Stewardship Awards

The 2022 Stewardship award was presented to Carla Belski. Carla is the Community Services Coordinator for the City of Whitefish. She has been committed to making the station successful since the station was established in 2016, when the station was just a pop-up tent and clipboard operation. She now hires, trains, and manages a full team of summer inspectors, has a proper inspection station building, and a decontamination station for high-risk watercraft. Her dedication in leading the Whitefish Aquatic Species Watercraft Inspection program and promoting watershed stewardship in Montana made her a standout candidate for this award! 

While Montana FWP has a statewide team working on the Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) issue, a select group have gone out of their way to support the Whitefish AIS program. Tom Woolf and Zach Crete lead the Montana AIS program and have supported the partnership between the state and Whitefish AIS program. Larry Lytle repairs the state’s decontamination stations. Larry has kept our preventative decontamination station running. Russ Hartzell is the inspection station supervisor for western Montana and trains our local watercraft inspectors. Stacy Schmidt and Jayden Duckworth analyze the zebra mussel early detection samples WLI collects and are part of the Beaver Lake Dive Team that removes Eurasian Watermilfoil from Beaver Lake. Craig McLane heads the statewide early detection and monitoring program and is also on the Beaver Lake dive team. Ken Staigmiller is the fish health coordinatro for FWP and on the Beaver Lake Dive Team. Dave Landstrom and Dave Bennetts from MFWP, Region 1 (Parks Department) were honored for their partnership in fostering the establishment of an AIS watercraft inspection station at Whitefish Lake State Park and their on-going commitment to make the station successful.

Craig Workman was recognized for his leadership in planning for water resilience for the City of Whitefish. He worked closely with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to ensure that reasonable and prudent growth can continue in the City while expansion work on the water treatment plant moves forward. Craig has also been instrumental in the pursuit of finding an alternative source of water for the City, working closely with consulting engineers in their mutual search for a viable groundwater source. These efforts along with leading the charge to reduce water loss throughout the City’s distribution system will help ensure a safe and reliable supply of potable water to the City for years to come. Craig is leading the charge to upgrade the City’s water treatment facilities to meet new requirements while controlling the burden on rate payers. Both the wastewater collection facilities and the treatment plant require improvements to make the system effective and capable of complying with new anticipated treatment standards. Under Craig’s leadership, the City Council adopted a Water Conservation Ordinance in May 2019 to address infrastructure challenges with peak summer month water demand. Lastly, the Public Works Department also partnered in the design, construction and funding of the Cow Creek Restoration Project.

The 2018 award was presented to Kris Tempel, Habitat Conservation Biologist, and Alan Wood, Science Program Supervisor, two outstanding individuals from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Tempel and Wood worked together with the Trust for Public Land and Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to complete the final phase of the Whitefish Lake Watershed Project. Years in the making, this collaborative conservation effort expands the Stillwater State Forest north of Whitefish by 6,380 acres and protects important fish and wildlife habitat, community water resources, public access and recreational opportunities while promoting sustainable forest management. This final phase completes the conservation of 13,398 total acres of privately owned timber land added to the Stillwater State Forest as public land to be sustainably managed by DNRC. This conservation project protects our local aquatic resources including important native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout habitat, and large areas of Swift and Lazy Creek watersheds. Kris and Alan were awarded for their passionate and tireless work conserving fish and wildlife habitat and connectivity corridors at a landscape level in northwestern Montana – work that has been instrumental in the protection of the Whitefish Lake Watershed.

Throughout his career at Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, John demonstrated his passion and commitment to protecting Northwest Montana natural resources. He leveraged management strategies through innovative collaborations with non-governmental partners, and worked with the general public to build community and awareness of natural resource issues. John made a lifetime of contributions to volunteer lake monitoring programs, protecting water quality, promoting watershed stewardship, and protecting Northwest Montana fisheries resources.

The Whitefish County Water & Sewer District (WCWSD) has loyally supported water quality initiatives in Whitefish for over thirty years.  The WCWSD has sponsored numerous grants without which the Whitefish community would have far less information about the health of their water, and would have made far less progress toward improving water quality.

The community first benefited from a grant sponsored by the WCWSD to support the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station’s Limnology of Whitefish Lake study by Golnar & Stanford in 1984. In 1986, a Department of Natural Resources & Conservation Renewable Resource Grant & Loan (DNRC RRGL) program grant sponsored by WCWSD allowed the Investigation of Septic Contaminated Groundwater Seepage as a Nutrient Source to Whitefish Lake which eventually led to the partial sewering of the East Lakeshore. The community again benefited from their sponsorship of funding for the 2003 Whitefish Lake Water Quality study by Craft, Stanford & Jackson. The WCWSD then sponsored a DNRC RRGL grant for the Whitefish Lake Institute’s Investigation of Septic Leachate to the Shoreline of Whitefish Lake in 2011, and both DNRC RRGL and Treasure State Endowment Program (TSEP) grants to conduct a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) for the Lion Mountain neighborhood in 2015/2016. Most recently, the WCWSD once again sponsored a DNRC RRGL grant for a PER which will be completed in 2017 for the East Lakeshore neighborhood. The WCWSD also supported the development of the Living Wetlands Interpretive Nature Trail and makes annual contributions to support water quality monitoring on Whitefish Lake.

Brian Sullivan’s life passion is on the water…paddling. He has been paddling kayaks and canoes, instructing rowing clinics, and organizing paddling events for as long as anyone in the Flathead can remember. Brian has dedicated many years of his life to teaching river safety, serving water-based recreationists, and organizing clean-up efforts on the Whitefish River. He organized and helped run the 69-mile Lake-to-Lake rowing race from Whitefish to Bigfork in the 1980s, and he raced in and volunteered for the Bigfork Whitewater Festival for many years.

Professionally, Brian and his crew have voluntarily collected survey data at City Beach since 2002. In partnership with Brian the Whitefish Lake Institute completed an analysis of the mean minimum and maximum water elevations along with associated statistics for Whitefish Lake spanning 58 years (1957-2014). Having clear and well justified mean low and high water elevations for Whitefish provides a clear jurisdictional boundary to serve our community into the future. Brian was recognized for all his hard work and dedication. Brian passed away in 2018.

Jack and Bonnie have helped protect the waters of Whitefish Lake, Flathead Lake and all waterbodies of the Flathead Basin through decades of collective research and advocacy. Jack became director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station in 1980 and has just announced his upcoming retirement. His groundbreaking research and educational efforts in freshwater ecology have taken him across the globe. Bonnie recently retired from the Flathead Lake Biological Station after dedicating the past 30 years to research in freshwater ecology, most recently as the lead author of a seminal report on the complex food web interactions in Flathead Lake for which Jack is also one of the authors.

Jack and Bonnie have consistently brought the weight of scientific evidence to bear on critical issues that affect our Flathead waterbodies, including trans-boundary issues, shallow aquifer dynamics, and nutrient cycling to name a few. Science provides the cornerstone of conservation, and Jack and Bonnie’s research has been invaluable in increasing our understanding of natural systems, and in enhancing our ability to protect them for future generations. To that end, together they have mentored hundreds of students who now contribute to water quality and watershed stewardship across the globe. The work that the Whitefish Lake Institute conducts locally rests atop the foundation that these two world class scientists have built through their tireless efforts.

This year’s Group Stewardship Award recognized a unique collaboration—the Whitefish Legacy Partnership—for extraordinary measures to protect water quality in the Whitefish area. For the past 10 years, these partners worked tirelessly to create a community driven and donor supported legacy for the Whitefish area. Through their open dialogue and consensus building process, this group has forged a lasting and innovative solution to protect open space, recreational pursuits, working forests, and water and watershed protection over a broad landscape.

The City of Whitefish in partnership with Whitefish Legacy Partners proposed to the State Land Board to purchase permanent recreation and conservation easements on over 1,500 acres of school trust lands surrounding Whitefish Lake. The Land Board also approved a separate land banking transaction totaling 580 acres, which was proposed by Mike Goguen. The approval of both of these transactions contributes more than $10 million in revenue to state school trust beneficiaries – the schools and universities of Montana, without a single dollar of taxpayer money.

These partners created a new conservation and recreation-based revenue stream that supports healthy forests and timber production while providing public managed recreation, uncluttered views, wildlife habitat and high quality watershed value. We are thankful for conservation projects like these that create mutually beneficial outcomes for the Whitefish community and our natural resources. Although there were a number of people involved in this project, we honored the key players:

Lin Akey, Whitefish Legacy Partners: Lin was the first Whitefish Legacy Partners Chair and is President of Glacier Bank.

John Anderson, City of Whitefish: John is Whitefish Legacy Partner’s Vice Chair and a Whitefish City Councilor. He is co-founder of Conradi Anderson Law Firm.

Diane Conradi, Whitefish Legacy Partners: Diane is the former part-time executive director of Whitefish Legacy Partners and is co-founder of Conradi Anderson Law Firm.

Steve Frye, Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation: Steve is the Area Manager for DNRC’s northwest land office in Kalispell. This is after a 32 year career with the National Park Service with assignments in Glacier, Big Bend, North Cascades, and Yellowstone National Parks. Steve retired in 2006 as the Superintendent of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Mike Goguen, Whitefish Community Member: Mike has good instincts! With Mike as a managing partner, Sequoia Capital has helped give birth to companies that today represent more than 20 percent of the value of the entire NASDAQ stock market. They include some names you may have heard of like -Google, Yahoo! and YouTube. We’re fortunate that Mike’s business acumen and vision steers him to promising ideas and pressing needs in Whitefish. Mike’s philanthropic causes and local community investments has earned praise from the governor to the sheriff, and the mayor. Mike has given present and future generations the opportunity to connect with, appreciate, and protect the great outdoors. Mike, we are honored that you are part of our community and the conservation legacy we are building.

Fred Jones, Whitefish Legacy Partners: Fred is the Whitefish Legacy Partners Chair and a retired ski industry executive. He moved to Whitefish in 2004 to manage the Whitefish Mountain Resort, retiring in 2007.

Brian Manning, Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation: Brian has worked for the State of Montana DNRC for the past 26 years and is currently the Stillwater Unit Manager. The Stillwater Unit consists of approximately 118,000 acres of State School Trust Land including the Stillwater and Coal Creek State Forests. The DNRC goal is to manage the Montana’s trust lands to produce revenue for the trust beneficiaries while considering environmental factors and protecting the future income-generating capacity of the land.

John Muhlfeld, City of Whitefish: John is President of River Design Group and has served as Mayor of Whitefish since 2011. He has also been a board member of the Whitefish Lake Institute since 2010. John has been able to broker a balance between growth and resource protection in our small town through a maxim that community, commerce and corporate responsibility, when collective and cooperative, will empower a public to its fullest potential.

Heidi Van Everen, Whitefish Legacy Partners: Heidi is the Executive Director of Whitefish Legacy Partners. Heidi oversees the Whitefish Legacy Lands campaign to provide permanent public recreation and conservation, as well as continuing construction of the Whitefish Trail.