Board of Directors
Badger
Badger Baldwin Johnson has a background in forestry and sustainable agriculture. His main areas of focus at Woodcock are prescribed fire management, liasoning with Southern Ohio Chestnut company, and non-timber forest products. He also helped to establish the Land Acknowledgement installation and the Friendship Trail which is used as the 5k path.
Bob
Bob Scott Placier has been serving as a board member and treasurer since 2008. He is native to Southeastern Ohio and has lived there virtually his whole life. He retired from working as a teacher at Hocking College in 2015, after working there for 35 years. He mainly taught Ornithology and Dendrology, which he has a background in.
Becky
Rebecca (Horn) Ferguson grew up in Athens County, Ohio on Bird in Hand Farm, now known as the Woodcock Nature Preserve. She went to Alexander Local Schools and Athens City Schools and is a graduate of Hocking College for nursing, and Ohio University with bachelor's degrees in psychology and nursing. She still resides in Athens County with her husband, Doug, and many pets. Together they have two children, Andrea and Eric. Becky works at O’Bleness Hospital where she has been a staff nurse for over 30 years. She is also the current President of The Woodcock Nature Preserve which was founded by her parents, David and Helen Horn. She is a member of the lifetime Sierra Club as well. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her kids and her pets. Becky also enjoys gardening, and an occasional good suspense novel. Her true passion is exploring the world - she has traveled to various parts of the U.S., national parks, Canada, Europe, Mexico, both South and Central America, Thailand and Nepal.
Nate
Nate Beail-Farkas has been an active collaborator at WNP since 2017. An avid outdoorsman and lover of nature, Nate raised his young children in our rustic woods house. He’s been instrumental in the continued evolution of the property toward becoming a transformational space for the community. His Favorite dogs are burried here.
Sayre
Sayre Flannagan is a Wildlife Biologist and Assistant Professor at Rio Grande University. She worked for many years at Hocking College, in the school of Natural Resources, which is how she learned of the Woodcock Nature Preserve. She joined the board because she believes in the mission, and wanted another opportunity to expose her students to hands-on conservation practices. Spending time in nature is her favorite thing to do, and when she is not doing that in her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.
Ron
Ron Cass has several degrees: AS Recreation and Wildlife Management at Hocking, BS Recreation Management from Ohio University, MEd Higher Education from OU plus most of a Masters from the Voinovich School at OU. He has taught at Hocking for 30 plus years in the School of Natural Resources including many courses in biology, Ecology, conservation, watershed management and many skill based courses. He served as Chair of the Recreation and Wildlife Management degree. He is currently the Director of the School of Natural Resources International Field School. He also serves as vice president of the Hocking River Commission and organization dedicated to conservation, restoration, education, and public access along the Hocking River. Over there, they manage 8 properties in the three counties the Hocking flows through. He has worked for NRCS, ODNR, and over the years volunteered with the Raccoon Creek Partnership, Sunday Creek Watershed, Monday Creek Restoration Project, The Arc of Appalachia and now the Woodcock Nature Preserve. In the big picture, Ron hopes to leave this world a better place than when he came into it. As a child, Ron watched the Cuyahoga River Burn and last summer he watched a fisherman catch a Walleye in that very same spot the river burnt. He feels if we work hard we can continue this trend and fix many of the wrongs we have created.