Paul received his degree in Agriculture from OSU in 1974 and returned to his family farm, nestled within the foothills of the Coast Range. As the second generation, Paul has been the primary farmer for the past 35 years.
“My hope is that through NWLCT, I can help to build a cadre of local land advocates who will stand up for land in their own community which they have come to know and love intimately.” In addition to Paul’s dedication to farming and his commitment to land use activism, he has also provided community leadership in other organizations, including Willamette Farm & Food Coalition, St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County, Crow-Applegate-Lorane School District and Land Watch Lane County.
EMMA SACKINGER, VICE-PRESIDENT
Richard del Guercio, SECRETARY
Richard del Guercio grew up in California and obtained a BA in English from UC Santa Barbara before moving to Oregon in 1993. Once in Oregon, Richard’s interests changed to food and farming, as well as land and water conservation issues. Richard began studying meat science at Oregon State University. Richard is involved with local farms and enjoys making cured meats, cheeses and other aged or fermented products. He also enjoys making videos about water and farmland conservation, and has produced several documentaries on these topics.
In the past, Richard has volunteered with NWLCT as well as spending time at Laughing Stock Farm, Mt Pisgah arboretum and the Raptor Center in Eugene. He lives in Eugene with his wife and two daughters.
SHARON BLICK, Treasurer
Sharon spent her childhood in the fastest growing city in the country. She experienced the Valley of Hearts Delight turning into the Silicon Valley. Her home there went from being on the edge of town when she was a child to being in the middle of a big city by the time she went to college. As the city swallowed up the open space she loved to roam, polluted the air she breathed and the water she drank, eliminated the toads, salamanders, and giant moths she used to find, and paved over the prime farmland that her dad used to travel as a farm advisor, she grieved these losses and dedicated herself to preventing similar devastation from happening elsewhere.
Sharon graduated from UC Davis with a BS in Entomology and an MS in Stream Ecology. She then moved to Oregon and worked as an Environmental Scientist at the EPA lab in Corvallis and taught high school biology in Drain. As Education Director at the Mt Pisgah Arboretum, Founder and first Executive Director of Nearby Nature, and as a free-lancer she taught outdoor nature classes for kids and adults in the Eugene/Springfield area for 13 years. She was a leader of the group that saved East Alton Baker Park from becoming a golf course, Executive Director of School Garden Project, and a board member of Oregon Wild, Discovery Southeast (in Alaska), and OrCAN. After 17 years as owner and chief farmer/land manager at 15 acre Living Earth Farm, she is now president of two nonprofit groups, the Lane County Butterfly Club and the Living Earth Nature Sanctuary.
MARK WIGG
Mark graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in Resource Conservation/Economics and went on to study forestry, systems science, and economics in graduate schools in Oregon, Washington and Minnesota. Currently, Mark works as a consultant on environmental issues and has managed projects for the Oregon Department of Transportation, USDA Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry. Mark has published several recreation maps and a mountain biking book. He has also helped establish numerous trails in his home town of Salem, Oregon.
Mark joined the Board of Directors in the 1990s and began serving as Vice President in 2011. Mark has provided the base line studies that document the resources being protected in the easements. Mark also serves on the Monitoring Committee of NWLCT.
Robert Emmons
Robert Emmons spent his early years in Tennessee and later in New Orleans, where he graduated high school. After earning B.A. degrees in Sociology and English from Florida State University in 1965, he headed west to Eugene for graduate study in English at the University of Oregon. He taught writing and literature for four years as a teaching fellow and received a Doctorate in 1974. After graduation, Emmons worked as a housing rehabilitation adviser with a federal loan program at the City of Eugene and then as a park specialist in horticulture in the City's park’s department. Emmons has served on numerous Lane County committees and task forces over many years. He was a founding member of Sustainable Eugene Economic Development in 1983 and of Alton Baker Park for All of Us, a group that initiated a city-wide ballot measure in 1986 that protected 165 acres of Eugene's public open space from a proposed golf course and soccer fields. He served on the Lane Parks Advisory Committee from 1988-93 and served as Chair in 1992. From 1980-95 he coordinated the grass roots development, maintenance and oversight of Scobert Gardens, an edible and native plant park in Eugene's Whitaker Neighborhood. Beginning in Spring 2017, Emmons served on a task force that crafted a new master plan for Lane County Parks adopted in Fall 2018.
In 1996, Emmons was a founding member of LandWatch Lane County, a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to the protection of Lane County's natural areas, open space, farms and forest lands. He has been president of the group since 2004 and edits the LandWatch newsletter, available at www.LandWatch.net. Since 1990 Emmons has been privileged to own, love, live on and steward 65 acres of forest and meadow in the Little Fall Creek Valley, 25 miles east of Eugene.
Jean Marie Spilker
Jean Marie Spilker was born in Eastern Oregon and grew up on a small family farm. Her family came to Oregon in the 1870s to homestead and are still involved with agriculture to this day. Jean Marie grew up with an appreciation for well managed farms and ranches, then went on to become involved in forest resources management work. After high school she began doing survey work for the US Forest Service. She spent more than ten years working in the woods collecting data on various plant and animal species.
In 1996, Jean Marie moved to the west side of Oregon to go to college. After college she continued to work in the biological services, as well as working on small scale organic vegetables farms. For the last seven years she has been teaching at the University of Oregon’s Urban Farm.
Jean Marie is also involved with Food for Lane County’s Seed to Supper program. She enjoys time in nature, teaching gardening courses and working at farmers markets. She volunteers with several local farms, as well as running her own small-scale poultry operation in the Oregon coast range.
JIM BLICK
Since his youth, Jim has been interested in all fields of natural history, especially birds. He has a masters in statistics and a doctorate in zoology, and has worked at the EPA in Corvallis, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and most recently the University of Oregon doing statistical/data analysis and database management. He retired from the UO in 2023 and is currently the secretary of the Lane County Butterfly Club and the treasurer for the Living Earth Nature Sanctuary. Having witnessed the great changes to the Willamette Valley since he first moved to Oregon over 40 years ago, Jim believes that the NWLCT is a very important organization for conserving land in western Oregon.
TREVOR ROSS
Trevor grew up in Eugene, Oregon. He attended the University of Oregon where he obtained a B.S. degree in Geography with an emphasis on the environmental sciences. His one year away from Eugene was in Hawaii where he worked for his stepfather's Land Surveying company. Later, he finished college while working for a local Engineer and Surveyor. This led to a career in Land Surveying where he currently holds the position of Deputy County Surveyor as a Licensed Professional Land Surveyor in the Lane County Surveyor’s Office. Trevor has had several roles with Lane County Public Works which include working on the Environmental Team where he coordinated wetland and other jurisdictional permits required for road improvements. Trevor and his wife Kim raised his three daughters in Eugene and enjoy all that Lane County and Oregon have to offer. When he is not working, cooking, or fermenting, Trevor enjoys getting outside to hike, paddle, and fish.
