Bear Trust International is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, conservation organization with seven board members and one paid staff.  The size of the Bear Trust organization, however, is best measured not by the number of individuals but by our unwavering passion for wildlife conservation.  We take a lot of pride in the fact that Bear Trust, though small, is extremely efficient. 

Executive Director:  Dr. Melissa Reynolds-Hogland

Melissa has been dedicated to wildlife conservation for 20 years. Melissa earned her B.S. in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University (graduated summa cum laude) in 2000 and her PhD from Auburn University in 2005.  For her doctoral research, Melissa worked on a 22-year study on black bears in the Southern Appalachians.  She evaluated how forest management (roads and tree harvesting) affected population survival, reproduction, population growth rates, and behavior.  Using capture-recapture data, she estimated population demography for adult females and incorporated estimates of bear behavior (using movement data from radio collared bears and a GIS) and food availability to inform demographic estimates.  In addition, she developed new theoretical methods for understanding resource limitation for wildlife populations and conceptual models for understanding hierarchy theory and its application to wildlife populations.  Melissa has worked with USGS in Colorado and Montana on ecological projects ranging from riparian ecology to avian ecology.

Melissa has been happily working as the Executive Director for Bear Trust International since 2007.

Melissa was recently asked to serve as a founding member of the Conservation Education Committee for the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA). 

Bear Trust is governed by the following Board of Directors

Board Chairman, CEO, and Treasurer: A.C. Smid

President: Gilbert Adams

Secretary: Derek Craighead

Board Members: John Chaney, Marc Mondavi, Geoff Pampush, and Gray Thornton