Meet Our Board Members

Randall Tolpinrud is a passionate activist in the environmental protection and sustainability movements and is an innovator in energy and resource-efficient building design. He earned his BA in Philosophy and MA in Philosophy and Environmental Studies from the University of Utah. Randall has instructed at college and professional levels around the world on subjects such as sustainable development, environmental science and ethics, forest conservation, and philosophy.  He is the author of Globalization: The Imperative of a New Paradigm, which he presented at the 23rd World Philosophy Congress held in Athens, Greece in 2013. Among other publications, he authored the popular Green Building Consumer Guide for Utah (1989), and Timeless Wisdom (2020), a juxtaposition between the epistemological foundations of Eastern and Western traditions with respect to environmentalism. He is President of Groupwest Corporation, which has earned several awards for its promotion and implementation of energy and resource-efficient building design in residential and commercial development.

Randall is one of the founders and the current President of the Pax Natura and Bosque Lluvioso Foundations. The Pax Natura Foundation works closely with governments and NGO’s in Central America and most recently in Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, as these countries strive to meet their commitments to achieve carbon neutrality protecting and reclaiming native forests that would otherwise be cleared for non-sustainable agricultural land or urbanization. Randall, along with other Pax Natura Trustees, have represented Costa Rican forest conservation programs at the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), within the Conference of the Parties (COP), and at Carbon Market Conferences throughout the world. (Randall and others explain carbon neutrality and avoided deforestation protocols with respect to climate change in the trailer for the 2020 film, “Peace with Nature in Costa Rica,” on Vimeo and YouTube platforms.

Other Pax Natura Foundation partnerships with Dr. Jane Goodall as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Pax Natura, include sustainable food sovereignty programs in several countries and recognizing those heroes on the front lines of environmental protection worldwide with the prestigious Pax Natura Award.

As Pax Natura Trustee, Randall has been a long-time proponent of addressing the climate catastrophe and will continue to promote numerous programs to help solve this existential threat.

William Connelly is an architect in private practice in Salt Lake City, the father of five grown children, and an active participant in several civic and environmental causes.  As co-founder of the Costa Rica-based Pax Natura Foundation (“Peace with Nature”) he travels frequently on foundation matters, especially those related to climate change, biodiversity preservation and the international carbon markets.  Will is passionate about family, the environment, landscapes, history, languages, and travel.

Trent Alvey is an installation and a 2-D artist who describes her work as observing and investigating phenomenon. She is drawn to the transitory nature of things and how to capture the brief moment. She loves watching the movement of grass, clouds, light, and other non-linear occurrences that come into existence only for a moment.

Trent Alvey has exhibited in many significant one-person and group shows, including Out of the Land, which traveled to The National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Toaster Worship, Alvey’s sculptural piece that was included in the national exhibition is now in the permanent collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. Her work is also included in the Salt Lake County Art Collection Springville Museum of Art and Westminster Collage collection and she is a recipient of the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Artist Award (2011) and Distinguished Alumni in the Arts award by Westminster College (2016). Additional accolades include being chosen as one of Utah’s “15 Most Influential Artists” by Artists of Utah, publishers of 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine, and she is included in both editions of the book Artists of Utah by Robert S. Olpin, William C. Seifrit, and Vern Swanson. She is also part of the Utah Artists Project, the J. Willard Marriott Library’s digitized collections of selected Utah artists, also at the University of Utah.

Douglas Anderson has been a businessman in the real estate industry for nearly 30 years. His business expertise includes masterplanning and development implementation for larger scale resorts, business parks and commercial developments across the USA and two provinces in Canada. His business endeavors include founding of the seventh larger private equity funds in America ROC Fund/BridgeIPG Fund. He serves as Chairman/Founder of a golf and winter sports ski holding company with operations in 4 major east coast markets and British Columbia Canada. He oversees operations of his various private real estate companies. He has  served as a member of the Board of Directors for several federally insured community banking institutions. He granted one of the largest conservation easements in the United States on 14,000 acre development to maintain open space and the preservation of flora and fauna. Mr. Anderson has served in various community foundations and Board of Directors throughout his professional career. He has traveled extensively worldwide for business and non profit work to contribute his expertise in the non profit area as well as land and building development  areas towards preserving and enhancing the environment. He earned a BS undergraduate  degree in Consumer Studies with emphasis in Architecture as an undergraduate at the University of Utah. Mr. Anderson subsequently earned his Masters in Business Administration.  He also attended a three year OPM Program a post graduate business education at Harvard Business School in Boston. Mr. Anderson is an avid skier and outdoor enthusiast.

Jordan Anderson specializes in interpersonal skills, working in and managing teams for research and analysis. His eye for detail adds to the thoroughness and efficiency of any organization. He combines numerous business skills with computer literacy and a strong commitment to sustainable development. He Graduated in 2016 from the University of Puget Sound with a major in Sociology/Anthropology and a minor in Ceramic Art.  Jordan represents the next generation of leaders committed to the principle that economic development and environmental conservation are not only compatible but are necessarily conjoined.

Hugh has served multiple national and international organizations as an advisor. He was a founding trustee for the Center for Plant Conservation and served the CPC for 15 years and currently serves as a trustee for Pax Natura along with renowned international conservationists including Jane Goodall among others. PAX saved a mountain rainforest reserve in Costa Rica. Until 2013, Hugh served as a member and then chairman, of the American Alpine Club’s Research Grants Committee. He was a panel member on two National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) panels and a USAID project manager in Sri Lanka and Kenya on forest restoration. Recently, he served as a consultant to The Leonardo, an arts/science/learning center in Utah. One project utilized new media technologies to showcase digital learning for career development. Hugh was also an original Sundance Film Festival volunteer, supports the acoustic music community,  breeds plants as a long-term hobby, and is involved with Utah’s Tibetan community.

Hugh holds a PhD in mountain ecology and an MS in bio-geography from the University of Colorado and a BA in environmental science from the University of California Santa Barbara. He has traveled and worked extensively in Asia, Central America, Europe, Australia, and Africa on environmental matters. He has published feature articles in Science Magazine and the Congressional Quarterly.

Deen Chatterjee is a faculty affiliate at Oxford Consortium for Human Rights at the Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict at Oxford University. He was Senior Fellow in the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah until 2020. Earlier, he was Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City and a philosophy faculty at the University of Utah.

Chatterjee has taught at the University of Washington, The New School, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Shipboard Education, and held faculty fellowships at Harvard University, the U.S. Naval Academy, University of Oregon, and the University of Colorado.

His books include Ethics and Foreign Intervention, with Don E. Scheid (Cambridge, 2003); The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (Cambridge, 2004); Democracy in a Global World: Human Rights and Political Participation in the 21st Century (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008); and The Ethics of Preventive War (Cambridge, 2013).

Chatterjee is the Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Global Justice (Springer, 2011) and the Series Editor of Studies in Global Justice (Springer), with 22 volumes published to date.

He is a member of the editorial advisory board of several leading journals, including Journal of Global Ethics; Journal of Social Philosophy; and Carnegie Council’s flagship journal Ethics & International Affairs.

Chatterjee and the noted film producer/director Trent Harris have jointly made a documentary film, shot on location, on the plight of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

Forrest S. Cuch is an enrolled member of the Ute Indian Tribe. He was born in 1951 and raised on the Uintah and Ouray Ute Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah. In 1973, he graduated from Westminster College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the Behavioral Sciences.  During his 38 year career, Forrest has held many challenging jobs beginning as education director for the Ute Indian Tribe. He has also served as tribal planner/administrator for an eastern tribe and social studies department head and teacher for his alma mater, Wasatch Academy, Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Forrest was executive director, Utah Division of Indian Affairs. During this time, he published, A History of Utah’s American Indians, Utah State University Press, 2000. He has served on numerous boards including as a trustee representing American Indians on the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games; trustee for Swaner Preserve; and Salt Lake City based Pax Natura. Forrest played a key role in the PBS/KUED sponsored curriculum project entitled; We Shall Remain, which features a video series of the histories of the Utah tribes with accompanying materials. In 2012, he served as CEO for the Ute Tribe’s business enterprises. Forrest is Co-Founder of Rising American Indian Nations (RAIN), an Indian operated non-profit organization established to empower American Indian people.  Throughout his career, he has worked to call attention to the ancient presence of American Indian people in the intermountain west, and he has worked with other American Indian leaders in and out of state to address many critical issues facing all American Indians. He currently is engaged in working with spiritual leaders through the Western Hemisphere to usher in the new shift in feminine conscious known of as the New Earth and calling attention to Climate Change and Harm to Mother Earth.

Phil holds degrees in Economics and in Urban and Regional Planning from Harvard and UNC/Chapel Hill. When professionally active, he was a member of the American Planning Association, the European Housing Network and the System Dynamics Society. He has published in national and international peer-reviewed journals on urban systems models, seismic risk assessment, opportunity and mobility in housing and labor markets, coastal zone management, planning theory, the politics of planning, environmental policy and ecological economics. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile, a Senior Fulbright Fellow in Spain, a frequent Research Fellow at the Swedish National Institute for Building Research, a Lowell Bennion Community Service Professor in Utah, an NSF grant recipient, and a lecturer at numerous national and international academic venues. At the University of Utah, he was the founding director of the Urban Planning Program. He organized and directed an interdisciplinary program in the adaptive management of environmental systems and was instrumental in the development of a digital cartographic laboratory. Both wide and varied, his teaching interests included planning theory, planning practice, urban processes, urban energy systems, system dynamics, resilience thinking and human values development. He serves on the board of the Quaker Institute for the Future, convened the Quaker Earthcare Witness’ United Nations Working Group, and served as a visiting fellow in Washington DC with the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Steve Estes has worked in the internet industry since the year 2000. He started an internet company dedicated to empowering non-profit organizations on the internet. He has designed and managed web pages for U.S. Senate candidates, Utah Senate and House of Representative Candidates, and various national and international non-profit web sites.  Steve also works as a Business System Specialist for a fortune 500 company. He was educated at the University of Utah.

Francisco Grau is a social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to find practical sustainable solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges. In 2010 with a group of friends, he established a successful farmers’ market called “Green Fair” where local organic farmers, food artisans, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, artists, activists and a big conscious community gathers every Saturday morning to live the life they love. The proposal is a “Market taken care off with values of sustainability and wellbeing” where you can find “food with names and surnames” and buy an “optimal basket for you, optimal for your community and optimal for Mother Earth”.

After studying at Schumacher College the Ma. Economics for Transition, Francisco is exploring “The power of celebration to promote new paradigm economics” as complimentary way of doing activism. 

Denise Lynch is the founder of Clear Mind Institute, owner of Utah School of Hypnotherapy and Vice-President of Snap Synapse, a consulting company specializing in Organizational Learning and Development.Her work emphasizes the use of personal practices to promote inner-sustainability, and a lifestyle that promotes environmental sustainability so we can leave the world a better place than we found it. By designing products and trainings for behavioral change, Denise believes there can be improvement in the integrity and capability of our collective communities to take right action toward preserving the health and dignity of all beings, plus restoring and preserving our/their habitats.

Bio coming soon…

A Costa Rican educated in Costa Rica and the US. Graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Concentrations in Peace & Conflict Studies and International Studies of Latin America. Played NCAA Division 1 Tennis. Worked in a family owned Italian restaurant chain, financial and service industry. Interested in alternative and holistic healing.

Alana Metcalf is an independent professional who is passionate about projects with particular focus on providing impact solutions for sustainability and philanthropy. She has experience in both for-profit and non-profit sectors, as well as various specialized industries using green technology.

Alana’s degree in in the health sciences and is an active community member.  Alana is honored to serve as a member of the board of trustees for PAX Natura Foundation, dedicated to the protection of rain forests and bio-diversity.  She contributes to Salt Lake’s medical community as a health science advocate through the University of Utah as well as supports several environmental and humanitarian foundations.  She resides in Salt Lake City with her amazing family and has lived and traveled extensively throughout the world.

Coautor at Anfibios y Reptiles de Costa Rica

Robert D. Newman assumed office as the sixth president and director of the National Humanities Center on July 1, 2015. He was previously Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Utah where he also served as Associate Vice President for Interdisciplinary Studies, Special Advisor to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of English. He also has held faculty appointments at the University of South Carolina, where he was Chair of the Department of English, Texas A&M University, and the College of William and Mary.

Dr. Newman’s scholarship has focused on twentieth-century literature and culture and narrative theory. He has published six books, two of which have been nominated for major national awards, along with numerous articles, reviews, and poems; and has received awards not only for his scholarship but for his institutional leadership and teaching. He also serves as General Editor of the “Cultural Frames, Framing Culture” series published by University of Virginia Press.

Since assuming leadership of the National Humanities Center, Dr. Newman’s work has been dedicated to broadening the Center’s scholarly mission, its educational outreach, and on public engagement and national advocacy for the humanities.

Dennis Sizemore’s conservation work began over 40 years ago following around grizzly bears while earning his MS in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Montana. His experiences on four continents include law enforcement, fundraising, community engagement, education, and research. As co-founder of Round River Conservation Studies, Dennis has served as its executive director since its inception in 1991. Dennis is a former President of The Wildlands Project and currently also serves as vice president of the Taku-Atlin Conservancy.

As a Naturalist and Guide for decades on the Colorado and Green Rivers in Wyoming, Utah and Arizona, Isaac Tolpinrud has extensive knowledge on the geology and anthropology of the canyons of the American West and has inspired many people to continue efforts to preserve this country’s natural wonders. A licensed EMT and guide, he has participated in rescue operations on some of the great river systems in North and South America. His affiliations revolve around international efforts to protect and preserve wild places for future generations. Issac is a gifted artist – His pottery creations are always a favorite with his family and friends during the holidays.

Stephen is passionate about agrarian issues, especially one’s that intersect with social and ecological justice. He has worked on a number of projects in Latin America to promote agroecology as a social movement, and counterweight to (neo)colonialism. At present, he is helping to promote indigenous and food sovereignty in the highlands of Guatemala with the guidance and help of the local Mayan community. Stephen holds a Masters of Arts from American University and the University for Peace in International Relations and Sustainable Development. He also obtained a certificate in Agroecology at the University of California Santa Cruz, which focuses on social and ecological justice within agriculture. He is a proud enrolled member of the Chickasaw tribe.

María Garate is a social and environmental activist, mainly focused as an NGO fundraiser. From a very young age, she followed her passion motivated to serve others and became involved in different international organization such as Make a Wish, Colonias de Vacaciones I.A.P, Casa Gandhi Chiapas, World Hands, and Save the Children Mexico, which gave her a complete understanding of the situation in which millions of mexican live and the importance of the organization’s role in generating positive changes. In 2017, she joined Save the Children Mexico as part of the fundraising team for two years. Afterwards, she became involved in Sea Shepherd Mexico as an activist to fight for the oceans and seas. From 2019-2021 she worked as the director of a mexican organization “De Mano a Mano AC”, whose mission is the reconstruction of houses demolished by the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City. She is part of Radio Natura podcast sponsored by The Pax Natura Foundation that has interviewed people all around the world solving different worldwide issues. Currently, she works in an energy consulting company as head of the administration department.