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PROTECT HUNTING
Our hunting tradition and wildlife habitat is under serious threat. Care about the future of our heritage?
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Check out the COHA
Field Wire.
Subscribe to our Field Wire email newsletter and receive immediate updates on issues critical to you and join the COHA Action Team. |
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| COHA is uniquely positioned to work all levels of government. |
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| COHA advocates for full annual state and federal funding for wildlife habitat enhancement, restoration, and maintenance programs. |
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| Meet COHA’s Board |
| Board Members of the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance are veteran community leaders and business executives who have come together to protect our outdoor heritage. |
| Gary Bechtel |
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Chairman of the Board |
Gary Bechtel graduated from the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California, with a BA in Business Administration. He began his professional career working at Bechtel Corporation in Labor Relations and assumed responsibility for one of their operating companies for national and international projects. He was subsequently elected to the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group of Companies.
Retiring at age 45, he moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina, to own and manage a NASCAR Cup team and two Busch teams. Gary jumped onto the NASCAR scene in 1990 and by the end of 1999, Bechtel sold his entire operation to Joe Gibbs Racing and moved back to California where he got involved in another passion, outdoor conservation.
Currently Gary serves as Senior Vice President on the Board of Directors of California Conservation Fund, whose mission is reclaiming land and restoring it back into wetlands and upland habitat. He also serves as Chairman of the Board for The California Outdoor Heritage Alliance (COHA), is on the board of Delta Waterfowl, California Game Wardens Foundation and the Mid-Peninsula School Board.
Both Gary and his wife Jacquie, use their Foothill’s Foundation to focus their personal philanthropic commitments to Children’s needs, specific Civic needs, Education as well as for Resource Conservation.
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| Jim Waters |
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Secretary/Treasurer |
Jim is a California Waterfowl Association (CWA) Life Donor having shot his first duck in the Suisun Marsh in 1968 while attending St. Mary's College. His career in industrial and construction equipment sales never took him too far from the marsh. Mr. Waters is currently serving as a founding member of the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance (COHA) Board of Directors, where he brings to the Board his valuable experience working closely with the politicians and regulatory agencies -- both in Sacramento and in the Suisun Marsh. Jim also currently serves as a Director of the Rich Island Gun Club, President of the Simmons-Wheeler Reclamation District, Director of the California Waterfowl Association and Director of the Suisun Resource Conservation District. These affiliations put him in constant contact with the local, state and federal agencies that are directly involved in our ability to enjoy our hunting heritage. He has spent many years developing close relationships with our elected officials at all levels.
Other affiliations include: The National Rifle Association, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, The Mzuri Safari Club, Safari Club International, Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited the Aircraft Owners And Pilots Association.
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| Chris Dorsey |
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CEO, Orion Multimedia, LLC |
Chris Dorsey is the founding partner of Denver-based Orion Multimedia, the world’s largest producer of outdoor adventure television programming. He’s helped create 32 outdoor television series—more than anyone in history—for five networks and 28 of those series are still in production today.
Prior to his career in television, Dorsey was a publishing executive running some of the largest outdoor titles in America, including Sports Afield, America’s oldest outdoor periodical. His work has appeared in a wide variety of national publications including The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Television Week, National Geographic and Writer’s Digest. He’s the author of seven books on outdoor, natural history, and business subjects. Dorsey lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Amy and twin sons Luke and Nathan.
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| Darius Anderson |
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Director |
Representing: Platinum Advisors
Profession: CEO/President
Darius Anderson is Founder and CEO of Platinum Advisors, a full-service government affairs firm that ranks in the top five of California government advocacy companies. With offices in Sacramento, Orange County, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Platinum Advisors provides lobbying, real estate project development, procurement, public affairs and strategic consulting to corporations, governments, trade associations and non-profit groups.
He spearheaded a series of innovative ventures and private/public partnerships in the high-tech, real estate and retail fields. Widely recognized as one of California’s most effective political strategists and fundraisers, he has and continues to advise many of California’s highest-ranking political and business leaders, including US Senator Dianne Feinstein, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, former California Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and corporate executives Ron Burkle, Eli Broad and Brad Grey.
Philanthropy is important to Darius, and he is involved in a variety of charitable activities. He serves as the Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Robert Toigo Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to encouraging exceptional minority students to consider a career in finance. He is the Chair of the National Advisory Council at the Institute of Governmental Studies at University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the George Washington University Graduate School of Public Management’s Council on American Politics and the Sonoma Jazz +Festival.
Darius Anderson holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
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| John Devney |
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Senior Vice President, Delta Waterfowl |
John grew up just outside of St. Paul, MN where he was introduced to hunting and fishing by his father Jack. From an early age (he started shadowing his father on duck hunts since age 4) John became an obsessed waterfowler. Starting with ventures north to pursue bluebills on the once great diver lakes of Lake of the Woods, Leech and Big Winnie, John got hooked on chasing the black and white speedsters on big water.
John graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in government and philosophy from St. John’s University in Minnesota. Prior to coming to Delta he worked in the sporting goods and marine industries with a background in sales and marketing.
John lives just outside Bismarck with his wife Carmen and labs Finnegan and Seamus. John’s true passion is for waterfowl hunting but also spends time afield pursuing upland birds, turkeys and deer as well as fly fishing for trout and walleyes and bass.
According to John, "It is great to live in a place where I have the opportunity to spend so much time with the birds I love from the breeding season right through to watching them from a duck blind, and it is truly rewarding to work for an organization that has contributed so much to the waterfowl resource and the sport of waterfowl hunting
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| Miles Moretti |
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President/CEO, Mule Deer Foundation |
Miles Moretti became President/CEO of the Mule Deer Foundation in October 2006. MDF’s president serves as chief executive officer and is charged with implementing policies and programs of the Foundation for the benefit of mule deer and black-tailed deer. Since, Miles has been in the position of President/CEO, MDF has become one of the fastest growing wildlife conservation groups in the United States.
Previously, Miles worked 30 years for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in various positions. When he retired, Miles was the Deputy Director and had served as Acting Director of the agency.
Miles has a B.S. in Wildlife Management from Utah State University and an M.S. in Range/Wildlife Resources from Brigham Young University. Miles and his wife, Julie, reside in North Salt Lake City, Utah.
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| George Thornton |
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CEO/President, National Wild Turkey Federation |
George Thornton has served at Chief Executive Officer of the National Wild Turkey Federation since June 2008. During Thornton’s tenure, the Federation has put an emphasis on funding on-the-ground projects that benefit wild turkeys and numerous other upland species, as well as fighting for and preserving our hunting heritage.
Previously, he served as President and CEO of Agriliance from July 2001 through August 2007. He has also held various positions with American Cyanamid, Cyanamid de Central America, Cyanamid de Mexico, ICI Americas, ICI Australia PLC, Griffin / Dupont LLC and AgWeb.Com. In 2006, Thornton was named agribusiness leader of the year by the National Agricultural Marketing Association.
Thornton has served on many civic and industry boards. He currently serves on the board of the Foundation for Public Schools in Edgefield County and the CEO Board of TriArtisan Partners, a New York-based investment bank.
He was raised in Georgia, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He currently resides with his wife, Beth, in Edgefield, S.C. They also maintain residences in Atlanta, Ga., and at Creekside Farm, in Elberton, Ga.
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| Yancey Forest-Knowles |
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Vice Chairman, California Waterfowl Association |
Yancey obtained his undergraduate and graduate degree including teaching credentials from the University of California at Davis. He served as a principal in the Santa Rosa California - Bellevue Union School District for over 20 years. During this time he was active in the Association of California School Administrators serving as President of the Sonoma County Association of School Administrators and on the State Committee for Elementary Education. He served in the U.S. Army as the commanding officer of an artillery battery and was a commercial whitewater rafting leader.
Yancey has served his community as Chair of Sonoma County Regional Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, Chair of the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District Advisory Commission, and various committees for the City of Santa Rosa. He has been on several boards, including: Big Brothers / Big Sisters, Social Advocates for Youth, Schools Plus, Junior Achievement, Santa Rosa Youth Athletic Field Trust and the Place to Play Committee. In a conservation capacity, he was the President of the Russian River Fly Fishers and as Vice Chair and District II Director for the California Waterfowl Association.
Yancey is currently writing a book entitled, “The History & Traditions of California Waterfowl Clubs”.
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| Stuart Hanson |
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Member at Large |
Stuart Hanson served on the CWA Board of Directors for nearly 15 years and is a Life Sponsor. He began his involvement with CWA almost 20 years ago by joining the dinner committee for the Sacramento Wild Game Feed, a fundraising dinner he chaired for nearly 10 years.
During his CWA chairmanship, Mr. Hanson played a key role in leading the formation of the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance (COHA), and served as COHA’s founding Board Chair. He currently serves as an at-large Director of COHA. Stuart brings to the COHA board over 20 years of experience as a real estate & business transactions lawyer who has formed several non-profit corporations and has played management roles in several start-ups and closely-held businesses. He views COHA’s strength in government affairs and lobbying, coupled with CWA’s youth/public education programs, as critical to protecting California’s hunting heritage for future generations, and works to increase funding for those efforts.
Stuart is a life-long Sacramento Valley hunter and is President of the Golden Eye Duck Club near Dingville, Sutter County. He is a general partner in a rice and walnut farm in Yuba County which he has partly restored to native wetland habitat.
He has two children and lives in Placer County. In addition to hunting, his interests include fly fishing, coaching youth sports, skiing and rooting for the Giants, A’s and Sacramento Kings.
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