Meet Our Speakers

 

Barbara Ray, City of Dublin

Barbara Ray is currently Dublin’s Nature Education Coordinator. She has worked as a licensed wildlife educator and rehabilitator from 1981-present.  Both past and current responsibilities include creating wildlife programs and providing animal management services and consultation in the community to facilitate peaceful co-existence with wildlife. She serves as the Emerging Infectious Diseases and Rabies Vector Chair since 2008 for the Ohio Wildlife Rehabilitator’s Association and created and teaches the rabies certification course for the State of Ohio. Barbara is a “Carcass Recovery Advocate” in her spare time (picking up roadkill and moving it to safe places off the road to prevent secondary injury and death to scavengers such as fox, hawks and eagles) and enjoys free time on the family farm, training dogs and horses and volunteering to enrich the lives of at-risk youth.

Adam Turpen, SCRAM! Humane Animal Control and Removal Services

Adam is a 1997 graduate of the University of Toledo with a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources and Wildlife Management.
He has had the opportunity to lead interpretive hikes in the Colorado Rockies, conducted mule deer studies for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and has been a Park Ranger in North Carolina.  He enjoyed working with the Ohio Wildlife Center as the Director of SCRAM! Wildlife Control for the past 12 years. Adam also works closely with homeowners, businesses, and municipalities to reduce or solve nuisance wildlife concerns and negative interactions.

Cathi Lehn, City of Cleveland Mayor’s Office of Sustainability

As the Sustainable Cleveland Manager, Cathi’s role in the Office is to connect Sustainable Cleveland with neighborhood residents and community partners. Other responsibilities include serving as the Chair of the Plastic Reduction Working Group, an active member of the ZeroWasteNEO Working Group and Chair of the Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership’s Native Plant Promotion Committee. Cathi attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Louisiana State University and received her doctorate in genetics from Texas A&M University.  She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

Sam O’Connell, City of Mentor

City of Mentor Natural Resource Manager Sam O’Connell oversees urban wildlife management programs including geese, coyotes, cormorants, and feral cats, as well as Mentor’s acclaimed white-tailed deer management program. In his role as Natural Resource Manager, one of his primary goals has been to establish stronger communication between local, state/federal, and private stakeholders to facilitate informed and collaborative natural resource management. In addition to urban wildlife, Sam specializes in the management of terrestrial and aquatic invasive plant species and land stewardship. In his free time, Sam is an amateur entomologist and has documented over 1,000 species of insects in Ohio this year.

Tyler Genders, USDA Wildlife Services

Tyler serves as the wildlife disease biologist and feral swine coordinator for the United States Department of Agriculture, Ohio Wildlife Services Program. In his role as the wildlife disease biologist he provides technical assistance, monitors Ohio’s wildlife for various zoonotic diseases, and responds to emergency disease outbreaks.  As Ohio’s feral swine coordinator, he administers all feral swine elimination and damage management operations. He and his team are working with local, state, and federal cooperators to eliminate feral swine from the state.

Caleb Wellman, USDA Wildlife Services

Caleb serves as the staff wildlife biologist for the northern district of the United States Department of Agriculture, Ohio Wildlife Services Program.  In this role he provides technical assistance and administers a variety of wildlife damage management operations relating to the assessment, reduction, and/or elimination of problems associated with wildlife in urban, suburban, and rural environments.

Brad Bonham and Lynn Tetley, City of Wyoming

J. Bradford Bonham, DVM (Brad), once a food animal veterinarian, switched kingdoms to head down the rabbit hole of horticulture.  She loves both, but the hort world offered life with better access to news and all calls come during daylight hours.

Lynn Tetley, ICMA-CM, City Manager, Wyoming, OH, has been with the City for 14 years, nearly 10 at CM.  She’s known for her process skills, openness to new ideas, and creative problem-solving.

Brett Hall, New Albany Police

Bio:  Brett Hall, Police Officer City of New Albany- The city of New Albany has had a deer management program since 2004.  Brett has been a patrol officer for New Albany for 20 years and has overseen the deer management program since 2013.
Contact info: bhall@newalbanypolice.org or (614) 855-1234

Dave Borneman, Ann Arbor, MI

Dave Borneman has been the Natural Area Preservation Manager for the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan since that program started in 1993. Natural Area Preservation (or “NAP”) works to do ecological restoration in the 2000+ acres of parkland in the City. Dave wants to clarify that his affiliation is with the City of Ann Arbor, and not with any institution of higher education that may be located there. Dave did earn a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology from a BIG-10 school, and is a proud Badger. But his roots go back to the farm in northern Illinois where he was raised. Due to a recent house fire, and an interest in quarantining during the pandemic, Dave and his wife are currently living at their cabin in northern Michigan, from where Dave joins us today.