Alan Blank

President

Alan has been attending summits since before he was a teenager, and credits his lifelong love of the outdoors to the fun and educational experiences he had at the Summits. Alan works in marketing for Meta Platforms, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and son. Before joining Meta Platforms, Alan worked as a senior executive at a startup he helped build called Guidebook Inc., which provides technology to event organizers. He has also worked as a newspaper reporter for the LA Times Corp., and a press officer for the University of Rochester.

Sarah Johnson

Director

Sarah Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer of Teaching Lab, a national nonprofit that serves over 10,000 teachers each year to shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning for educational equity. From her roots as a high school science teacher, Sarah has held leadership roles with the Overdeck Family Foundation and the New York City Department of Education where she managed strategy for a 600-person division and oversaw policy for the city’s teacher development and evaluation system serving over 70,000 teachers. Sarah holds a Doctorate in Education Leadership from Harvard, an M.A.T. from American University, and a B.S. in Neuroscience from Emory University. Sarah lives in NYC, has an eight-year-old son and loves cooking, dancing, and studying educational research relevant to educators.

Matt Hayes

Director

Matt Hayes has been driven by an insatiable curiosity to explore the natural world throughout his life. As a child, the great outdoors was his playground, and this love for nature led him to a B.S. in wildlife management from the University of Arizona. Matt spent 36 years as a science teacher in subjects such as Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Science. Post-retirement, Matt has channeled his passion for the outdoors into an encore career as a professional wildlife and nature photographer. He has been the photographer for the Antarctica Marathon for the past 12 years. Matt is deeply committed to conservation efforts and volunteers extensively for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in various capacities. He has worked as faculty with FNS for many years, leading programming from hiking to photography.

Kris Havens

Director

Kris Havens works with nonprofits, political and civic engagement organizations, and Fortune 500 companies to conduct research, analytics, and in-depth assessments to inform strategic initiatives including communications, branding, messaging, advertising, advocacy and digital engagement. Kris served for more than 15 years as a senior executive for national education organizations, most recently as the Chief Strategy Officer of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the Vice President of External Affairs for Educators for Excellence, and the Communications Director of the American Federation of Teachers. In each of these organizations, she redesigned communications, increased engagement, and improved brand awareness and reputation. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and lives in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her 6-year old son.

Sara Fuller

Director

Sara Fuller has attended summits every year since 1996. She is an assistant professor of English and a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Technology. She credits the summits with life long friendships with people from all over the country and with a wealth of knowledge about our natural world which has come in handy more than once. She is passionate about diversity and accessibility and looks forward to working on initiatives addressing both within the FNS organization. 

James Sherrard Jr.

Director

James lives in Vermont and has been part of the Summit Family since the 1994 Mt. Washington Hotel Summit. While currently serving on the Board – in past Summits James has had the opportunity to hike with the Junior Naturalists, assist with the Young Adults, belay for rock climbing outings and work as a Teen Group Leader. When James is not at the Summits he is working in the field of stormwater management and exploring New England with his wife Christine and one-eyed dog Reverend.

Ruthanne Buck

Director

Ruthanne Buck attended her first four Family Nature Summits with her sisters and parents in the late 80’s and early 90’s. In 2022, she was lucky enough to provide her son, Joseph, the world-changing experience of attending a Family Nature Summit. Ruthanne leads a mission driven strategic consulting firm that works with organizations and companies that are striving to make equitable and positive change for a better world. During her career, she served in the Obama administration, worked with the American Federation of Teachers and has led major field and political operations on behalf of progressive issues, agencies and candidates, with a particular focus on education.

Ruthanne is passionate about the rights of all humans to live free, safe and proud. She was raised in Alexandria, Louisiana; educated at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts; and lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Michael Lillmars

Director

Michael attended his first summit at the YMCA of the Rockies in 1996, accompanied by his wife’s large extended family. After his first summit experience, Michael was hooked and continued to attend 15 more summits with his wife and three daughters. Michael grew up in the mountains of Colorado where he developed a love of skiing, hiking, and backpacking at an early age. In his current home state of Missouri, Michael enjoys many opportunities to kayak the Ozark Streams and bicycle along the Katy Trail. For 32 years, Michael owned and managed a private dentistry practice in a rural area near St. Louis. Now retired, Michael is currently enjoying many opportunities to interact with his grandchildren and to teach them about the wonders of nature. He also enjoys spending as much time as possible gardening, learning about native plants, and converting his yard to a wildlife friendly environment. Michael’s hobbies also include birding, photography and swimming.

Leigh Ann Lenz Tysiak

Director

Leigh Ann attended her first Summit at nine years old.  Twenty Summits later she is very proud to be a member of the board and a long time teen leader within the organization.  Growing up in Summits gave her not only lifelong friendships and memories, but also the drive to care for the environment and all its flora and fauna.  Leigh Ann has lived in and around Chicago all her life and works in real estate with her husband Jake.  She has also been in hospitality for over twenty years, all while turning her passion for gardening and native plants into a small business. She was a long-time volunteer at a local wildlife shelter as an animal keeper and educational ambassador to the public and loves traveling, especially learning about different cultures and eating as much as she can along the way. Reveling in all that nature and the outdoors have to offer is her favorite hobby, mostly in the form of hiking, kayaking, and taking way too many pictures.  

Ralph Gagliano

Director

Ralph began his career working in a few different fruit and vegetable stores in New York in the 70s, and eventually opened up his own store. After a few years, he began trucking produce from the market to different grocery stores on Long Island and made that into a lucrative business. One of the owners of the market hired him and he worked at the market for 28 years as a dock foreman and eventually an operations manager. After retiring in 2008, he went back to his start and drove trucks for the movie industry in NYC. He took his family to their first Summit in the late 80s and loved everything about it, especially the ending slideshow that allowed him and his family to relive all of the fun they had and friends they had made. After a long hiatus, Ralph came back last year, this time with his grandchildren, and loved it all over again. His grandchildren are dying to return, and he’s happy to be a member of the board to help shape what’s to come.