BOARD OF DIRECTORS
RONALD HALL, J.D. (CHAIRPERSON)
Ronald Hall is the Director of the Tribal Technical Assistance Program (TTAP) at Colorado State University. He has served in that capacity since 1995. While at the TTAP Ron helped coordinate the National Tribal Road Conference since 1998. He has served on the Executive Board of the National Local Technical Assistance Program Association since 1997 and was the Executive Board’s Chairman for 2002. Mr. Hall also played a key role in creating the Committee on Native American Transportation Issues in the Transportation Research Board, and has been the Chairman of that Committee from 2001‐2007. In addition to administering the TTAP, he provides consulting services as a facilitator/mediator and legal services. Prior to his tenure at the TTAP, Mr. Hall practiced law in private practice for 11 years primarily as general counsel for tribal governments, corporations, and Native American owned businesse. Rnn is also an enrolled member of the The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.
MARCELA VELASCO, PH.D. (SECRETARY)
LEE SCHARF, M.A., J.D.
Lee Scharf has worked as a mediator in community mediation, peer mediation in public school systems, court-ordered mediation within tribal, federal and community mediation contexts, has conducted large national facilitations and worked in environmental conflict resolution in all media. She has a Masters’ degree in Environmental Conflict Resolution and over twenty years’ experience as a mediator working with tribal nations. Ms. Scharf’s environmental conflict resolution taxonomy and annotated bibliography was published by the American Bar Association in 2002. She worked for the Environmental Protection Agency from 1991 until 2006, first in the Superfund Enforcement program and then in the Office of General Counsel in Washington, DC. From 2000 until 2006 Ms. Scharf was the National Tribal Mediation Lead for EPA through EPA’s Conflict and Prevention and Resolution Center. She is a Coordination Committee member of the Native Dispute Resolution program for the United States Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution. Ms Scharf is currently an Associate Fellow at Colorado State University’s Center for Collaborative Conservation in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is a member of the Executive Advisory Committee for this Center.
Ms Scharf lived on the Navajo Nation from 1956-1959 and this experience shaped her professional life and her view of the world. She has mediated with many tribal nations in the United States, and is currently working with the Northern Arapaho on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and with traditional Navajo people living on Hopi Partitioned Lands in Arizona. Ms. Scharf is also leading a national project through Colorado State University to explore the use of dispute resolution practices within tribal governments as part of tribal self- determination efforts, knowing that each tribal world view is unique and valuable and that power and colonialism is always an issue when dispute resolution processes are used or proposed. Ms Scharf is the mother of three children and the grandmother of two. Lee teaches a course in Community-Driven Dispute Resolution.
JAMIE WAY, M.A
ANNE TAYLOR (TREASURER)
The majority of Anne Taylor’s career has centered on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Starting out as a software engineer developing GIS systems in the mid-80’s, Anne turned toward the business aspects of the GIS industry in 2004 taking on the role of an Account Manager, working with agriculture, land and natural resources agencies as well as tribal communities across North America, assisting in the implementation of GIS to better serve the land and the many communities who depend on it. She received a B.S. degree in Math from University of Richmond in 1983 and an M.S. in Anatomy/Neurobiology from Colorado State University in 1987.
ROBERT YOUNGBERG
OKECHUKWU UKAGA., PH.D.
Dr. Okechukwu Ukaga is the Executive Director of Northeast Minnesota Sustainable Development Partnership, University of Minnesota (NMSDP). In this capacity, he provides programmatic leadership for integrated, education, research and outreach projects/programs that promote sustainable development in northeastern Minnesota by utilizing university resources to meet community identified needs. Under his leadership, over the past 7 years, NMSDP has engaged in a variety of partnerships projects involving over 64,000 community members; 379 community organizations and businesses; 300 university faculty connections, 418 students from 42 university programs and departments.