​Board of Directors

​Gisele Duehring   |   Jim Cantrill   |   Susan Estler   |   Dan Kill   |   Nancy Peterson   |   Joe Rom   |   Nhan Nguyen   |   Susan Estler

Board President: Gisele Duehring
Gisele grew up in Iowa building bridges over a pasture creek using scrap materials, curiously watching water bugs skim the creek surface, munching mulberries, and loving violets and other wildflowers in the pasture. With a BS in Mechanical Engineering from ISU and some grad classes, she worked as a PE and PMP for a Texas power company/engineering firm mostly with coal-fired plants. One of her favorite volunteer opps was teaching illiterate adults to read and training tutors. Marquette’s Hunger Garden holds a special place in her heart. Now at NMU’s Ripley Plant, she is learning a lot about their new wood chip-fired steam generating unit. Architecture, flowers, children and pets make her heart sing. The BotEco Center, her passion, creatively encompasses those favorites and more!
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Vice President: Joe Rom
​Joe Rom, RA, NCARB, has extensive international experience in residential, commercial and cultural projects. As a member of Studio Daniel Libeskind in New York City, Joe has been involved in numerous projects that have moved from design to documentation to construction, managing the architectural teams, coordinating with consultants and giving presentations to clients. Some of these projects include the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, opened in 2008, and high-rise residential towers in Warsaw, Poland and Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

At the Suk Design Group in New York, he worked on cultural and residential construction, including the renovation and expansion of the historic Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

He received his B.S. Architecture from the University of Michigan in 1997 and his Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan in 1999. Joe is a licensed architect.
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Joe is a founder of Studio RAD in Marquette. He and his wife provide us will all of our renderings for our project, so please check out their website!​
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Secretary: Jim Cantrill
Jim has a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, has lived in the Upper Peninsula since 1990, and currently is a professor and the Department Head of Communication and Performance Studies at Northern Michigan University. Over his career, he has authored several books, anthologized chapters, and journal articles related to environmental communication and conservation psychology. Jim has also served as a consultant for a range of organizations including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park Service. He was the founder of the U.P. Land Conservancy in the 1990s, and is quite active in the Fred Waara Chapter of Trout Unlimited in addition to focusing on the BotEco Center at the Ore Dock. In his spare time, Jim enjoys fly fishing, cooking, and traveling to distant lands such as Patagonia.​
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Treasurer: Dan Kill
Dan Kill is a native of Silver Spring, Maryland and a 1983 graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in finance. Dan also earned his Masters of Business Administration, while serving as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Minot, North Dakota. A few of Dan’s important accomplishments include: surfing the black sand beaches in Iceland, piloting an aircraft with his wife over Half-Dome in Yosemite on a cloudy day, and he owns a Dingo (Roxxie) and didn’t allow it to eat any of his babies. Dan now lives in Negaunee, Michigan with his wife Lori and children, Nickolas and Abbi.

Nancy Peterson grew up in a family business; her father was a landscaper and started 4 garden center business in different parts of Michigan.  She obtained her  horticulture degree from Ferris State University, was licensed by the State of Michigan for approximately 30 years in pesticide use, and has done landscape designing since 1981.  Nancy worked in landscape construction, managed the Garden Center in Marquette, Michigan, and currently is Sales Specialist in the Lowes’ Outside Lawn and Garden Department in Marquette.

Nhan Nguyen was born and raised on a Vietnamese farm, where she gained a deep love for flowers, plants, chickens, dogs, and cats. She moved to the U.S. to reunite with her sweetheart in 2014 and since then has never stopped dreaming of a botanical garden in Marquette. Her dream eventually led her to BotEco, where she gets to work with those who share the same vision. She looks forward to one day seeing her children exploring nature on the dock in the long Michigan winter.
 
Nhan earned a Bachelor’s degree for Science in Mathematics and is expected to graduate in December 2019 with another degree in Accounting. Joining BotEco’s Board is such a wonderful way to bring her number skills to this special not-for-profit but for-purpose organization.

​Susan Estler is the executive director of Travel Marquette in Marquette, Michigan. She is a destination marketing executive with 20+ years of achievement blending business expertise and a creative mindset to pinpoint needs, devise high–impact solutions, and incorporate industry best practices, all to increase the profile of the community. She has been employed in Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) in Scranton, PA; Panama City Beach, FL; and Bradenton, FL. Prior to her DMO career she was a graphic designer and attended Parsons School of Design in New York City.
 
Susan enjoys riding her horse Baldwin and creating jewelry utilizing various metalsmithing skills and enameling. She resides in Marquette, MI with her husband Alan and her three black cats, Spencer, Katie, and Sawyer.