Michelle Beale is an attorney and manager formerly with Skelly Oil, Getty Oil and Coca-Cola. She was heavily involved in the protection of Coca-Cola rain forest properties in Belize, in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy and the Program for Belize. Later, she joined the board of trustees for the Nature Conservancy in Texas, eventually serving as chair. While affiliated with the Conservancy, she has been particularly active in promoting planned giving programs for the group.
Region: Coastal Prairie
Dan Snodgrass
Mr. Snodgrass is a wildlife biologist with experience in wildlife and land management, prescribed fire, and conservation easements. He serves as the Director of Land Protection and Stewardship for the Nature Conservancy in Texas.
Carter Smith
Carter Smith is a biologist who has had leadership roles in several conservation organizations in Texas, serving as Executive Director of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and prior to that Director of the Nature Conservancy in Texas and head of the Katy Prairie Conservancy. While at the Nature Conservancy, he was involved in work to protect portions of South Padre Island, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Devils River, Mad Island, Barton Creek, Clymer Meadow, and the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.
James Byron Morris
Mr. Morris is an oil and gas attorney and a friend of the Nature Conservancy in Texas. He was involved in Mobil’s gift of the Texas City native prairie preserve, home to the extremely rare Attwater’s prairie chicken at the time, to the Conservancy.
David Bezanson
Mr. Bezanson is the Land Protection Strategy Director at the Nature Conservancy in Texas. He previously served as Executive Director of the Texas Land Conservancy (earlier known as the Natural Area Preservation Association), and worked at the Texas General Land Office.
Mary Anne Pickens
Mary Anne Pickens has been a resident of Columbus and Houston, Texas, where she has pursued her interests as a gardener, historian, landscape writer, and past president of the Native Plant Society of Texas.
Here she discusses her memories of the life, career and influence of Lynn Lowrey, the noted plantsman based in Houston.
Carl Schoenfeld
Carl Schoenfeld is a plant explorer and the founder and owner of Yucca Do Nursery in Hempstead, where he propagates and sells drought and heat tolerant plants, including rare yuccas, cacti, ferns, and bromeliads.
In this interview, he discusses his memories and insights about the celebrated plantsman and explorer, Lynn Lowrey.
John Fairey
John Fairey was an architecture professor at Texas A&M University, a plant explorer, and the founder and director of Peckerwood Garden in Hempstead, a collection of woodland, montane and desert plants native to the southern United States and Mexico.
Here he describes his memories and perspectives about Lynn Lowrey, the noted Houston horticulturalist, landscaper, and plant explorer.
Robin Schneider
From the year 2000 through 2025, Ms Schneider served as executive director of the lobbying and organizing 501(c)(4) group, the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE), and its (c)(3) research and education arm, the Texas Campaign for the Environment Fund. TCE runs a door-to-door canvass with a presence in 181 state legislative districts in Texas, educating citizens and building support for environmental efforts. The Campaign has worked on a variety of topics, including Zero Waste promotion, landfill opposition, citizen complaint handling, retail businesses’ toxic chemical management, air pollution grandfathered exemptions, electronic waste recycling, municipal composting, oil and gas drilling rules, and toxic waste site cleanup standards.
Jim Marston
Mr. Marston is an environmental attorney. He began his career in 1979 as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas, working in the Environmental Protection Division. Then, from 1980 through 1988, he was a partner in the private law firm of Doggett, Jacks, Marston and Perlmutter. In 1988, he opened the Environmental Defense Fund office in Texas, where he worked through 2020, focusing on climate, energy, air pollution, and a wide variety of other conservation efforts. At EDF, he was especially active in designing and arguing for the Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard, which helped drive a boom in wind and solar energy in the state. He also was a key player in the fight to stop the utility TXU from building a dozen coal plants in Texas. Outside of EDF, he has been an active volunteer with Pecan Street, a partnership among Austin Energy, UT, the Austin Chamber, and a number of high-tech companies to reform the U.S. electrical grid. Some of his other board roles include serving as the president of the Texas League of Conservation Voters, vice chair of the Texas Ethics Commission, chair of the board of the Texas Observer, and a trustee for Texas Watch, Texas Rural Legal Aid, Texas Citizens Action, and other groups. He has also been engaged outside of Texas, especially with promoting climate-related car legislation in California, and in improving greenhouse emission regulations nationwide.