Hello from Sarah Bowman, our newest employee!

Hello! My name is Sarah Bowman and I am very excited to come on board with the Lower Clark Fork Watershed Group to help write the Thompson River Watershed Restoration Plan and update the Lower Clark Fork Watershed Restoration Plan! I spent the last year working as a Big Sky Watershed Corps Member with the Flathead Conservation District in Kalispell, MT. My main project of the year was writing the Flathead-Stillwater Watershed Restoration Plan, so I am coming into this next project with LCFWG with recent WRP experience and I am excited to see how the process will differ with a different watershed and to learn even more about how this process works.

I am originally from Pewaukee, Wisconsin (southeastern WI near Milwaukee) and I earned my BS degree in Water Resources from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. While at Stevens Point, I was an active member of the American Water Resources Association and served as the treasurer for a year and as co-president another year. I also worked for the Groundwater Model Project – a sub program of AWRA that creates sandbox groundwater models used as a teaching tool all over the country and world – all through college and served as the Project Manager my last 1.5 years of school.  After graduation in December 2014, I moved to Grand Rapids, MN and served my first Americorps term through the Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa on a trail crew. Through this term I learned how use and maintain chainsaws and many other conservation tools and I also tried my hand at wildland firefighting for a few weeks! After this 10.5 month term with CCMI, I moved to Montana to serve my second Americorps term through the Big Sky Watershed Corps program. Since the BSWC program ended in November, I have been taking steps for attending school in fall 2017 to begin earning my Master’s degree in Environmental Studies, either through the University of Montana or an online program through Green Mountain College. Alongside my work with the LCFWG, I also work as a part-time server at the Knead Cafe in Kalispell. I hope to continue living, learning, and working in Montana in the coming years and I hope to end up working for a Montana watershed group, conservation district, or state agency full time helping to restore, maintain, and promote healthy watersheds in Montana.

Since moving to Kalispell, I have enjoyed the local surroundings and like to spend my weekends hiking or snowshoeing through Glacier National Park and the many other trails available surrounding the Flathead Valley. I also enjoy backpacking trips, kayaking, and I hope to try my hand at skiing again this year (it’s been a while!). As much as I love being outside, I also enjoy warming up inside with knitting projects or working out at the Flathead Crossfit gym.

– Sarah