Directors and Officers

The Western Cave Conservancy is governed by an eight-director board, with day-to-day business conducted by the four officers and various committee chairs. The directors bring to the board professional cave management experience as well as scientific expertise in the disciplines of archaeology, entomology, geology and hydrology, as well as professional cave resource management skills and cave rescue teaching credentials. All the directors and officers are longtime cavers, whose enjoyment of the underground has gone beyond recreational caving to become a major avocation and even a profession.

 Marianne Russo, Director and President 
mrusso@westerncaves.org
Marianne has been an active caver for over 20 years. Professionally she is an archaeologist, and managed the Sacramento regional office of the California Archeological and Historical Resources Inventory for 25 years. She has participated in numerous field surveys and excavations and has taught summer field schools. Marianne has also served as Chairman and Secretary of the Mother Lode Grotto and Vice-chair of the Western Region of the National Speleological Society. She has assisted in training novice cavers and teaching vertical techniques. Marianne is a National Cave Rescue Commission instructor who has helped conduct several cave rescue training seminars.

 Rolf Aalbu PhD, Director and Vice President 
raalbu@westerncaves.org
Rolf Aalbu owns a database consulting business, working primarily for California State Parks. He is also a Research Associate in the Entomology Department at the California Academy of Sciences and an adjunct professor at Sacramento City College. After serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon, Africa and receiving a Ph.D. in Entomology at Ohio State University, Columbus, Rolf conducted post-doctoral research at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge in Database Designs for Biological Sciences. His research and consulting positions have taken him to many parts of the world including Peru, Tunisia, India, Panama, Morocco, Egypt, Mexico and France. Rolf has over 30 publications in refereed journals including the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies (formerly the NSS Bulletin). Rolf currently presides over the Pacific Coast Entomological Society. Rolf also serves WCC our Research Director.

 Martin Haye, Director and Treasurer 
mhaye@westerncaves.org
Since early childhood Martin has been a caver at heart, building tiny spaces of blankets and boxes and then crawling into them. In 1990 he discovered the existence of other claustrophiles and has been a caver ever since. Martin spends most of his time as a software engineer for the California Digital Library, and brings years of project management and people skills to the board. While non-profit accounting is a new hobby, he has discovered a natural talent and (possibly unnatural) interest in balancing books, developing financial procedures, and memorizing labyrinthine tax codes. As WCC's Acquisitions Director, Martin recently scored a success with the purchase of Rippled Cave.

 Joel Despain, Director 
jdespain@westerncaves.org
Joel Despain is the Cave Management Specialist for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California. He has been an active caver for over 20 years. Having caved extensively throughout the Americas and in Asia, he led the 1997 and 2000 Gunung Buda Project Expeditions to Sarawak on Borneo in Malaysia. Additional credentials include Director for the Cave Research Foundation, Chair of the National Speleological Society International Exploration Committee, and cartographer for the LEARN Project in Lechuguilla Cave and the Cuban/American Cave Research Project. Joel brings his considerable cave management experience to his role as WCC's Stewardship Director.

 Donald Dunn, Director 
ddunn@westerncaves.org
When Don is not caving he pays his bills as a Computer Consultant/Project Manager. He has been caving for 25 years and is fondest of caves with big drops. He is the chief instigator and rigger of an annual zip highline 150 feet across canyon walls during a vertical practice. He has held most of the elected offices within the Mother Lode Grotto of the NSS. Recently he discovered sea caves, some accessible only by aggressive kayaking. Don is WCC's Public Relations Director.

 Jerald Johnson PhD, Director 
jjohnson@westerncaves.org
Jerry is professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at California State University, Sacramento, and was chairman of the department from 1996-2002. He is also a director of the Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Studies at CSUS. Jerry was co-director of the excavations in Pinnacle Point Cave in 1964. In addition, he belongs to numerous professional organizations in the fields of Archeology and Anthropology. In 2001, Jerry received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for California Archaeology. He has taught upper division courses in cave archeology and presented professional papers at NSS National Conventions and at two International Congress of Speleology meetings. In addition, he is currently Vice-Chair of the International Commission of Cave Archeology.

 Bruce Rogers, Director 
brogers@westerncaves.org
Bruce Rogers began cave exploring in the wilds of New England in the 1950's. Since then he has explored the basements of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Alaska to Mesoamerica in addition to many of the island nations of the Pacific Basin. His wide-ranging spelean interests encompass mineralogy, geology & geography, paleontology, cartography, and history. He is the author of numerous publications on caves and related subjects, usually illustrated with his own photographs and drawings. His current interests are lava tubes, littoral caves, cave fossils, and pre-historic cave utilization in the Americas.

In the early 1970s, increasingly restricted access to caves prompted his interest in conservation. As long-time supporter of conservation efforts, he brings a nation-wide perspective to the Western Cave Conservancy board.

His interest in caves led to a formal education in geology and a position as a field geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, CA. He now indulges both artistic and scientific bents as a scientific illustrator and outreach specialist at the USGS as well as working part time in earth science programs with the National Park Service and with science education at NASA.

 Mike White, Director 
mwhite@westerncaves.org
Born and raised in the Sierra Nevada's "cave country"—Calaveras County, California—Mike entered his first wild cave at the age of four. After spending his boyhood hanging out at Moaning Cavern, just up the road from his home, he finally found a group to take him caving in 1983, and has been exploring the Gold Country's dark side ever since. In 2003 he joined the National Speleological Society and has steadily increased his involvement in organized caving. In addition to serving as the Chair of the Columbia Grotto of the NSS, Mike volunteers regularly at the Crystal Cave Restoration in Sequoia National Park. He brings to the WCC board a fresh, outspoken viewpoint and extensive connections with Calaveras County cave owners and ranchers.

 Dan Snyder, Secretary 
dsnyder@westerncaves.org
Dan Snyder spent his teenage years exploring abandoned mercury mines in the California Coast Ranges. Much to his parents' chagrin, an aunt encouraged this strange obsession for all things underground by signing him up for New York's Heldeberg Workshop, where he spent the summer of 1985 happily crawling through the bowels of Albany and Schoharie counties. Since that time he has caved extensively throughout California and Nevada, focusing on the more obscure caves of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges. Having assembled a large collection of references to the caves of California, from time to time he works them up into articles that, until recently, he was convinced few people read. He is the recipient of the 2003 Peter M. Hauer Spelean History Award. Dan is also serving as Secretary-Treasurer of the Western Region of the National Speleological Society.