WSO Board introduces 5 new committee chairs

As the result of good recruiting and a short but invigorating round of musical chairs, WSO’s Board of Directors can boast five new committee leaders. That makes for a good opportunity to introduce all of them as part of our effort to bolster the Society’s committee structure.

Enlisting additional members not only increases WSO’s capacity to get things done, it involves a wider cross-section of membership in shaping future initiatives.

So here are the changes:

Rebecca Setzer of Glendale is the new chair of Communications, which replaces what had been the Publicity Committee, whose chair, Sandy Petersen, recently retired. The past committee focused largely on setting up WSO displays for events around the state. Setzer has recruited several committee members to tackle a broader agenda that will focus on content for the Badger Birder monthly newsletter, our wsobirds.org web site and establishing a WSO presence on social media, including Facebook.

Michael John Jaeger is chairing Conservation, which is tackling such issues as future use of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant site, a proposed Sandhill Crane hunt, and the opening of the state parks to hunting. The conservation chair is charged with keeping the WSO Board and membership informed of important issues that develop throughout the state, plus elsewhere when necessary, as well as expressing official WSO opinions on these matters via letters and testimony.

Jaeger, who remains acting chair of Scholarships and Grants, succeeds Bill Mueller of Milwaukee, who left as Conservation chair to succeed Mariette Nowak of Mukwonago, who had retired some time ago as chair of the Education Committee.

Ed Hahn of Watertown has taken over the Youth Education Committee from Barbara Duerksen of Richland Center, who retired after many years serving young birders statewide.

Also joining the board at its Nov. 3 meeting was Christine Zimmerman, chair of the seven-year-old Convention Committee, which was elevated from special to standing committee.

Each of these new chairs is looking for assistance. Zimmerman is especially eager to recruit new committee members from the Ashland area, site of the 2013 convention. And Mueller is teaming up with WSO Web Administrator Paul Jakoubek to develop an expanded education section on the WSO website. Contact information for WSO officers and committee chairs can be found athttp://wsobirds.org/?page_id=1545

Still to be filled is the job of Development Chair, a vacancy that has existed for some time and whose fund-raising duties have never been fully defined. But given the challenges in avian conservation and the prospect of launching a second edition of the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas, the board would like to bring someone aboard who has some background and interest and would take time to get grounded in WSO and help define the job and recruit a committee. Address any questions about that opening to WSO President Carl Schwartz, 414-416-3272; cschwartz3@wi.rr.com

Here’s a little more background on the new chairs:

Rebecca Setzer is the technical support liaison at American Dental Professional Services. She manages database administration and helps maintain the company’s e-commerce website. She is editor of The Timberdoodle News, Riveredge Bird Club’s bi-monthly newsletter and chairs the North Central Region of the Astronomical League, a multi-state amateur astronomy organization. Rebecca has helped a number of organizations get started in social media, including the Northern Cross Science Foundation and more recently Astronomy.FM, the world’s first astronomy internet radio station.

William Mueller is a staff ornithologist at the Western Great Lakes Bird & Bat Observatory, co-author of WSO’s Annotated Checklist of Wisconsin Birds and chairs the planning committee for the second volume of the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas. He was a member of the State Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plan Advisory Team and is actively involved with a number of ornithological groups, including the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative (WBCI). Bill also is Project Coordinator for the Milwaukee BIOME Project, a group of 12 scientists and over 150 volunteers operating in partnership with faculty and staff from Milwaukee’s Urban Ecology Center, the Wisconsin DNR/BER, UW-Milwaukee, the University of Hawai’i and the University of Western Ontario.

Christine Zimmerman has been a member of the Convention Committee since it was formed in 2005. She graduated from UW-Eau Claire in Land Use with Environmental Emphasis, has been married to Jeff (the convention’s field trip chair) for 15 years, and started loving birds after visiting the Mississippi River to view Bald Eagles and Tundra Swans while in college.

Michael John Jaeger is a native of Madison who started chasing after birds in middle school. He studied ornithology, ecology and environmental sciences at UW. His main passion has been marshes and marsh birds. He currently works for the state Public Service Commission, focusing on environmental review of utility construction projects along with natural gas service territory and supply issues.

Ed Hahn was born and raised in Valentine, Neb. At the age of 5 his family moved out of town to a house next to Cornell Dam on the Niobrara River, also on the Ft. Niobrara Wildlife Refuge. After college he taught at St. Mark’s Lutheran School in Watertown, Wis., and currently works for Wisconsin Aviation at the Watertown airport.