JTREE Public Information & Transparency

Lori is a founding board member of JTREE. Her mission is to give back to the community while at the same time doing what she loves most …art, hiking, outdoor activities, and children. Lori's experience includes serving on the Board of Directors for multiple non-profit organizations. In the management of her own advertising company, Benchmark Studios, she has successfully managed every aspect of a business from administration and sales to staffing and production. Prior to Benchmark, Lori worked in for a major corporation, Paychex Inc, where she found successes using her strengths of sales support/guidance, customer service management and overall branch operation.

Phil, Treasurer on the JTREE Board of Directors, has been Lead Instructor with Joshua Tree Search and Rescue for 21 years. He also serves as Treasurer for The Friends of Joshua Tree (another Park Partner with JTNP) for almost as long. Growing up in Connecticut, Phil attended the University of Vermont where he majored in music, education and media. Currently an active real estate agent, Phil spends free time “attempting” to play the ukulele. Joshua Tree National Park has been a source of inspiration for Phil. He expects the JTREE program to inspire hundreds of young people each year, instilling them with an understanding of their personal value, and the value of their relationship to nature.

An active visitor of National Parks and Forests his entire life, Jim’s involvement with JTREE was an outgrowth of projects he and his students at University of Redlands have conducted with park staff over the past several years. He received his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, USA. He holds an MBA from Claremont and engineering degrees from University of Washington and Calvin College. He teaches courses in strategy, innovation, and sustainable business at the University of Redlands. He has taught travel courses in the National Parks of the Southwest US, as well as in Costa Rica, England, France, Austria, and Southeast Asia. Jim is the past president of the Western Academy of Management, and is a member of the editorial board for the Academy of Management Learning and Education journal.

Carrie is currently an elementary school teacher in the Morongo Unified School district. As an educator, Carrie firmly believes in experience-based learning. Due to her passion for the outdoors, she focuses many of her classroom projects around environmentalism, conservation, and outdoor exploration. In 2018, Carrie participated in the NPS Teacher-Ranger-Teacher program at Joshua Tree National Park. During this time, she developed a year-long project-based unit incorporating all subject areas and standards for fourth grade. Since then, she has adapted parts of this unit for second, third, fifth, and sixth grades as well.
Carrie states, “my passion for teaching outdoor education comes down to one major truth: Connecting with the outdoors will OPEN doors for our students. Careers that students didn't even know were previously available are now of interest and become within reach. Hobbies, activities, and passions begin to blossom. Opportunities open up. Healing takes place. A sense of ownership and responsibility for their local community settles in. Students with a connection to their environment become leaders. For some, the outdoors becomes the strongest sense of home they have ever felt. Every student deserves to experience that.”

Roddy McCalley graduated from Yale University in 2000 with a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Over the following twelve years he worked as a summer camp counselor on an organic farm, a naturalist at a residential outdoor science school in the redwoods, an English teacher in Thailand, and an instructor at several outdoor education programs—leading backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada, canoe trips on the Colorado River, and team-building and nature education programs on the Channel Islands, in Yosemite, and in Joshua Tree, among other locations. From 2013-2015 he managed the Outdoor Adventures program at UCLA Recreation, training student leaders and organizing camping, climbing, backpacking and canoeing trips for the UCLA community. Since 2015 he has worked full-time as a rock climbing guide--mostly in Joshua Tree, where he started his own business, Roddy McCalley Guiding, in 2019. Roddy believes strongly in the value of nature education and outdoor recreation in promoting healthy and ecologically sustainable lifestyles.

Richard Shelton is an artist and arts administrator working in Los Angeles. For the past twenty years both as the Director of Creative Action at Otis College and as an artist; Shelton has been actively working with community organizations such as Junior Blind, the Republic of Palau, Homeboy Industries, Urban Compass in Watts, the Getty, Los Angeles Poverty Department, the Minnesota State and Federal Correction Facilities and the Jacaranda Foundation in Blantyre, Malawi.