Board

David Evans, board chair, is an attorney who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with his wife, Becky. They have two grown children. David is a Wyoming native and graduate of both the University of Wyoming and UW Law School. He practices law with the firm Hickey & Evans in Cheyenne. His areas of practice have included, among others, education law and labor law. During his career David has advised many boards on matters of governance. He has also served as a member of many boards, including the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council and the Wyoming Water Development Commission. He and his wife enjoy outdoor pursuits, including fishing and hiking throughout Wyoming.

Geoffrey O’Gara, vice chair, is a writer, documentary producer and the principal of Caldera Productions, based in Lander, Wyoming. His journalism career, spanning four decades, has included stints as a Washington, D.C. correspondent, a public television news producer, a John S. Knight Foundation Fellow, a newspaper publisher and the editor of High Country News. He is the author of “What You See in Clear Water: Indians, Whites, and a Battle Over Water in the American West” (2002), and “A Long Road Home, Journeys Through America’s Present in Search of America’s Past” (1989), and several other books. Contact Geoff at Ogarageoff@WyoFile.com.

Karen Hertel, secretary, grew up in Star Valley, Wyoming, where her great-great grandparents settled in the late 1800s. Childhood and college summers were spent exploring the Bridger-Teton National Forest while working on a covered-wagon train and wilderness packtrips in the Frome family outfitting business. She earned an undergraduate degree in Spanish from the University of Utah and later a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. Karen started teaching in an elementary school on the Washington coast, switched to high school in Idaho, and then went on to a position as an assistant professor at the University of Idaho. After 20 years in education, she and her husband wanted to work full-time on the land. Karen left academia, her husband sold his commercial fishing business in Alaska, and the family moved to the Flathead Valley in Montana to manage a ranch. In 2010, her dream of getting back to Wyoming came true when she and her husband moved to Ishawooa Mesa Ranch on the Southfork of the Shoshone River, near Cody. For the past seven years, they have worked with the ranch owners to build a sustainable ranching operation — raising and selling grass-finished beef, pastured pork, chickens, turkeys and a large market garden. Greg and Karen have four children and she enjoys reading, hiking, hunting and cooking in her spare time.

Charlotte Belton, treasurer, was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and has lived in the state most of her life. She works with her husband, Tim Belton, in his architectural firm in Sheridan, doing graphic design, photography and writing proposals for the firm’s prospective work. They have three adult children, all involved in varying degrees with non-profits, design and/or university work, and all with a strong attachment to the Mountain West. Her Wyoming roots are deep, the generations stretching back into Wyoming’s history. Her maternal grandfather came to Wyoming, worked for the Swan Land & Cattle Company in the late 1800s and started a ranch — still in the family — on the Sybille. In Cheyenne, her other grandfather was deputy county attorney during the Tom Horn appeal trial. After high school in Cheyenne, Charlotte went to Colorado College, and then Stanford University, graduating with a degree in art history. She and Tim travel widely and often, but are always happy to come home to the mountains, the sky and the sun-patterned landscape of Wyoming.

Anna Sale, director, is the host and managing editor of the award-winning interview podcast Death, Sex & Money from WNYC Studios. Before starting the podcast, she was the launching editor of WNYC’s national politics website itsafreecountry.org and covered statehouse politics for public broadcasting in Connecticut and West Virginia. She is the author of the book Let’s Talk About Hard Things, which The New Yorker wrote “shows us how supportive listening happens.” She was raised in Charleston, West Virginia, and graduated with a history degree from Stanford. She lives in Berkeley during the academic year with her husband, wildlife ecologist Arthur Middleton, and their two daughters. They spend summers next door to Arthur’s dad and stepmother up the South Fork outside Cody.