the binational San Pedro River in 1999, an annual citizen science project that continues to engage volunteers along approximately 320 miles of the river and its tributaries for the last 25 years. Holly completed a Coda Fellowship with The Nature Conservancy to develop global groundwater guidance for the organization before retiring in 2022. As Principal of Resilient Rivers, she currently serves as the Coordinator for the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army/Fort Huachuca, Cochise County and the City of Sierra Vista in 2021.
Russell Scott, Ph.D., Research Hydrologist, USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center
Dr. Scott has been a research hydrologist for the USDA-ARS in Tucson since 2000. He has a Ph.D. in Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona and an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Hydrology focus) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been doing hydrological and ecological research in the Upper San Pedro Basin since 1997, focusing primarily on issues of vegetation water use, riparian ecosystem evapotranspiration and carbon cycling, and semiarid ecosystem water balance. He is the author on more than 130 scientific, peer-reviewed, publications (for details please see https://goo.gl/FN6it7) and has been involved with the Upper San Pedro Partnership since its onset, serving primarily as the agency representative for the Technical Committee.
Bailey Winston, Southern Arizona Water Projects Manager, The Nature Conservancy
In this role she supports San Pedro recharge projects through the Cochise Conservation and Recharge Network and co-leads San Pedro River Wet/Dry Mapping, in addition to conservation efforts in other watersheds. Prior to joining TNC in February 2023, Bailey directed Arizona Land and Water Trust’s Desert Rivers Program, and at University of Arizona she worked on water resources planning and stakeholder engagement with the Water Resources Research Center and the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions. Before focusing on Arizona water management, Bailey worked in national water sector resilience and emergency response at US EPA in Washington, DC and municipal water conservation at the City of St. Petersburg, FL. Bailey holds an MS in Water, Society, and Policy from University of Arizona and BAs in Environmental Studies and Economics from Eckerd College.