SEACC Staff

Maggie was born in Juneau but moved around a lot and mostly grew up in rural northern Vermont where she developed a deep appreciation for nature. She jumped at the opportunity to travel to Alaska after high school, working for her uncle as a trolling deckhand out of Sitka to pay her way through college. Maggie found her passion for this place during her summers on the deck of the Lady Jo, delivering salmon throughout northern Southeast Alaska. During that time, she met and later married a commercial fisherman, continuing to return to Southeast each year until making Juneau her permanent home in 2013. 

Between fishing seasons, Maggie earned a bachelor of arts degree in Environmental Studies and Sociology from St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, focused on social movement organizations. 

After settling in Juneau, Maggie began her career in the nonprofit sector when she took up fundraising and finance work at Perseverance Theatre, serving as their Development Director for three years. She finally realized her dream of putting her talents to use in the conservation field when she accepted the role of Director of Development and Operations at SEACC in 2017; she was promoted to Deputy Director in 2020 and is deeply honored to be serving as Executive Director since 2024. She is grateful for the opportunity to work for a mission driven organization like SEACC, protecting the lands and waters of Southeast Alaska while learning and growing in her role.

Though she was born down south in Oregon, Raylynn fell in love with Juneau and the Tongass National Forest when she would visit family for the summer and winter holidays. When she was 15 she decided to relocate from the high deserts of Oregon to the lush temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska, where the love of nature and adventure runs deep.

Raylynn graduated from Juneau Douglas High School in 2008 and immediately began traveling between Oregon, Sweden, and New Zealand until she returned to Alaska and began pursuing her passion for gardening. In addition to managing an office full of SEACC team members, Raylynn is currently attending the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine to become an herbalist and Medicinal Herb Farmer. She is also a novice beekeeper, who has been keeping healthy happy bees in our temperate climate.

When Raylynn is not playing in the garden, harvesting medicinal herbs, or loving on her bees, she can be found fishing, camping, and adventuring with her two amazing dogs and wonderful husband.

Melissa joined SEACC as Communications Director in 2023, following six years serving in the same role with another non-profit and several more years’ experience in communications, journalism and campaign work. She earned a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

Melissa was born on Ohlone land in California and raised there and on the lands of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon. She moved to Lingít Aaní in 2007 “for a summer” and never found a reason to leave. Today, she lives in Sayéik (Douglas) with her family.

She’s an artist, baker, trail traipser, mushroom forager and enthusiastic community member who believes in taking care of what you love.

With more than 20 years of experience working on federal public lands campaigns in New Mexico and across the United States, Nathan is no newcomer to the conservation movement and has a proven track record of building sustainable coalitions and relationships with members, supporters, volunteers, indigenous peoples and political leaders to get things done. He has been professionally involved in or directly responsible for facilitating and organizing successful Wilderness campaigns through Congress, multiple National Monument designations, and Wild and Scenic Rivers legislation. Additionally, he has extensive experience analyzing NEPA documents and is excited to take on SEACC’s Federal Campaigns Manager position with a focus on the Tongass National Forest Land Management Plan. Since starting out in 2002, leading the charge for upholding the Roadless Rule in New Mexico and coordinating with national organizations, he has been enamored with the Tongass and Alaska. He first visited Alaska in the summer of 2018 on a month-long canoe trip in Gates of the Arctic Wilderness and Noatak Preserve; his desire to work to preserve the wild landscapes of Southeast was profoundly solidified by this experience.

When not spending time dedicated to public lands protection and community, Nathan enjoys spending time backpacking, kayaking, and painting.

Stacy began loving the land in the bunchgrass prairie hills of the Luiseño people in what is now known as Murrieta, CA. Under ancient oaks she hiked to pueblo sites and vernal pool wetlands, ran alongside coyotes, and wandered away into the hills to hike and photograph the Santa Ana Mountains that formed her concept of home. After gaining a degree in Visual Journalism from Brooks Institute of Photography, she migrated and fell in love with her new home in the Tongass, where she walks as a guest in Lingít Aaní. 

Over the past 16 years Stacy has been a naturalist photography guide by land and sea, a public elementary school teacher, an educational resource developer, a professional photographer, a media specialist, and an advocate for equity and environmental justice. Poised to treat each opportunity as a means to deepen her advocacy work for precious places and the beings that call them home, Stacy is excited to join the team as SEACC’s Mining Campaigner. 

Stacy enjoys cinema, playing music, reading, writing, hosting, and creating art. She recharges her spirit by walking, camping, and foraging through the woods — often with a husband, standard poodle, and camera in tow.

Tyler brings over a decade of experience in climate strategy, conservation, and community development to his role as Environmental Policy Analyst at the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. His previous work in Latin America focused on biodiversity analyses and supporting community adaptations to climate change.

Tyler holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz and a Master’s in Development Practice from Emory University. He believes that genuine community buy-in and trust are key to implementing effective conservation strategies. Tyler aspires to help create structures and frameworks that foster collaboration rooted in environmental justice.

At SEACC, Tyler analyzes policies to identify threats and opportunities for protecting Southeast Alaska. He is particularly interested in understanding how communities interact with their environments and how policy shapes those interactions.

Outside of work, Tyler is a multiple IronMan finisher, an amateur musician, and an enthusiastic forager of wild edible plants.

Kayla is a wildlife ecologist, photographer, and science communicator with a deep love for Alaska’s wild places. She currently resides on Áakʼw Ḵwáan ancestral lands and has spent the past eight years between Southeast Alaska, the Interior, and far-flung corners of the world—but always finds herself gravitating home to Juneau.

Originally from Iowa, Kayla first came to Juneau through the National Student Exchange program at the University of Alaska Southeast, where she studied the intricacies of ecology in the Tongass. Since then, she has worked on research projects across Alaska ranging from muskox behavior studies in Nome to small mammal research in remote Southeast communities. A skilled storyteller, Kayla has produced educational media for universities, nonprofits, and tourism operators, blending her expertise in ecology with her talent for photography and videography.

When she’s not behind the camera, Kayla spends most of her free time exploring with her adventure kitties, thrifting, and creating art in various forms.

Kat grew up on the homelands of the Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples, in what is now called Wadena, Minnesota — a place of quiet lakes and long winters. During her university years, her path bent steadily toward advocacy and environmental justice, recognizing that caring for people and ecosystems are one and the same.

Since moving to Lingít Aaní, Kat has found herself deeply moved by the powerful presence of Indigenous knowledge, art, and leadership — and the way it continues to shape community, resilience, and relationship to the natural world. As SEACC’s Development Coordinator, she supports the web of connection between people and place, tending to relationships that sustain long-term environmental care. She loves sharing her passion for environmental protections and responsible development. Kat believes we have a duty to protect Southeast Alaska’s unique landscape as we all stand on the same land, breathe the same air, and drink the same waters.

Outside of work, Kat can often be found climbing mountains, scheming her next ascent, or hiking forested trails with her dog Lucy who shares her love for rolling around in the mosses. From ridgeline to forest floor, she holds reverence for the lush landscapes of Southeast Alaska.

Hannah joins the SEACC team this year as a Policy Fellow through the Alaska Fellows Program. Hannah is a recent graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment with a minor in Anthropology. Her interests center on how a community’s history and culture shape its relationship with the natural world, and how those perspectives can inform land management and conservation decisions.

Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, Hannah found an escape from the city in the Cumberland Plateau, located on Cherokee, Shawnee, and Chickasaw lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. Time spent exploring this area gave her a lasting love for the outdoors and an appreciation for the ways that people connect with the land they call home. During her time in Vermont, Hannah discovered a deep appreciation for rural, working landscapes and became particularly interested in work at the intersection of sustainable development, land protection, and cultural resilience in rural communities.

Hannah previously spent time in Anchorage working in environmental advocacy, where she was introduced firsthand to the importance of protecting the Tongass. She is excited to return to Alaska and to live on, work in, and learn from the lands and communities that make Southeast Alaska so special.

Having spent years as a documentary filmmaker and independent journalist, Rachel Levy’s commitment is to uplifting the difficult realities present at the intersection of environmental justice, sustainable tourism, and modern colonialism. After a wonderful childhood spent seaside in South Florida, she received an Environmental Science and Public Policy degree from Harvard University before moving to Tanzania to produce a documentary exposing the impacts to the country’s ecology and culture as a result of the modern colonial grip on the safari industry. In arriving to Lingít Aaní, Rachel had the fortune to be introduced to Southeast Alaska by Tlingit leaders at Sealaska Corporation and led a storytelling series with Elders who shared experiences about things like the devastating boarding school era and ongoing language revitalization efforts. 

Through and through, Rachel is committed to finding ways to bring sustainability into the long term vision of the tourism industry. Having worked as a Sustainability Coordinator with a locally-owned tour operator in Juneau, she was most recently able to move the company towards increased local partnerships and waste mitigation strategies. Above all she’s committed to a world where tourism engages with ecosystems, culture, and local communities through reciprocity and respect. 

In all things, her eyes are on the community around her — constantly hoping to link arms with those around her so that we all might be stronger together.

Prior to joining SEACC as a Staff Attorney, JJ spent seven years navigating environmental law and regulatory issues in Texas, focusing on finding durable, long-term solutions at the intersection of regulatory compliance, environmental permitting, and complex legal problem solving.

JJ holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. He also completed graduate coursework in Italy toward a Master’s in Global Law Making, which he will finish by this spring. Long committed to conservation, JJ is eager to direct his regulatory background and legal practice toward defending the lands, waters, and communities of Southeast Alaska.

JJ grew up in Corpus Christi on Karankawa ancestral lands, and developed his appreciation for nature through outdoor adventures with his parents there. Outside of work, JJ enjoys hiking, birdwatching with his partner, reading, and experimenting with cooking and fermentation.

Almería is Holikachuk Dene, Unangax̂ & white with ancestral roots to Anvik on the Yukon River and King Cove on the Aleutian Chain. She was born and raised on Ahtna lands in Palmer, Alaska and has made a home here on Lingít Aaní for the last four years. Her advocacy and community organizing skills are rooted in her connection to the many communities, cultures and vast landscapes that make up Alaska.

Almería has broad work experience in public policy and community organizing and has worked for tribes, non-profits and state government. Outside of her professional career, she continues her education at the University of Alaska Southeast seeking her undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies that blends her passions of tribal sovereignty, subsistence rights and environmental justice. 

Outside of work, Almería enjoys crafting, baking, reading and spending time outside with her two dogs and loving partner- though she is equally happy curled up on the couch with their cat.