Staff Biographies

Jim Belliston
Applications Programmer & Webmaster

Jim is an Applications Programmer in the IT Services Department of Utah State University Extension. His responsibilities include building and maintaining administrative information systems, web server management, general technical support, technology research and some teaching.  Jim works with Western SARE to create and upkeep the online submission and process of grants and maintain the Western SARE website.  Jim has a Master’s degree in Soil Science and Biometeorology from Utah State University.

Stacie Clary
Communications Specialist

Stacie has directed or consulted with a variety of sustainable food and farming organizations in California since 1999, including the California Coalition for Food and Farming, Ecological Farming Association, California Certified Organic Farmers and Roots of Change.  She held the non-profit representative seat on the Western SARE Administrative Council for seven years before she was recently named the Western SARE Communications Specialist.

Ron Daines
Communications Consultant

Ron joined Western SARE in October 2001 as the Communications Specialist. In his role, he promoted Western SARE and sustainable agriculture by writing news releases, taking photographs, producing periodic reports, updating the Western SARE website and coordinating communications with public and private ag-support organizations. Ron now works as a Communications Consultant for Western SARE.

Jim Freeburn
Regional Training Coordinator, PDP Program
Jim Freeburn has served as the Western SARE Professional Development program coordinator since 1998, providing oversight and guidance for the state and protectorate PDP coordinators and their activities and managing the PDP competitive grants program. He also serves as the director of operations for the University of Wyoming’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center near Lingle, Wyoming. Jim’s educational background is in wildlife and agricultural economics. His passions are his family and the outdoors, especially mule deer, cattle and the wide-open spaces of western North America.

Kelly Greenwald
Administrative Assistant, PDP Program

Kelly Greenwald has been with the Western SARE program as its PDP Administrative Assistant since January 2007. She works half-time for Western SARE and half time for the University of Wyoming Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center. Having been raised on a conventional ranching operation, Kelly very much enjoys and appreciates learning about the extreme diversity of agriculture in the Western Region. A Wyoming native, Kelly is a graduate of the University of Wyoming with degrees in Microbiology and Medical Technology. Along with her husband and two sons, Kelly lives and farms just outside Lingle, Wyoming.

Kristi Jensen
Contracts Manager

Kristi is the contracts manager for Western SARE, where she has worked since May 1999. As an accountant, her role is to make certain that coordinators and investigators of funded projects submit timely annual and final reports. She is also responsible for releasing project funds and managing the overall accounts of Western SARE.

Al Kurki 
Associate Training Coordinator, PDP Program

Al serves as Associate Coordinator of Western SARE's Professional Development Program, a position he has held since October 1994. He handles Professional Development grant reports, works with the Extension Indian Reservation Program, serves as a liaison with non-governmental organizations and recruits Technical Review panelists. He also helps with Western SARE and other regions on planning and evaluation issues. Al also works as a Program Specialist for the National Center for Appropriate Technology's Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) project.

Tammy Neilson
Staff Assistant

Tammy joined the Western SARE staff in the fall of 2007. She helps coordinate the travel needs of the staff and Administrative Council members, processes the various grant applications as they come into the office and assists in the organization and planning of the Technical Review panels. As a native of Cache Valley, she loves living among the alfalfa fields and dairy pastures and resides with her husband and their two daughters in the same small town where she grew up.

Bob Newhall
Deputy Coordinator

Bob has been the Utah Professional Development coordinator for Western SARE since 1995 and Deputy Coordinator since 1997. His deputy duties include managing the Request for Applications for Chapter 1 Research and Education, Graduate Fellow Farmer/Rancher and Professional + Producer applications and all of the activities related to the proposal review process. That includes initiating the requests for applications, handling queries and bringing reviewed proposals to the Administrative Council for their approval.

Joleen Pantier
Contracts Manager, PDP Program

Working at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Joleen has been the Western SARE Professional Development Program contracts manager since September 2003. As an accounting associate for the PDP, she reviews state and EIRP proposal budgets, writes the subcontract agreements and manages the projects for 13 states and 4 territories in the Western region as well as the program administrative accounts. She graduated from Laramie County Community College with an associate's degree in general studies. While working as a graphic artist and attending college, she was also an AmeriCorps volunteer, tutoring children and adult students and assisting with the English as a Second Language program. Joleen and her husband Rick enjoy cooking, camping and fishing in the Snowy Range Mountains west of Laramie and spending time with family. Joleen also enjoys reading, crocheting and cross stitch projects.

V. Philip Rasmussen
Coordinator

Dr. Phil Rasmussen has been the coordinator of Western SARE since 1994 and has been associated with National SARE since 1988, having served on the first SAN Committee. He is also an assistant director in both the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station and the Utah State University Cooperative Extension Service. In 1999, Phil was appointed as the first NASA geospatial extension specialist in the nation.

Phil received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Utah State University and his Doctoral degree at Kansas State University. Currently, he serves as the Regional Coordinator for the Western Region SARE Program and is the Geospatial Extension Specialist for Utah.

Chod Stephens
Research Technician

Chod Stephens received his Bachelor’s degree from Utah State University in Crop Science in May 2003 and his Master’s Degree from Utah State University in Soil Science in May 2006. He currently lives in Logan, Utah, and works as a Research Technician for Utah State University and Western SARE. He is also working on his Ph.D. degree.

Whitney Watts
Staff Assistant

Whitney joined the Western SARE staff at Utah State University in January 2009 after graduating from USU with a Bachelor’s Degree in public relations in May 2008. Most of Whitney’s agricultural knowledge and experience comes from working with her dad on his farm in southeastern Idaho.