Alaska Chapter Staff
Andrea became the director of Sierra Club Alaska in August 2020. Before coming on board at Sierra Club, she worked on campaigns around the country to elect environmentally-minded candidates to public office. She is originally from South Florida, but has always dreamed of mountains and wide-open spaces. After visiting for a backpacking trip in Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Andrea was determined to make it back to Alaska permanetly. Her love for exploring wild spaces has strengthened her resolve to protect them for future generations.
Executive Committee
Heather Jesse is a lifelong resident of Anchorage, Alaska. She is a graduate of the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she earned her bachelors of business administration in economics in May, 2019. As a student, she served on UAA’s Green Fee Board, where she helped champion many sustainable improvements to the campus, including introduction of hydroponic growing cabinets and erection of 27 solar panels. She also enjoys being an active member of the nonprofit Alaska Trails-- that builds and maintains sustainable trails across Alaska.
Adrienne started as treasurer in 2020. She currently works at a technology company, coming from a position as a Data Librarian at a university library. Before libraries, she worked in environmental conservation, specifically a youth conservation corps that engaged in environmental educating, street tree coordinating, and green infrastructure promoting. Adrienne recently moved to Anchorage from the Finger Lakes area of New York, with her husband and an adorable coonhound.
Susan, a Sierra Club life member, is a biologist who worked as a ranger-naturalist in Katmai National Park, Alaska in the 1970s. Later she did a marine mammal subsistence survey in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She was a National Park Service research anthropologist, interviewing Yup'ik Eskimo elders talking about their subsistence and oral cultural traditions. For almost five years she has been Alaska Chapter Conservation Chair and delegate to the Council of Club Leaders. She has organized Chapter workshops to attract more Alaskans to support conservation of Alaska's iconic wildlife--especially of predators.
Gregory Stewart is the Legal Chair for the Executive Committee of the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club. He works as a Grants Administrator at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, where he primarily prepares applications and reports for projects that preserve and strengthen Alaska Native arts, culture, and language. Originally from the Secatogue and Lenape lands where New York is located, he now lives and works on the Dena'ina lands where Anchorage is settled.
Kim Kirby, Compliance Chair
Kim Kirby’s love affair of Alaska started with a ferry trip of the Inside Passage. That was 1989. The next year she paddled from Juneau to Ketchikan, taking three months and many side trips. The next year she paddled from Orcas Island to Bella Bella. Those summer paddling trips were just the start. Moving to Ketchikan full time in 1994 she opened a B&B and started a kayaking company, Southeast Sea Kayaks, guiding local trips and tours into Misty Fjords National Monumemt. She has commercial fished Salmon on a seine boat, long lined Halibut and packed shrimp through the gales of fall on the west coast of Prince of Wales. After selling the kayaking company Kim now lives on Pennock Island across from Ketchikan and runs her home as a summer vacation rental. She also works as a Captain and mechanic for the local Oil Spill Response team and goes on oil spill exercises throughout the year. Her passions are the Rainforest, the beaches and wilderness of SE.
Santa Claus, At-Large Member
Santa believes that our environment must be pro-actively protected to ensure that children, especially, continue to be able to view and explore the wonders of nature, have clean water to drink, clear air to breathe, unadulterated food to consume, environmentally sound structures to inhabit, and renewable energy sources to utilize. For the past decade, Santa has been enjoying spectacular Alaska. He is a former Senior Park Ranger for the Fairbanks North Star Borough and Mayor Pro Tem of the City of North Pole. His doctoral studies at New York University were in educational communication and technology.
