Board & Advisors

The future of many crane species was once as fragile as the delicate and graceful birds themselves. George Archibald’s visionary leadership in international conservation efforts over the past 40 years has given flight to crane conservation worldwide.

In 1973, when cranes were in a perilous situation, and many were on the brink of extinction, Archibald and Cornell University colleague Ronald Sauey, Ph.D., established the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, as the world center for the study and preservation of cranes.

Archibald is a true conservation ambassador who uses his unique brand of crane diplomacy to work in sensitive places. He leverages the charisma of cranes to unite people from diverse cultures and countries to work together to preserve the landscapes necessary for the survival of both cranes and people.

Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada, Archibald received his undergraduate degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1968 and completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1977. In recognition of his many accomplishments, Archibald has received four honorary doctorates and many awards, including the Gold Medal from the World Wildlife Fund, a Fellows Award from the MacArthur Foundation, The Wildlife Conservation Medal from the Zoological Society of San Diego, the Lilly Medal presented by the Indianapolis Zoo, and the Douglas H. Pimlott Award from Nature Canada. In 2013, Archibald was awarded the Order of Canada on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II and received the inaugural Dan W. Lufkin Prize for Environmental Leadership from the National Audubon Society.

George lives in the Baraboo countryside, where he enjoys gardening and aviculture.

Dr. Rich Beilfuss has served as the International Crane Foundation’s President & CEO and ex officio member of the Board of Directors since 2010. He helped launch many of the Foundation’s signature projects and provides oversight, vision and prioritization to the International Crane Foundation’s conservation programs across Asia, Africa and North America. He is responsible for the Foundation’s $9 million annual budget and led their $40 million comprehensive capital campaign.

From 2006 to 2009, Rich lived in Mozambique with his family and served as Director of Conservation Services for Gorongosa National Park. From 1992 to 2006, he was responsible for developing and managing the International Crane Foundation’s African regional program. He built a team of staff and partners in more than 20 countries across Africa, seeking deep connections with the communities who share their lands with cranes, and spearheaded public and private efforts to implement innovative water management practices in the water-stressed Zambezi River Basin for the benefit of cranes, many other species and human livelihoods.

Over his 30-year career, Rich has engaged in water management and wetland restoration efforts in more than 20 countries across Africa and Asia, focusing on Nepal, Vietnam, Mozambique and Zambia. He has contributed to restoring and managing thousands of acres of prairie and savanna landscape in the Midwestern United States. Rich has authored over 100 scientific papers, technical reports, proceedings and lay-audience publications and presented his research findings and conservation vision to governments, communities and peer scientists worldwide.

Rich is a Licensed Professional Hydrologist with a Ph.D. in Land Resources (Wetland Ecology), an M.Sc. in Civil and Environmental Engineering-Hydrology, an M.Sc. in Water Resources Management and a B.Sc. in International Economics. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, where he is an Honorary Fellow, and enjoys teaching courses and mentoring students. The Governor of Wisconsin appointed him to serve on the Examining Board of Professional Geologists, Hydrologists and Soil Scientists.

Rich lives in Madison with his wife, Katie, and their two sons. He is an avid unicycle rider, dart-thrower and birder – but not all at the same time.

Click here to view a listing of Rich’s publications on ResearchGate.

Bobbi is a Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) and has had a 30-year career in the investment industry managing institutional investment portfolios. She holds a Master’s of Management degree from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s in Finance and Economics from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She spent most of her career at Allstate Insurance, managing equity portfolios. Since retiring, she has become active in nature and bird conservation in the Chicago and northern Illinois area and now, with the International Crane Foundation worldwide.

She is a director of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation (a land trust in NW Illinois), the Chicago Bird Alliance (Audubon Society), the Bird Conservation Network (a coalition of 21 organizations), and a member of the Chicago Mayor’s Nature and Wildlife Committee. In addition, she has served as a director of the Cradle in Evanston, Illinois, and the Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.

Bobbi has enjoyed her travels to see wildlife, birds, and cranes in particular, around the world. When not watching birds in the Chicago area, she and her husband spend time in Galena, Illinois.

Steve Euller retired in 2011 from a 32-year in-house legal career – the last 11 years as General Counsel – at Cargill, Incorporated, a family-owned, multinational agro-food business. Half that time, he was living and working in Asia and Europe. He built an international legal team including 200 lawyers (mostly non-Americans) that was, at that time, probably the world’s most global in-house legal team.

He and his family are deeply interested in wilderness and wildlife conservation. They love to travel to far-flung places, especially to hike, bike, canoe and observe wildlife in what remains of the wild places of the world. Steve is a graduate of Macalester College and Harvard Law School.

My interest in the International Crane Foundation began decades ago when a good friend of mine told me about a crazy man who dressed up in a crane outfit in Baraboo, Wisconsin. I joined as a member at that time but did not visit for several years, although I received the newsletter, The Bugle. A trip to the Northwest Territories with the Foundation’s Co-founder, George Archibald, caught my interest, and my wife and I decided that we would partake. We had a wonderful time and were entranced with George, who commented that we should travel with him to Bhutan sometime; a country he said was the most beautiful place in the world. We did go to Bhutan and have since traveled to South Africa and the Platte River with George and the International Crane Foundation.

As an avid outdoors person, bird lover, and animal enthusiast my appreciation and admiration for the International Crane Foundation have grown stronger over the decades. My wife and I adore George Archibald and we wanted to make a meaningful contribution to preserving the Foundation’s efforts. Fortunately, we could make this donation while George is still working and during our lifetimes.

I have been in the investment business for exactly 40 years, all at the same firm. While I feel great pleasure and fulfillment in advising clients on their investment matters, I have also served in management roles. I was past Chairman of the Board of our firm’s Mutual Funds Board of Directors and an integral part of the management team of Wayne Hummer Investments, which was acquired by Wintrust Financial in 2002. I am currently a Senior Vice-President of Investments at Wintrust Wealth Management.

My outside interests are quite varied. I was a decent amateur golfer, and also a volunteer for the Chicago District Golf Association (CDGA). I have been on the Association’s Board for over twenty years and am a past President of the Association. I was also the head of the CDGA’s charitable arm, the Sunshine Through Golf Association. The Foundation, which historically helped veterans, turned its direction to individuals with mental and physical challenges using golf as a therapeutic activity. I am also a past chairman of the membership committee at our local private country club, which was and is quite a challenge in today’s economic environment. I have always loved working with junior golfers and was honored when the United States Golf Association invited me to be a referee for the USGA Junior Amateur Championship, as well as a member of that committee.

My wife and I just celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary and we are fortunate to have three wonderful adult daughters. While they were growing up, I took a ten-year sabbatical from playing golf and had the delight to be able to coach and manage my daughters’ travel softball teams.

As for my education, I graduated Cum Laude from Denison University with dual majors in Economics and Mathematics and then furthered my education with an MBA from the University of Chicago with concentrations in both Accounting and Finance.

Barry is a designated Research Professor in the Department of Auditing, College of Accounting Sciences at the University of South Africa (Unisa), where he graduated with a Doctorate in Auditing. In addition to receiving numerous awards recognizing his contribution to research, including Unisa’s prestigious Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research from the Unisa Chancellor and former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, he is recognized as an Established Researcher by South Africa’s National Research Foundation.

Privileged to live in biodiversity-rich South Africa, Barry is passionate about wildlife, regularly visiting game parks and game reserves. In addition to his representation on the Board of the International Crane Foundation, Barry is a long-serving member of the South African-based Endangered Wildlife Trust, whose species-focused conservation efforts address a range of endangered and threatened fauna and flora, including four species of cranes across southern Africa.

Despite a primary background in accounting, auditing and finance, Barry’s academic research focuses on the broader issues of organizational governance and accountability. His specific research interests, which focus on sustainability issues and the global SDGs, comprise three primary thematic areas. The first investigates and compares emerging organizational sustainability governance, reporting and assurance practices. Inspired by his passion for wildlife and conservation, the second involves collaborating with natural scientists to explore the extent to which organizations account to their stakeholders about their biodiversity impacts, especially on how their operations contribute to degrading, preserving, or restoring biodiversity. Against the backdrop of increasing economic challenges in developing countries, corporate donations to conservation-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are declining. The third study investigates the emerging innovative financing mechanisms that provide sustainable funding for the biodiversity preservation efforts of conservation NGOs.

A career diplomat since 1992, Ambassador Batsukh served as Ambassador-at-Large for Mongolia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade until March 2010. He was formerly Mongolia’s ambassador to Canada between 2001 and 2005, with additional accreditations to Peru, Brazil, and Paraguay, and ambassador to China between 2005 and 2009, with additional accreditations to Australia, New Zealand, and Pakistan.

Ambassador Batsukh holds a master’s degree in international trade and a doctoral degree in international relations. He was an executive with Mongolia’s National Tourism Administration for eight years, including two years as Chairman. In June 2010, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of Oyu Tolgoi LLC.

I was born in the Midwest and grew up in Chicago. I was fortunate to visit my grandparents at their country homes outside the city and on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  Later, I attended boarding school on the East Coast, broadening my scope and range.  When I was 13, I was invited to Kenya on a safari by an old family friend.  This journey, I believe, changed my life forever. The wild beauty of Africa left an everlasting impression on me.

After graduating high school, I chose to study abroad in the center of Europe.  I attended an American College in Lugano, Switzerland called Franklin.  Here, I obtained a global perspective and a respect for people’s interdependence.  After a few years of traveling across Europe, I returned home to continue my studies on the West Coast.  I attended Pepperdine University, graduating with an interdisciplinary Communications major specializing in International Studies.

I continued to educate myself through reading and travel.  Art and history became my favorite subjects.  I found music and cuisine to be the hallmarks of the local living of the people I visited.  Gradually, the draw of the cities was replaced by a lure towards nature and the countryside.  Ultimately, I have been fortunate to visit over 50 countries and 30 states in the U.S.  Our impact on nature was seen wherever I went, even under the sea while scuba diving.

The superimposing of the man-made world over the natural world has gradually exposed the shortsightedness of this historical practice.  In man’s subjugation of nature, he has rapidly caused an imbalance that only now, at the 11th hour, has he become aware.  We are part of the natural world and cannot live without it, though we are not essential to it.  The plight of the world’s flora and fauna and our future coexistence with nature has come to a critical crossroads.  Something must be done on a global scale.

The International Crane Foundation has been a guiding light for decades, bringing attention to the interrelation of the human world and the natural world’s interrelation.  It has highlighted the stark contrast between national sovereignty, with its self-centered focus, and the natural world, which knows no national boundaries.  It has striven for global cooperation to respect and sustain the habitats and migrations of cranes through education and goodwill.  I value its lessons and history as exemplary in this field of endeavor.

I have learned much from Dr George Archibald, whose tireless efforts and unceasing optimism are inspirational to all who know him. He has shown me the Black-necked Cranes of Bhutan, the Red-crowned Cranes of Japan, the Whooping Cranes of Louisiana, and the Sandhill Cranes in Michigan.  I am smitten with these amazing, sacred birds.  I would love to see every species in their natural habitat.  More importantly, I would like to continue to support the Foundation’s excellent work as my grandfather and father have before me.  I am drawn by its focus on a single family of birds with just 15 species and its efforts on a global scale.

Eleanor is an Independent Trustee of the Alpine family of mutual funds and serves on the Audit, Valuation and Nominating & Governance Committees. She is also the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) for Magni Global Asset Management in Minneapolis.

Eleanor served as Chief Compliance Officer for the asset management businesses of Ameriprise. Eleanor was a Partner of J. W. Seligman where she served as Risk Manager and as CCO of the Mutual Funds business. She was responsible for oversight of compliance, brokerage, derivatives, credit and the hedge funds business.

She served as Managing Director, Partner and Chief Investment Officer of AMT Capital, where she provided financial advisory services to a variety of US and non-US financial services firms.

Eleanor was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan where she worked for 17 years, including two overseas assignments. She served as an institutional fixed income portfolio manager, municipal bond trader, asset liability manager and product manager for Morgan’s then-nascent mutual funds business.

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Eleanor was an analyst and assistant economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

She is a Member of the Board and former President of the Wendell Gilley Museum of Bird Carving in Southwest Harbor Maine. She currently serves as Treasurer of the Museum. She is also a Member of the Alumnae Board of the Chapin School in New York.

Eleanor received a BA in Economics from Wellesley College.

She resides with her family in New York City.

Mike Horn joined the Board in 2019 and is a devoted Craniac having “adopted” five Sandhill Cranes near his lake house in McFarland, WI. His granddaughter, Stella, is very attached to the cranes, as is the rest of his family. He and his family became members of ICF after visiting the Baraboo headquarters in 2017 and becoming impressed with the important mission of the organization.

Mike is a CPA and his career has been predominately financial in nature, having been a partner in two international accounting firms for over 30 plus years and recently retired as Vice President-Corporate Controller for Chicago-based Marmon Group, a $7 billion diversified manufacturing conglomerate, owned by Berkshire Hathaway. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee of a global manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago that provides electrical switching, power and control equipment to utilities and industrial customers.

Mike has three grown children and three grandchildren. He and his wife, Lynne, have a home in Chicago in addition to the home in McFarland. Mike earned a BBA and MBA from the University of Wisconsin. He is a lake monitor on Lake Waubesa, as part of the Clean Lakes Alliance. Mike enjoys fishing, golfing, Badger sports and watching his grandchildren’s sporting activities.

I have spent most of my life in southeast Wisconsin, roughly an hour from the International Crane Foundation’s headquarters. I have fond memories from my childhood of walking through the “Briggsville woods” with my grandmother Mary Wickhem, the International Crane Foundation’s first Board Chair. She would often point out the calls of birds she heard off in the distance. Looking back now, I am not sure if it was the enchanting sounds of the birds or the overwhelming enthusiasm in her voice that struck me to the core and left me with a lifelong love for our winged friends. Regardless of the cause (likely a mix of both) I am struck… and will forever be an advocate for the cranes.

My professional history has little to nothing to do with the greater outdoors. I graduated college in Milwaukee with a degree in Business and Marketing. My minors included: Anthropology, economics and history. I went on to a career in personal finance with the goal of helping as many people as I possibly could. I started my career at two major wire houses, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Advisors. Both offered me a great opportunity to learn the ins and outs of human behavioral finance and retirement planning. My most recent and likely last move was to Johnson Financial Group in 2020. Here I am able to help a growing number of client’s design, maintain and continue their existing retirement and investment plans.

One of the major perks of my career path was that we were always encouraged to pursue our local philanthropic causes. Many were guided to causes that their firm supported… That was not the case for me. Having seen the “ins and outs” of Children’s Wisconsin (formerly Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin), where my mother Maryanne worked for over three decades, my decision was simple… find a way to help the kids. I started volunteering early on to help out in any way I could. It wasn’t until more recently that I decided to join a committee for their annual “Tee Up For Kids” golf outing. Additionally, I was similarly drawn to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Milwaukee, where I also joined a committee to help with their golf outing (are we seeing a trend yet??). Here I was able to help grow the community of both donors and volunteers to help benefit the cause. Along the way, I volunteered with several other organizations such as: the Alzheimer’s Association, Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation, Hunger Task Force and several others. However, my heart always brought me back to Children’s and BBBS… I knew that I would have to have a deep-seated love for the cause to offer my full support. For that very reason, when George called me about joining the board at the International Crane Foundation… I didn’t even have to think. The answer was absolutely and unconditionally “YES!”.

I look forward to lending myself to this cause in any way I can! These are strange times… but the birds still need us! I cannot wait to pick up where my grandmother left off and carry on the family tradition of instilling a deep-seated love for our beautiful feathered friends.

Heidi earned her B.A. in Economics at UVM in 1983, after which she moved to Chicago to work in the food and beverage industry and hospitality business. Her career includes experience in higher education and retail.

Throughout her life, Heidi has been a dedicated volunteer who has served and chaired many non-profit organizations in her community. She is a founding Board member of the BackYard Nature Center, an organization seeking to connect the community of New Trier Township in Illinois to nature.

Heidi’s love for the environment was fostered early in her life. She volunteered for years, teaching an environmental awareness program at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

She and her family did many years of restoration work on their properties in Wisconsin. This was also when she and her family encountered Sandhill Cranes.

Heidi is currently a member of the Rachel’s Network, as well as the Advisory Board to the School of Arts and Science at the University of Vermont

She splits her time between Glencoe, Illinois, and Stowe, Vermont.

Jason C. Sauey is CEO of the Nordic Group of Companies, a family-held holding company of primarily three operating companies: Flambeau, Inc.; Seats, Inc.; and Columbia ParCar. Flambeau is a diversified manufacturer of plastic products and contract solutions. Seats is a manufacturer of seating products for vehicles and equipment. Columbia is a provider of electric vehicles for industrial, institutional, closed campus and fixed-route environments.

Mr. Sauey also serves as President of Flambeau, Inc., a proprietary products marketer and contract plastics manufacturer of a wide variety of applications serving retail, commercial and industrial markets. Flambeau is one of the largest privately-held plastics processors in North America and is comprised of ten manufacturing plants in the United States, one in the United Kingdom, and one in Mexico. Flambeau is about evenly split in its product mix between blow molding and injection molding processes. Along with its Technology Center, Flambeau is a turnkey design, engineering and manufacturing resource of molds, automation & finishing devices and plastic products for a wide variety of applications. Flambeau serves over 40 different 4-digit SIC codes in its business mix.

A native of Wisconsin, Mr. Sauey earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. At both institutions, he graduated with honors and as a member of the Dean’s List. He began his career at Flambeau in 1985 as Marketing Manager, was promoted to Vice President of Marketing in 1986, and became President in 1992. Mr. Sauey serves on the Board of Directors of Flambeau, Inc. as well as its parent holding company, The Nordic Group of Companies. He serves as Chairman of both Boards. He also served on the Board of Directors of Artecon, a forerunner to the company named Dot Hill, a publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ exchange as well as the Board of Directors of Lowrance Electronics, a company that was also publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange.

Mr. Sauey was highly active in the Cleveland Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization and is active in its YPO Gold chapter. He served on the YPO chapter Executive Committee for many years as well as its Chairman in 2001-02. Flambeau is a member of many trade associations; Mr. Sauey has been active in a number of them and served as Chairman of the American Sportfishing Association after he served on its Board of Directors for several years.

Mr. Sauey and his wife, Donna, currently reside in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. They have two sons: Garrett and Austin, who are both employed in Madison, Wisconsin. Favorite family activities include music and the arts, sporting activities, the outdoors, and lively debates.

Jennifer is the President of the Palladium Foundation, which purchases conservation land in Utah.

Jennifer came to Utah to attend the University of Utah and to ski and has remained ever since. She became involved with The Nature Conservancy of Utah to protect the wetlands on the Great Salt Lake. Jennifer joined its board, which she now chairs, served on the committee for the Campaign for a Sustainable Planet, and helped design the visitors’ center.

In addition to The Nature Conservancy, Jennifer serves on the boards of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Conservation Lands Foundation, the Grand Canyon Trust, and the Wilderness Society. She is a Trustee of the Dutchess Day School, Miss Hall’s School, and the board of the Glynwood Center of Cold Spring, NY, which supports farm communities and regional food systems. She is a director of Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center, an estate once owned by her great-grandfather and deeded to the City of New York in 1960. Jennifer also chairs the board of ArtSpace, which provides affordable living and working spaces for artists, cultural organizations, non-profits and others in Salt Lake City.

Jennifer spends most of her time in Moab, Utah on her ranch on the Colorado River where she raises alfalfa and provides habitat for migrating birds. She is married to Randy Speers.

An avid wildlife and outdoors lover and storyteller, Jill Allread is CEO of Public Communications Inc., a national public relations (PR) and communications agency headquartered in Chicago. She counsels various clients to enhance their brand and reputation and strengthen their internal and external communications by more effectively telling their stories through strategic analysis, leadership coaching, and spokesperson training. Her previous jobs included working 12 years in newsrooms of daily newspapers, including as metropolitan editor for The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. Many of Jill’s clients are in conservation, health care, not-for-profit and education, building on her wildlife experience gained as Director of Public Affairs and PR at the Chicago Zoological Society.

A frequent national speaker and author of articles on crisis and issues management and communications campaigns, her client work has earned more than 150 national and regional public relations awards, including distinguished leader for PRSA and the lifetime achievement award from the Publicity Club of Chicago.

Respecting the land and caring about wildlife began in childhood for Jill, who grew up on a sheep and grain farm in northeast Indiana. From the farm, her interests and passion for nature expanded in wildlife conservation, and she continues to educate and advocate for the protection of cranes through service on the International Crane Foundation board and strategic communications.

Jill is an active civic leader and advisor and was past Illinois Nature Preserves Commission chair. She also serves as past chair and board member of Openlands, one of the nation’s oldest and most successful Chicago-region conservation organizations. She is a founding board member and former chair of Girls in the Game, a non-profit helping girls ages 7-17 build self-confidence and a healthier lifestyle. She earned accreditation from the Public Relations Society of America in 2000. She was elected to the PRSA College of Fellows in 2021, joining an elite group of national PR leaders representing less than 4% of North America’s PR practitioners.