June 24-July 6, 2012
Bozeman, MT

Terry Anderson is the executive director of PERC the Property and Environment Research Center, a non-profit institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through markets; senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; and professor emeritus at Montana State University. His work helped launch the idea of free market environmentalism with the publication of his book by that title, coauthored with Donald Leal. Anderson is the author or editor of 30 books. These include Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 1997), also coauthored with Leal, Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law, coedited with Fred S. McChesney (Princeton University Press 2003), and The Not So Wild, Wild West, coauthored with P. J. Hill (Stanford University Press 2004). He has published widely in both professional journals and the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and Fly Fisherman. Anderson received his B.S. from the University of Montana in 1968 and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington in 1972, after which he began his teaching career at Montana State University where he won several teaching awards. Anderson is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting, fishing, skiing, and hiking. He is a skilled bow hunter and has hunted throughout North America and Africa.

Kurt Schnier is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Schnier received a B.S. in management sciences from the University of California at San Diego, an M.A. in environmental studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Arizona. His research is primarily focused on facilitating the development of efficient marine resource policy and determining how fishermen respond to current and prospective fisheries management regimes. More specifically, his research has focused on the development and utilization of dynamic discrete choice models to evaluate fisheries policy, utilizing property rights to manage essential fish habitat, the role of spatial externalities in resource management, estimation of capacity in fisheries, investigating heterogeneous preferences, and risk-taking behavior in natural resource extraction industries. In addition to his research in marine resource management, he has been actively involved in research on charitable auctions and the provision of public goods. He was a 2007 and 2009 Lone Mountain Fellow at PERC.

Reed Watson is a Research Fellow and the Coordinator of Applied Programs at PERC. Watson conducts research on the legal and institutional barriers to contracting for water, land and wildlife resources. Returning to PERC after receiving a law and master's degree at Duke University, Watson coordinates workshops for environmental practitioners and resource owners on environmental contract formation and enforcement issues. He also directs PERC's statewide educational campaign on the role property rights and markets play in improving environmental quality. In his free time, he enjoys running, cycling, and turkey hunting.

Daniel Benjamin is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Clemson University; senior fellow and fellowship program director at PERC; and Adjunct Professor Pediatrics, Duke University School of Medicine. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia, he obtained M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA, where he was a National Science Foundation fellow. He has taught at the University of Washington and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Professor Benjamin has been a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and served as staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisors; and as deputy assistant secretary for policy, and later as chief of staff, at the U.S. Department of Labor. He also has been a visiting scholar at the University of Liverpool, England; Cardiff University, Wales; and the American Enterprise Institute. During 2004-5 he was the Caird Honorary Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. Over his career, Benjamin has received numerous teaching awards, including being named Alumni Master Teacher, the highest teaching award given by Clemson University. Benjamin has published dozens of scholarly articles and authored or edited more than a dozen books. He has been associate editor of the scholarly journal Economic Inquiry, and served on the executive committee of the Western Economic Association.

P.J. Hill is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Wheaton College and a PERC Senior Fellow. Hill received his B.S. from Montana State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. An economic historian by training, Hill has challenged many of the traditional theories of how the West was settled. Neither romantic heroes nor dastardly villains were the major playmakers, Hill argues, but rather economics and politics shaped the institutional environment of the American West. He provides a new framework that considers western history as an episode in the evolution of property rights, and he presents evidence that the development of property rights is an economic activity subject to benefits and costs. His work also shows that the American West was not a place of anarchy and violence, but instead was characterized by local groups forming to solve collective action. His most recent book, The Not So Wild, Wild West (co-authored with Terry Anderson) received the 2005 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award. Hill has also consulted on environmental issues and written on the problem of pollution under socialist governments. Born and raised on his grandfather's ranch in eastern Montana, Hill has pursued his two greatest interests, teaching and ranching. While holding an endowed chair for economics at Wheaton College in Illinois, he also actively manages his family's Montana cattle ranch.

Donald Leal is a senior associate with PERC where he has been carrying out research in natural resource and environmental issues since 1985. He is coauthor with Terry L. Anderson of Free Market Environmentalism, revised edition, and Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well, and has written numerous articles on such topics as privatizing ocean fisheries, water marketing for fish and wildlife, creating self-sustaining parks, and applying the trust concept to public lands. His current projects include assessing the impact of individual transferable quota programs in fishery management throughout the world and coediting a book documenting cases where government programs harm the environment.

Bobby McCormick is professor emeritus of economics at Clemson University, a PERC Senior Fellow, and a 2001 PERC Julian Simon Fellow. He was honored as the BB&T Scholar at Clemson University starting in Fall 2000 and was chosen as the MBA Professor of the Year for 2001. McCormick has served as a consultant to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission. He regularly consults and advises companies on financial matters and provides expert courtroom testimony. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and the South Carolina legislature on telecommunications and electricity deregulation and the future of these markets, and has served as a consultant to the Treasury of New Zealand and the Canadian government. McCormick has been an associate editor of the Journal of Corporate Finance and the Southern Economic Journal. He has published in a broad range of academic books and journals on public policy, managerial and financial economics, telecommunications and electricity markets, sports and economics, and antitrust and industrial organization. McCormick received his B.A. and M.A. in economics from Clemson and received his Ph.D. in economics from Texas A&M University. His favorite pastimes are golf, woodworking, and plowing. A tree farmer and hunter, he enjoys few things more than his tractor.

Wally Thurman is a William Neal Reynolds Professor of Agricultural & Resource Economics at North Carolina State University and a PERC Senior Fellow. He was a PERC 2003 Julian Simon Fellow. Thurman conducts research in the economics and political economy of agricultural and natural resource policy and has published widely on this topic. His published work includes empirical studies of quota schemes in the United States for peanuts and tobacco, analysis of the effects of the Clean Water and Clear Air Acts, and compensation schemes in the poultry industry. He currently is studying land trusts and the rise of markets for crop pollination services. Thurman holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and is an editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

Neill Cameron is a career marketing and communications professional. He recently retired as President of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, one of the world's leading firms. Currently, he is Vice President of Clemson University in charge of activity with external audiences and a member of the executive council. Neill has been involved in brand building communications programs for clients like American Express, Shell Oil, IBM, Kimberly Clark, International Paper, Centers for Disease Control, Union Carbide, World Wildlife Fund and Eastman Kodak. He has won numerous industry awards, including National EFFIE's, CLIO's, and the 1995 Silver Medal for Advertising's Man of the Year. Neill is a frequent lecturer on marketing and communications topics, nationally and internationally.

He is a current and past member of several boards including the Atlanta Organizing Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games. Neill is a charter member of Quail Unlimited and currently supports, among others, Ducks Unlimited, South Carolina Waterfowl Association, The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the Predator Conservation Alliance.

He received a B.S. degree from Georgia State University, an MBA from Emory University and a certificate in International Business from the London Business School.

Robert Clement is an independent consultant to a variety of businesses. His current clients include Clemson University and a number of law firms. Robert provides consulting in the areas of business strategy, business operations, project management, and antitrust economics. In addition, Robert has lectured at Clemson University, Consortium of Universities for International Studies in Asolo, Italy, and the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Robert had a 15-year career at Accenture, one of the world's largest technology consulting companies, from which he retired as a partner in 2004. Robert's work at Accenture included consulting with several of the world's largest telecommunications companies. He has also participated in a number of conferences on free market environmentalism at PERC, KCI, and the Liberty Fund. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Eydie and is an active member of the Advisory Board of the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta.

Kim Dennis is is president and chief operating officer of the Searle Freedom Trust, a grantmaking foundation established by Daniel C. Searle to support public policy research. She has served in this capacity since 1996. From 2001 through 2005 she also directed the National Research Initiative, a Searle-funded program of the American Enterprise Institute. From 1991 to 1996 Dennis was executive director of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a national association of grantmakers. Her previous experience includes over five years with the John M. Olin Foundation. She has also held positions with nonprofit educational and policy-making organizations, including the Institute for Humane Studies and the Pacific Research Institute. Dennis serves on the boards of Donors Trust, the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Earhart Foundation, and PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center.

Matt Dunbar is Managing Director of the Upstate Carolina Angel Network, a group of accredited investors who support high-growth, start-up ventures in South Carolina and the Southeast. In his role as managing director, Matt is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the investor network, including coordination of the group's efforts to screen, select, evaluate and structure early stage investments. He began his career as a manufacturing and plastics engineer with Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tennessee, and he later worked with several Fortune 500 clients as a strategy and management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Atlanta. Matt holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Clemson University and an MBA and master's degree in Education from Stanford University.

Hank Fischer is a natural resource consultant who operates a wildlife tour business, Fischer Outdoor Discoveries, with his wife, Carol. He is also a special projects coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. From 1977-2002 he covered the Northern Rockies (Montana, Idaho and Wyoming) for Defenders of Wildlife. Fischer has been intensively involved with endangered species restoration, particularly with efforts involving wolves, grizzly bears and black-footed ferrets. In 1987 he created Defenders of Wildlife's Wolf Compensation Trust, which uses private funds to compensate livestock producers for verified livestock losses caused by wolves. In 1997 he created a similar program for grizzly bears. Fischer was a leader in the ten-year effort to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, chronicled in his 1995 book, Wolf Wars. More recently, he led a collaborative effort between conservationists, the timber industry and organized labor to restore grizzly bears to central Idaho. He has been involved in a variety of issues involving public lands and has led efforts to create statewide wildlife viewing systems for Montana and Idaho. Fischer is author of the Montana Wildlife Viewing Guide (1993) and was project director for the publication, Building Economic Incentives into the Endangered Species Act. He holds an M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana. He has won numerous awards, including the 2001 Edward Lowe Enviro-Capitalist Award.

Adam Huddleston is the Director of Training and Development for California Pizza Kitchen. He has worked as a hospitality consultant and taught communication studies, public speaking, English, technical writing, and theater criticism at various institutions around the country. Huddleston has facilitated workshops in textual design, rhetorical analysis, communication, and creative thinking in a variety of academic and professional arena.

Thornton Kirby is a health care attorney and a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. He speaks frequently on healthcare topics, and he serves on a number of state and national boards. Kirby has spent his career working with and for large organizations. As an attorney and an administrator, he has influenced the strategic direction of hospitals, universities, and associations. His background is in policy and administration, but he has worked closely with Neill Cameron over the past decade to apply professional branding and communication techniques in the arenas of organizational governance and legislative advocacy. Kirby became president and CEO of the South Carolina Hospital Association in 2005, with the challenge of influencing state and federal health care policies by working with hospitals, physicians, business leaders, and elected officials. In 2010 South Carolina was recognized by the US Department of Health & Human Services as one of the fastest improving states when it comes to healthcare quality. As a result of innovative, collaborative work by emergency physicians, cardiologists, and EMS leaders, South Carolina now ranks in the top 5 among all US states in delivering timely care for patients suffering severe heart attacks.

Steve Yaffee is Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy at the University of Michigan. He also directs the School of Natural Resources and Environment's Ecosystem Management Initiative, a research, teaching and outreach center focused on landscape scale conservation and sustainable management of natural resources. Yaffee has worked for more than 30 years on federal endangered species, public lands, and ecosystem management policy. He is the author of Prohibitive Policy: Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act (1982) and The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl: Policy Lessons for a New Century (1994). His research tracking the on the ground progress at more than a hundred collaborative ecosystem management initiatives was first documented in Ecosystem Management in the United States: An Assessment of Current Experience (1996). Yaffee's most recent work focuses on multi party, collaborative problem solving efforts as necessary elements of an ecosystem approach. The lessons from this research are summarized in Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Resource Management (2000), a book coauthored with Julia Wondolleck. He has facilitated collaborative processes across North America. Yaffee also is a founding member of the editorial advisory board for Conservation magazine. He received his Ph.D. in environmental policy and planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His undergraduate and master's degrees are in natural resources from the University of Michigan. Yaffee has been a faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at World Wildlife Fund.

At a young age Chris Corbin was told, "Do what you love." He has been pursuing his passion for water ever since. He graduated from the University of Montana with high honors in Aquatic Wildlife Biology and Environmental Studies. Upon graduation, Chris accepted a position as Project Manager of the Montana Water Trust and served as Chairman of the Board for the Bitter Root Water Forum. To further his education, he returned to the University of Montana and earned an M.B.A. His education in conjunction with additional consulting experience as a Water Right Specialist for PBS&J led him to pursue an entrepreneurial vision for a water right marketing company: Lotic LLC. Lotic views water rights as assets and focuses on maximizing their value in the Western water market. As founder of Lotic, Chris has provided consultation on water banks, water marketing plans, water capital improvements, water right analyses, water right acquisitions, and land acquisitions based on water availability. Chris utilizes his unique combination of business acumen and water ingenuity to position and execute this venture. Chris is a 2008 graduate of PERC's enviropreneur program and a 2009 PERC Enviropreneur-in-Residence.

Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition based in New Jersey. An award-winning spiritual writer and nationally recognized preacher on the environment, Harper preaches, teaches, and speaks weekly at houses of worship, from a wide range of denominations, about the moral and spiritual basis for environmental stewardship and justice. A graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary, he served as a parish priest for ten years and in leadership positions in the Episcopal Church prior to joining GreenFaith. A father of Max (11) and Lucy (3), he enjoys fly fishing and reading.

Nicole McCoy grew up on a 30,000-acre game range located near Idaho Falls, Idaho, where she spent 15+ years helping her dad conduct field experiments, which left her with an early appreciation for principles of complexity and emergence. Nicole earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Idaho, with a dual emphasis in natural resource management and economics and completed a doctorate degree in forest and environmental economics at Colorado State University. From 1999-2007 she served as a resource economist in the College of Natural Resources, Utah State University. In 2005, a graduate student approached her with an idea for a company that would buy and manage large ranches for long-term profitable conservation. That idea became Carrus Land Systems, LLC, which she co-founded in late 2005. She recently launched ARC Utah, a training business designed to reduce environmental compliance costs for business owners and operators. Nicole lives in South Jordan, Utah, with her husband and 5-year-old son, two dogs, one cat, and a mayonnaise jar full of sea monkeys.

Julie Morgan is the Executive Director of the Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board. She has worked in the natural resources arena for more than ten years. A native of Pusan, Korea, Julie has taken to the Pacific Northwest like a fish to water. From the shrub-steppe of Eastern Washington and the lush rainforests of Olympic National Park, to the vibrant activity around Seattle's Green Lake Park, Julie delights in the culture and the climate of the Northwest. In addition to time spent outdoors, Julie likes nothing better than spending a rainy Seattle evening curled up with a good novel. Julie is a 2005 graduate of PERC’s Enviropreneur Institute.

Brianna Randall is Water Policy Director at the Clark Fork Coalition, a basin-wide watershed group located in western Montana. Ms. Randall navigates federal, state, and local water policies. She focuses on integrating land and water use decisions, and facilitating water marketing and water transfers to restore flows to de-watered rivers and streams. She also manages public relations for conservation projects such as dam removals, water leasing/marketing to restore streamflows, and mine-waste cleanups. She researched and wrote the first watershed-specific climate change report in the Western U.S., to spark discussion and action on the nexus between water, energy, and growth. Ms. Randall has an M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana. She believes that the biggest challenge across the globe will be how to equitably share scarce water resources. Bri is a 2006 graduate of PERC’s Enviropreneur Institute.

Ariel Steele is a former attorney who has decided to "save the world" through land conservation. After working as a lawyer at a Los Angeles law firm and then for the Palauan government on a small Micronesian island, she decided to ditch practicing law and work directly to help preserve the places she loves in this world. In 1999, she started helping landowners in Boulder County, Colorado put conservation easements on their properties. In 2005, she began working for the company she now owns, Tax Credit Connection, Inc., which helps landowners from Colorado and New Mexico get cash for the tax benefits they receive for preserving their working farms and ranches. For her 40th birthday this year, Ariel is hiking the entire Colorado Trail with her dog Latte and has already completed 88 miles of the 482. When she isn't saving land or hiking, you can find Ariel gardening, camping with her husband Tom, or planning her next business venture. Steele is a 2008 graduate of PERC's enviropreneur program.

Michael 't Sas-Rolfes is a sustainability economist, with unique experience and understanding of the role of markets for biodiversity conservation. He has been actively involved in various private conservation initiatives for 25 years, starting as a financial manager of a private game reserve in South Africa. Mike conducted pioneering research into the role of private markets for wildlife conservation in Southern Africa, and worked with Francis Vorhies in setting up Eco Plus, an innovative consultancy on business, economics and the environment. His consulting experience includes work on issues as varied as energy policy, environmental impact assessments, trans-frontier conservation areas, wildlife trade policy and institutional reform in protected area management. Mike has written extensively on various conservation issues, especially relating to trade in endangered species, and has been involved with teaching and supervision of students. He has also worked and published with several think tanks, including the Free Market Foundation (South Africa), Institute of Economic Affairs Environment Unit (UK), International Policy Network (UK) and the Property and Environment Research Center.