Staff & Interns

Kathy is a Springfield native, and has served 23 years in higher education at Ozarks Technical Community College with 20 years of that as Director of Career Services. During this time Kathy worked to build strong relationships with local and regional industries and healthcare organizations to the benefit of students and graduates.

Kathy is a founding member of Missouri Guardrails, an organization founded to protect property rights and clean water. This organization is passionate about networking across the state to shed light on the dangers our rivers, lakes, streams, and drinking water face if we aren’t diligent in keeping watch over them. She is also a Board Member of the Ozark Society – Schoolcraft Chapter, that fights to keep Ozarks rivers and streams clean and clear. Of her many community activities, Kathy is proud to be a Leadership Springfield alumna and Past President.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Foreign Language-French and a Master’s degree in Administrative Studies with an emphasis in Applied Communications from Missouri State University. 

As one who likes spending time outdoors, Kathy enjoys walking, hiking, biking (she and two friends rode The Katy Trail from Clinton to St. Charles spending about a week pedaling from inn to inn), exercising, reading, crafting, trying new restaurants, and traveling near and abroad. However, learning more about her family genealogy is a new passion. Kathy has two daughters and two grandchildren.

Christen joins MCE with nearly a decade of experience advocating for the cleanup of Manhattan Project radioactive waste in St. Louis. She served as Communications Coordinator for Just Moms STL and was a member of the West Lake Landfill Steering Committee. Additionally, she is the creator of the social media project, Humans of West Lake Landfill, developed to raise awareness of the human cost of exposure to radioactive waste and document the efforts to restore our communities. She also has eleven years of experience as a Purchaser and Bookkeeper for a busy E-Commerce store. She is excited to be a part of the MCE team and continue following her passion to protect our natural spaces and human health. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, nature photography, and traveling.

Maxine holds a BA in Environmental Policy from Washington University in St. Louis, and is a recent graduate of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. She has a variety of experience across multiple sectors within the environmental field, including policy advocacy, green business consulting, and clean energy research. At WashU she participated in the Environmental Law Clinic, conducting policy research to hold industrial food waste polluters accountable through regulatory action. She brings a passion for evidence-based, community-centered and justice-focused environmental policy. 

She is a happy Midwest transplant originally from the Bay Area, California. In her spare time she enjoys spending time outdoors camping and hiking, playing guitar, reading, making art, teaching kids, and hanging out with her cat, Bucket! 

For the past thirty years, Jim has combined his passion for wildlife, wild places and environmental issues with high quality video production. Transforming complex scientific concepts into compelling stories has become his hallmark, and the numerous awards and honors his work has received speak to the popularity of his programs with the general public. For over 20 years, Jim was a lead producer for the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Missouri Outdoors program. With over 100 story segments in the can, Jim evolved into long-form production, not only for the Missouri Department of Conservation, but other state and federal resource agencies as well. Jim has produced dozens of award winning documentary films concerning a wide range of natural history and environmental issues. In 2001, Jim stepped from behind the camera to found Missouri River Relief, a hands-on, on-the-river advocacy group devoted to physically cleaning up the wide Missouri. Thousands of volunteers have picked up hundreds of tons of trash on the lower Missouri as a result of this organization. Jim’s river-adjacent Boone County property has served as the organizations boatyard and equipment headquarters for nearly 20 years.

Makenna is a Kansas City native with a passion for the city’s people, pride, and history. After completing a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2020, she returned to Kansas City to pursue a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she graduated in 2022. Makenna has experience working and volunteering with many agencies that provide services in the mid-Missouri and Kansas City regions.

Makenna has always felt strongly about social and environmental justice and looks forward to working with MCE in the Kansas City region to achieve progress in those areas and give back to the community. 

In her free time, Makenna enjoys trying out new restaurants, hiking, yoga, going to concerts, and enjoying art.

Jared began his professional career in web development handling the online advertising efforts of Fortune 500 companies. After 5 years in this field, he decided to return to school to start a new career in public service. Jared earned a B.S. in Health Education at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a Masters in Public Administration at Saint Louis University.

Jared’s public service career began with Tobacco Free St. Louis where he worked on updating tobacco policies to improve public health. He later worked for PreventEd organizing a region-wide campaign to educate and mobilize people about the opioid epidemic and advocate for public policy changes. Later, Jared helped found the St. Louis Downtown Neighborhood Association and became its first Executive Director. Prior to joining MCE, he was the Executive Director of Givable – a philanthropic catalyst for St. Louis area nonprofits.

Jared and his family enjoy taking trips to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and hiking and camping at many other beautiful parks and conservation areas throughout Missouri.

Elyse brings four years of community organizing toward energy democracy to MCE. She is eager to continue advocating for a just, sustainable future for all Missourians—especially those affected by extreme urban heat in her hometown, St. Louis. Before joining MCE, she was a research assistant at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she published about ecological memory in the art of Sub-Saharan Africa. Elyse enjoys birding in St. Louis’ many parks, playing board games, and wrangling three cats and a dog with her wife.

Melissa came to MCE first as a legal intern in 2012, reviewing agricultural permits and researching and writing about our food system. From there, she was hooked on MCE! Melissa combines a background in law, environmental science, and agricultural economics with her love for Missouri to serve as MCE’s director of policy and strategy. Her work involves advocating for state and federal policies that better support clean water, clean air, resilient regional food systems, safe waste management, renewable energy, and our democratic processes. She works closely with partners and allies statewide and on the federal level to engage with concerned citizens and policymakers about needed policy reforms. In her spare time, Melissa loves weightlifting, rollerblading, biking, and refurbishing furniture!