AZLCV Staff
Steven Arnquist -
Executive Director
Steve first volunteered with AZLCV in 1993, before he moved to Arizona and has been Executive Director at the League since the summer of 2009. Steve has worked for the AZLCV since the summer of 2005, initially working to reinstate the League’s canvass and membership programs. He has done just about everything at the League from door knocking and voter outreach to administrative work, legislative monitoring, campaign planning and fundraising.
Steve comes from a background of political activism and volunteered for his first local political campaign at the age of 10. Steve has worked on various campaigns in Arizona from ballot initiatives and city council races to presidential campaigns and is thrilled to work at the intersection of two of his greatest passions, conservation and politics. Steve previously was the Southern Arizona Director for the non-partisan Moving America Forward Foundation. Steve loves Tucson, where he has lived for the past decade. He loves to garden and enjoy the Arizona he works to protect as often as possible.
Melissa Ramsey -
Membership Coordinator, New Media Manager & Administrator
Melissa Ramsey is an Arizona native and grew up in the small mining community of San Manuel. She moved to Tucson in high school and quickly became interested in the various outdoor activities surrounding Tucson. After 18 years as a desert dweller, Melissa sought higher ground in Flagstaff and earned her Bachelors of Science in Forestry with an emphasis in Conservation Biology. She was also a member of the National Forestry Honor Society Xi Sigma Pi and the Society of American Foresters. She enjoys hiking and backpacking around Arizona in the lands she works to protect.
Melissa came to the League in 2008 as a canvasser. After canvassing for a year, she transitioned into a full time position with the League. Aside from her full time job with the League, she teaches adult literacy as a volunteer with the Literacy Volunteers of Tucson and serves as Treasurer for the Sierra Club Rincon Group.
AZLCV Board of Directors
Roselyn O’Connell -
Phoenix
Board President
Roselyn O'Connell is a frequent speaker on various topics as part of the U.S. State Department Expert Speaker Program. She has worked with women and men in Ghana, Namibia, Brazil, Trinidad/Tobago, Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan and the West Bank. She also presented at a Women's Program in Russia for the International Republican Institute and participated in digital video conferences with women in South Africa, Kuwait, Qatar and Liberia.
Closer to home, she was a Congressional candidate in Arizona's 5th District, running in the Republican Primary in 2004. Prior to that candidacy, she was President of the National Women's Political Caucus for five years, a non-partisan national organization committed to electing qualified women to public office.
She has served on the AZLCV board since 2006 and was elected as president in January 2010.
Paul Burkhardt, Ph.D. -
Prescott
Board Vice President
Paul Burkhardt grew up in the border town of Yuma, Arizona, and remains deeply committed to the people and places of the Sonoran border region. He currently serves as the Chief Academic Officer/Dean of Prescott College's Adult and Graduate Degree Programs. Prior to this, Paul held faculty and administrative positions at various intstitutions including the University of Arizona, the College of the Bahamas, and Arizona International College.
Paul earned his Ph.D. with honors in Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies from the University of Arizona where he also received his M.A. and B.A. His studies propelled Paul into an academic career dedicated to integrating student learning and faculty scholarship with participatory, field- and community-based projects. He has primarily focused this work on the cultural discourses that surround the built and natural in socio-economic and environmental justice movements in western communities. Paul has developed this interest into a range of interdisciplinary, field- and community-based learning projects on topics including fire, water, desert lands, community-based management, and social movements.
Roberta Voss -
Phoenix
Board Secretary
Roberta Voss is a former three-term legislator serving District 19 in the Arizona House of Representatives from 1996 through 2003. During her time there, she chaired the House Judiciary Committee and the Joint Legislative Audit Committee overseeing the Office of the Auditor General. She also served on the House Environment Committee.
Roberta is a graduate of Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Nebraska, and received her bachelor's degree at the University of Redlands California. Her community activities include service on the Arizona Homeland Security Council, the Judicial Performance Review Commission, and she also serves on the boards of PPCNA Action Fund, Girl Scouts Council and the WellCare Foundation.
Michael Jette -
Tucson
Board Treasurer
Bio Pending
Tina Beattie -
Phoenix
Board Member
Tina Beattie has lived in Arizona since the age of 4 and considers herself a pseudo native. With her husband, she owns and operates 36 restaurants in Arizona and New York. In addition to her work with the League she is a National Director for Republicans for Environmental Protection and also acts as their volunteer Arizona Coordinator.
William Roe -
Tucson
Board Member
For more than 30 years, since his arrival in the state in 1975, Bill Roe has dedicated himself to improving Arizona’s environment and championing land conservation efforts. He has worked with governors from Bruce Babbitt to Jan Brewer and served on numerous state boards and commissions.
He also has held leadership positions with more than a dozen conservation groups throughout the state. His tireless leadership and unflagging commitment to preserving Arizona’s quality of life made him the natural choice as the AZLCV and the AZLCV Education Fund’s first “Conservation Champion” award winner.
Bill has served on the boards of directors of the AZLCV and AZLCV Education Fund for more than a decade and is the groups’ longest serving board member. He is also on the boards of the Tucson Audubon Society, the Arizona State Parks Foundation and the Arizona Land and Water Trust. A Tucson resident, Bill is chairman of the Pima County Conservation Acquisition
Commission and is involved in land and watershed protection in southeastern Arizona. Bill was recently appointed by Governor Brewer to the Arizona State Parks Sustainability Task Force.
Over the years, Bill has dedicated his time as a consultant or volunteer to a wide variety of other conservation projects, including the Arizona Outdoor Recreation Coordinating Commission and the Pima County Open Space Commission. He served two terms on the Arizona State Parks Board, being the only person appointed to a state board by both Gov. Bruce Babbitt and Gov.
Fife Symington. He has previously served on the boards of Audubon Arizona, The Arizona Nature Conservancy, the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum and Southwest Environmental Services. He was a managing trustee of the Whittell Wildlife Preserve at Aravaipa Canyon.
Bill graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio and received his law degree from Columbia University. He and his wife, Alice, have been married for 42 years and have two children and two grandchildren.
Susan Culp -
Phoenix
Board Member
Susan Culp joined the AZLCV board in September 2011. She is a project manager at the Sonoran Institute, working for the Western
Lands and Communities program, a joint venture between the Sonoran Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The
partnership seeks to integrate conservation with development, and promote sustainability in intermountain western states. She
oversees its research and policy analysis projects to promote regional planning, improve management of state and federal public
lands, and integrate energy, transportation, water and conservation infrastructure at a regional level.
Prior to joining the Institute, Susan worked for the Arizona League of Conservation Voters, where she was first the Deputy
Director, then Executive Director. She received her B.A. in marine biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and
earned her master’s degree in public administration & policy, with a focus on natural resources, at the University of Arizona’s
Eller College of Business and Public Administration.
Jennifer Benoit -
Phoenix
Board Member
Bio Pending
Michael Blair -
Scottsdale
Board Member
Bio Pending
*Organizational affiliation is for identification purposes only.
