Jerry Allen, LMFT, MPH, President
Jerry Allen moved to Oregon from California in 2014 and bought a small farm in Selma along Deer Creek. He and his partner farm fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs and chickens using regenerative agriculture methods, as well as making fermented foods.
Jerry has a bachelors degree in Anthropology, a Masters in Public Health, and an investment and financial planning certificate, all from UC Berkeley and a masters in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies. He is a California licensed LMFT trauma therapist since 1991.
He retired from a 24 year career supervising social workers for Human Services in Sonoma County, where he was also for 9 years a publicly elected pension trustee and board chair for 3 years. Jerry now volunteers for environmental organizations and conducts children’s educational programs in schools and libraries via songs, puppet folktales and playing guitar, banjo and accordion. He believes educating children about the environment should be fun and entertaining. He is a board member of the Siskiyou Field Institute, the past-Vice-President of the Cave Junction Farmers Market, and is a support volunteer with the Illinois Valley Fire District, where he holds an Oregon Emergency Medical Responder license.
Christine Perala Gardiner, PhD
Christine is a native Oregonian who has loved rivers and plants since childhood. She started her first business at age 21 in SE Portland called “The Growing Concern Gardening Service”. She completed her BA in Botany and Environmental Studies at Pitzer College, Claremont California in 1989.
She founded the Technical Advisory Board for Friends of the Los Angeles River in 1991, and formed the LA County chapter of the California Oak Foundation. From her work on the LA River, she went on to graduate school at Humboldt State with the Institute for River Ecosystems. Her field research was conducted on the Mattole River of California’s “Lost Coast”. She completed her PhD in 1999 at Middlesex University Enfield “Flood Hazard Research Centre” on the role of woody vegetation on river bank stabilization during flooding.
She taught a professional course on River Restoration at Portland State 2001-2004. In 2005, she wrote and taught the first–ever course offering at PSU on Fluvial Geomorphology for the PSU Department of Geology. She moved to Cave Junction in 2006-07 with her husband John to raise alpacas using traditional methods of working with Nature, and consults locally as a Botanist in private practice.
WV Joerger, SE
I was fortunate to be born into a family that valued character. After I discovered that I had some degree of intelligence I graduated from engineering school and designed structures for everything from making toilet tissue to cutting edge biopharmaceuticals and finished with engineering utility and equipment restraints for hospitals. Along the way were many paddling trips on lakes, rivers and oceans. There is not a river (or really any body of water) that does not have a personal soothing connection. Southwest Oregon is now my home with my dear wife Susan. We came here to rejuvenate ourselves, help restore the land, and add a positive energy. Healing Mother Nature, protecting rivers, and being a source of light to our local community…worthy goals for this soul.
Gordon Lyford, MS, CWRE
My wife Nancy and I moved to the Illinois Valley in 1992 to work, live, and retire. We have always been involved in activities to improve the lives of local people and the ecological conditions. We have been blessed to make friends with many wonderful people. It seems that the work never ends and it is good to have many helpful friends.
My background includes:
• B.S. Engineering of Agricultural Systems, Arizona State University, 1975
• M.S. Water Science – Irrigation and Drainage, University of California at Davis, 1981
• Department of the Interior, retired after 31 years of service with the USBR and BLM
• Agricultural Engineer, US Bureau of Reclamation, Sacramento, 1976–1992
• Natural Resource Specialist, Bureau of Land Management, Medford, 1992-2006
• The Nature Conservancy Rough and Ready Creek Preserve, and with the Yellow Tuft Alyssum eradication team, 2007-present
• California Drought Water Bank Team member, 1991
• Board member Illinois Valley Community Response Team, 2002–2004
• Board member Illinois Valley Watershed Council, 2005–2014 (Secretary, 2007–2014)
• Board member Illinois Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, 2005–2014 (Secretary, 2007–2014)
Linda Pace, Esq, Treasurer
Linda Pace moved to Southern Oregon after 45 years of practicing law in Atlanta, Georgia. A native of the North Carolina mountains, she fell in love with the landscape and the outdoor opportunities of the Rogue River Basin. She and her husband purchased 20 forested acres in the Illinois Valley that they intend to protect and conserve.
Water, public land forests, and promoting the health of an ecosystem facing the challenges of long-term drought and rising temperatures have become her focus. In addition to the Water League, Linda is on the Board of Directors of the Lake Claire Community Land Trust (Atlanta, GA) and is a co-leader of the Rogue Broadband of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. She is licensed to practice law in Georgia and the federal courts and has applied for reciprocity admission to the Oregon State Bar.
Tracey Reed, BS, Secretary
Tracey is passionate about conserving natural resources for future generations, and is excited about serving with an organization that engages the public in the stewardship of Oregon’s water. Tracey is Secretary of the board of the Rogue Basin Partnership and liaises with the Illinois Valley. She worked for the Illinois Valley Soil & Water Conservation District from 2016 to 2021 as the Conservation Technician, then as the Conservation Program Manager. There, she served on the riparian, fish passage, and weed management work groups.
Following her B.S. degree in Natural Resources Management at Grand Valley State University, Tracey worked for BLM and ODFW. She also volunteered as an Americorps VISTA grant writer at Focus: HOPE in Detroit and for the Student Conservation Association at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area building the invasive species management program.
Tracey is a grant-writing consultant for Project Youth+ in Grants Pass, and organization that assists students region-wide in their transition from high school. Tracey is the President of the board of SO Derby, southern Oregon’s nonprofit roller derby league based in Medford, and she has been a member of the Rogue Valley Networking Toastmasters Club. She is the mother of a precious, outgoing eight-year old daughter who loves camping.
Dan Wahpepah
Dan Wahpepah is from the Anishinabe, Kickapoo and Sac & Fox tribes. He grew up with his community’s cultural ways and has been politically active with the American Indian Movement, community, and environmental organizations. He is a General Contractor established 1990. Locally, Dan started the Rogue Valley Pow Wow, the American Indian Cultural Center, founded and co-directs Red Earth Descendants nonprofit and is also a board member of Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance and Rogue Climate. He is the first Indigenous man Certified Permaculture Instructor and his efforts are focused on the preservation of this Earth for future generations through decolonize, reindigenize, and naturalization events and has a weekly First Nations Radio show.
Neptunes
Water League Board Members who have gone deep into the ancient water…
John Gardiner MBE, PhD, PE
John Gardiner died quietly in his own home June 15, 2024.
John attended Hampton School and studied Latin, French, chess, and more. He went on to Imperial College London, where he graduated in Civil Engineering. His schoolmate from grammar school through college, Brian May, was already a gifted musician in the early 60s, and John was part of the roadie team when Brian gave concerts with his first band, before Queen.
John went to work in the 1970s engineering for Thames River Conservancy, which later became the National Rivers Authority. He was a man of many talents who had a keen interest in seeing other people succeed. John’s greatest joy was being present for others’ happiness and success.
As Technical Planning Manager for the Jubilee River project, he oversaw the analysis, design and public consultation on the largest flood defense scheme ever built in the UK. It created 17 km of new river channel for the Thames through historic landscapes such as Eaton College and Windsor Castle. Today this project has not only reduced flood hazard risks for thousands of people, it has also created the largest wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation in SW England. He showed us how Engineers can work with Nature, meet the demands of function, create more beauty and wildlife habitats while saving the public lots of money.
In 1993, John was awarded the first order of knighthood by the Queen, Member of the British Empire (MBE), for his work.
He met Christine in 1995, they fell in love with each other and while restoring rivers to a natural condition. They married in 1996, and moved to Oregon in 1998. Together they consulted widely in river and wetland restoration in Oregon and California from 1998 to 2019. John’s international expertise includes river bank stabilization using local willows and rocks.
John and Christine started an alpaca farm in 2000 in Sandy Oregon. They brought their alpaca herd to a farm in Cave Junction in 2006. Their demonstration farm proved that modern Americans can recreate the foundation of a local economy with alpaca providing food, fiber and medicine, using traditional organic practices.
John served on the Cave Junction City Council from 2012 to 2016, and on many nonprofit boards including Cave Junction Farmers Market, IV Chamber of Commerce, I.V. Wellness Resources, Rusk Ranch Nature Center, CJ Homeless Alliance, I.V. Soil and Water Conservation District, the I.V. Sierra Club, and as co-founder and Vice-president of Water League.
John’s kindness for all creatures — don’t pick the flowers! — channelled Water League’s fierce love for Water in all its forms — flora, fauna, humans, mountains, rivers, glades, watersheds… Water League honors John in all that we do, ever more intently, ever more purposed, ever more courageously.