MEET THE TEAM

Anna Clare is a rangeland ecosystem scientist, systems thinker, synthesizer, and collaborative facilitator. She considers herself a life-long student of nature who thrives in interdisciplinary work environments and has a knack for creating community and networks of people for a common purpose. She merges a formal background in both the social sciences and ecological sciences to assist stakeholders in the discovery of common-ground paths for learning, management planning, and long-term thrivability in the interface of ranching and conservation.

She has experience in collaborative partnerships, multi-stakeholder rangeland management, ecosystem services valuation, plant-soil-water-carbon dynamics, rotational and adaptive grazing, agrivoltaics, and agent-based modeling. A published writer, musician, and poet, Anna Clare enjoys bridging the worlds of science, art, and land management. A rancher herself, she brings her unique skillset to natural resource and grazing management in both her for-profit company, Graze LLC, and non-profit organization, Rangeland Living Laboratory. She appreciates not only talking the “talk,” but walking the “walk” and being a work-in-progress example for the things she loves, believes in, and promotes.

She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Humanities, an M.A. in Community Counseling, an international Post-Graduate Certificate in Expressive Arts: Therapy, Consultation, and Social Change, an M.S. in Animal Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Ecosystem Science and Sustainability.

Giovanni was born and raised in the picturesque fishing village of Sant Elia, Sicily (Italy). At age 13, he began apprenticing with his father and grandfather in artisan and farming trades, from stone and tile installation to cultivating lemon and olive orchards and raising livestock. His family-based skills and trades also include carpentry, welding, horticulture, horsemanship, fishing, hunting, plumbing, electrical work, and not to mention, Sicilian cooking! Giovanni’s skills and knowledge in all of these areas runs deep, and his passion is strong. Early on, he learned to put his heart into his work as well. His mother will endearingly say, “My son has hands of gold.” Formally, Giovanni completed an associates certification as a dental technician, but he was never really interested in continuing a career working inside a dental lab or further book study. It was inevitable that Giovanni would become a master of any trade he put his mind, heart, and hands into. He is a natural land and animal steward and has an adept eye for husbandry and care.

When he and Anna Clare met in 2008, it wasn’t long before they began ranching together on a small piece of land on the island of Sicily. Upon transferring to the United States in 2011, they continued to grow their operation, and attained invaluable experiential knowledge and skills as individuals and as a team. Giovanni has a gift for entertaining and hosting ranch guests and making people feel at home in his home. As COO of Rangeland Living Laboratory, Giovanni provides a lifetime of practical and operational skills and expertise in water, forage, and grazing management, machinery operation, landscape engineering, and a down-to-earth approach for creating community around local food production, resource sharing, and partnership.

Stacy is a social ecologist who specializes on complex sustainability challenges faced on rangeland landscapes that support both food systems and conservation of natural resources. She is a research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, and teaches sustainability courses for the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University (CSU). She runs the SUPER undergraduate research program that builds foundational research skills and oversees paired mentorships with researchers at CSU, the (Skills for Undergraduate Participation in Ecological Research) Program. She has a history as an educator in the US and southern Africa, a Master’s degree in Rangeland Ecosystem Science, and a PhD in Ecology, both from Colorado State University. These degrees have led to 25 years of work with East African pastoralist communities in the context of sustainable livelihoods and conservation. It has also led to projects in the US West related to grazing on government-owned lands, and developing K-12 curriculum on ecology and management of free-roaming horses.

Stacy’s expertise includes transdisciplinary approaches to social-ecological research, systems thinking, participatory research methods, environmental governance, citizen science, science education, and situation assessment & stakeholder analysis. Her diverse experiences and partnerships have strongly shaped her specialization in taking a broad systems approach to investigating complex, applied, social-ecological questions that have real implications on the ground for both people and ecosystems. Her approach uses a combination of ecological and social science methods to perform integrated and community-based collaborative research.

Stacy enjoys spending time with family, camping, skiing, hiking and outside exploring nature.

I grew up in Golden, Colorado, the second of 5 brothers. As a town kid, my interest in agriculture began with Golden High’s Vocational Agriculture program and FFA. I attended Colorado State University, initially as an animal science major where I milked my way through school at CSU’s dairy. Inspired by C. Wayne Cook during an introductory Range Management course that I tried unsuccessfully to get out of, I changed my major to Range Ecology/ Mined Land Reclamation during my junior year.

I spent summers in Meeker, Colorado working on reclamation for Colowyo Coal Company and returned after graduation. While I waited for Colowyo to lift hiring freezes on new, permanent employees, for several years I was employed half the year at the mine and then packed up my 1964 Buick station wagon to move and work the remainder of the year on family -owned cow-calf and range sheep operations.

I came back to the front range and Longmont to learn the agricultural and native grass seed business working for Arkansas Valley Seed Company during the peak of the Conservation Reserve program. I loved the business, the company and the people but left after 4 years to take a dream job near Orchard, Colorado working for a large, farm/ranch/ and bird hunting operation.

The job in Orchard was wonderful but hard on family life. The front range and Boulder County was the last place in Colorado I thought I would end up but after another 4 years, I went to the front range once more to work for the City of Boulder Open Space as an Agricultural Resource Specialist and eventually to Boulder County Parks & Open Space to help build a new Agricultural Resources Division. For the past 28 years I have been involved working with farmers, ranchers, Parks & Open Space staff, agency folks, neighbors and the citizens of Boulder County to provide for the stewardship of 25,000 acres of agricultural land leased to 70 private operators who are our partners. Operations vary from irrigated, diversified cropland, dryland cropland, irrigated hay & pasture, rangeland, large scale organic vegetable production, small market farms and combinations of many of the above.

My job involved every aspect of supporting our agricultural producers in caring for the land and water. Along the way, I also restored close to 2000 acres of marginal dryland cropland to native species grassland and represented County Open Space where oil & gas development occurred on open space lands. For the last two years I have been involved almost entirely with the management of Boulder County’s $290 million water rights portfolio. I retired in January 2023 and am now employed part-time with Boulder County Parks & Open Space in an advisory capacity.

At the end of 2024, I hope to fully retire from Boulder County to my home in Longmont and intend to spend a great deal more time with my wife Liz and our 17 and 14 year old sons, Lucas and Robbie doing the many things we love in our beautiful (though somewhat crowded) state.

Roy Roath has worked tirelessly to help land managers improve rangeland resources throughout the west and internationally since 1974 as a researcher, teacher, and most of all as a mentor to ranches and agency personnel interested in improving species diversity, watershed function, wildlife habitat, and ranch profitability. With a PhD in Range Management and Ruminate Nutrition, he has authored or co-authored over 200 research or management articles, both peer reviewed and for popular consumption. His professional positions have included; research project leader in South Dakota, research and teaching faculty at Texas A&M University, visiting professor at the Federal University of Uberlandia in Brazil, Colorado State University Extension Range Specialist, providing habitat evaluation and improvement information for the Colorado and Wyoming wildlife management agencies, and now in transitional retirement from CSU extension as a private rangeland consultant.

A few accomplishments and awards include writing the white paper that was the basis for the Colorado Division of Wildlife Habitat Partnership Program and providing training and evaluation materials for the Ranching for Wildlife program that have helped decrease wildlife conflicts on ranches in Colorado and encouraged improved wildlife habitat. As a founding member of the Colorado Integrated Resource Management program, he helped faculty in different colleges and departments use a rancher cooperator model to demonstrate how ranchers could use a resource based approach to improve ranch profits. He was then instrumental in developing the Western Center for Integrated Resource Management at CSU, a special Master’s Degree program for resource based business and land managers. He also developed the Grazing Response Index to help land managers plan and assess the effects of their grazing management actions on plant communities. It is now an official monitoring method for Region 2 of the USDA Forest Service. He has also worked extensively with federal agencies in Coordinated Resource Management (CRM).

He was recognized internationally for his expertise by being invited to track a 2.5 day workshop on the CRM process at the International Rangeland Congress in Townsville, Queensland. Roy has served the Society well as a board member and the President of the Colorado Section and then went on to chair the organizing committee for the Dencer meeting of the parent society – the best attended, and most profitable in the history of the society/ He earned the Society’s Fellow award and numerous other recognitions by the university, federal and state agencies and his peers.

Zoe Lipscomb has a BS in Ecosystem Science and Sustainability from Colorado State University and extensive experience working as a lab technician for a grassland ecophysiology lab, where she gained experience in field work, microscopy, and designing and implementing research studies. While doing this work, Zoe realized her passion for communication between different stakeholders who work in and depend on rangeland ecosystems. As someone who works closely with both scientists and rural communities, she sees the need for connection and trust between stakeholders for both conservation and ranching.

Aside from research, Zoe works with families whose youth are at risk of out of home placement or involved in the court system and runs supervised visits for youth in out of home placement.

In her free time, Zoe enjoys training horses, exploring new areas on horseback, and playing with her puppy, Maverick.

Dr. Brendon Anthony has 10 years of agricultural and non-profit experience. He received his Ph.D. in Horticulture from Colorado State University with expertise in plant/tree physiology, sustainable food production systems and agroecology in perennial systems. He has published 20+ peer-reviewed journal articles, extension articles and book chapters on horticultural/agricultural-related topics. Brendon also serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Harvest Craft (est. 2013), leading the vision, curriculum and research of the Haiti Center for Agroecology (HCA).

Brendon has a passion for utilizing agriculture as a tool to bring about social and environmental redemption and restoration. His extensive background in academia and the land-grant system has led to the formation of the HCA, Harvest Craft’s flagship program, which operates as a research and extension center for 500+ local Haitian farmers.

Brendon enjoys hiking, camping with his husky, Kaskade, and mountain biking.