Earth Caretaker Honorees
Since its inception in 2010, the Alumni Earth Caretaker Award has recognized a UW-Green Bay graduate who has gone on to make contributions to the environment and in his or her field of study. Each award-winner is an alumnus who is highly regarded for their accomplishments in sustainability, environmental management, environmental policy or other closely related areas.
2026 Recipient
Lisa Bauer-Lotto
2026 Earth Caretaker
Lisa Bauer-Lotto
Corporate Director of Environment and Sustainability for Green Bay Packaging
Lisa Bauer-Lotto is the Corporate Director of Environment and Sustainability for Green Bay Packaging, where she leads companywide environmental regulatory compliance and plays a central role in strategic planning for major projects and enterprise sustainability goals over 40 sites in 16 states.
A recognized industry innovator, Lisa initiated the first net-zero water international validation standard (UL® ECVP 1397), establishing a new global benchmark for third-party verified water stewardship. Working in partnership with UL®, she helped develop a groundbreaking framework to measure alternative water resources and validate net-zero freshwater use. Under her leadership, Green Bay Packaging achieved the world’s first UL-validated net-zero water milestone through the Green Bay Mill’s reclaimed municipal wastewater system—an achievement that replaces freshwater withdrawals from the local watershed with recycled municipal effluent.
With more than 25 years of experience in the paper industry, Lisa is highly engaged in national and state-level environmental associations. She is a member of UW-Green Bay Sustainability Advisory Board, serves as Chair of the Air Quality Committee for the Wisconsin Paper Council and Chair of the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) Industry Water Committee. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI). Previously, she served on the Brown County Solid Waste Board, the Green Bay Water Utility Commission, and was a board member and President of Trees For Tomorrow.
Lisa holds a Master of Environmental Science from the UW-Green Bay and a B.S. in Chemistry–Business from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. In graduate studies at UW-Green Bay, her thesis examining the impacts and operations of household hazardous waste collection facilities, contributed to the establishment of Brown County’s Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility.
Lisa began her career as an aerosol chemist before entering the U.S. Navy, where she served for more than 29 years on active duty and in the reserves, ultimately attaining the rank of Captain. During her military career, she conducted industrial hygiene audits and led specialized operational projects at international locations. Her strategic planning expertise played a key role in achieving the first U.S. Navy humanitarian aid mission to El Salvador, which delivered medical care to a record 7,000 patients.
Past Recipients
Verónica Brieno Rankin
2025 Earth Caretaker
Verónica Brieno Rankin
Installation Management Flight Chief at the 1st Special Operations Civil Engineer Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla.
Ms. Brieno Rankin began her career in public service as a Commissioned Officer in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps, where she graduated from NOAA’s Basic Officer Training Course at the Global Maritime and Transportation School, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and Leadership and Management School, U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
John Stoll
2024 Earth Caretaker
John Stoll
EMBI Co-Founder & Economics Professor Emeritus
John R. Stoll moved to Green Bay from Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to complete his final year of high school. Upon graduation in 1969 he became a member of the first group of students to alight upon the newly built Shorewood campus of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Growing up with an abundance of experiences in northern forests and natural areas, he was an open sponge for concerns regarding their future and that of our planet.
Kevin Fermanich
2024 Honorary Earth Caretaker
Kevin Fermanich
EMBI Co-Founder & Environmental Science Professor Emeritus
Prior to his retirement in Fall 2022, Kevin was a Professor of Water Science, Geoscience, and Environmental Science at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and a soil and water resources specialist with Wisconsin Extension. In this capacity, he recently helped initiate the designation of National Estuarian Research Reserve (NERR) in the bay of Green Bay and chaired the natural areas site selection committee for the NERR nomination.
David Freedman
2023 Earth Caretaker
David Freedman
Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University
David L. Freedman is a professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University. David’s academic journey started at UW-Green Bay in 1973, when he made the move from his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts to Green Bay to join many other undergraduates from across the U.S. who shared a deep concern for the fate of the planet. David earned a B.S. degree in Science and Environmental Change in 1978. Among his many experiences at UW-Green Bay, one that stands out is his participation in a project to build a pilot-scale anaerobic digester on a dairy farm, one of the first to be built in Wisconsin. The project was unusual because it was a student led effort, from design to construction to operation. David was part of the project from start to finish, culminating in successful demonstration of a technology that has now been widely adopted.
Luc De Baere
2022 Earth Caretaker
Luc De Baere
President of OWS Inc and of Dranco Inc.
Luc De Baere is a Belgian native. He obtained a Bachelor’s in Chemistry (1978) and a Master’s Degree at UW-Green Bay in Environmental Arts and Sciences with a focus on Waste Management (1980).
Luc’s graduate work on anaerobic digestion at UW-Green Bay landed him, upon his return to his native country, a job with a large Belgian company, owned in the 70’s by Westinghouse of Pittsburg, PA. He was hired to develop a process to produce biogas from municipal solid waste. He became the inventor of the Dranco technology for the anaerobic digestion of organics derived from household solid waste, with several patents in over 35 countries. This technology operates under ‘dry’ conditions in a similar way as the generation of gas in a landfill, but the Dranco technology controls and optimizes the anaerobic degradation so that the production is complete within 25 days instead of 100 years in a landfill.
Linda Parker
2020-21 Earth Caretaker
Linda Parker
Forest Ecologist on the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest
Linda Parker is the Forest Ecologist on the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest where she is responsible for several large programs including ecology, botany, and climate change. Serving in this position since 1991, Linda provides leadership and expertise on rare plants, non-native invasive plants, fire ecology, landscape ecology, natural areas, ecological restoration, pollinator management, and climate change adaptation.
Linda was a pioneer of the Climate Change Response Framework and has co-authored numerous publications on climate change impacts and mitigation opportunities. Linda also helped develop an approach to climate change adaptation in the Western Great Lakes region. A field project demonstrating this approach on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest was recently recognized by the American Society for Adaptation Professionals as a Prize for Progress Finalist.
Dr. Yue Rong
2019 Earth Caretaker
Dr. Yue Rong
Environmental Program Manager at the California Environmental Protection Agency
Dr. Yue Rong (aka, YR) is currently the Environmental Program Manager at the California Environmental Protection Agency, Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. He was also the acting Assistant Executive Officer of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, in groundwater division. Dr. Rong is the manager in charge of site assessment and remediation of leaking underground storage tank (UST) sites, and the program of water quality control in oil and gas production fields. The UST program contains large number of leaking UST sites to be remediated in Los Angeles area, which was ranked in top 10 in terms of total numbers of the impacted sites. He has 29-year experience with the Agency in dealing with groundwater contamination problems in the Los Angeles area of California, U.S.A. His expertise includes organic pollutants fate and transport in the subsurface soil and groundwater, environmental analytical chemistry and quality assurance and quality control, environmental statistics, risk assessment, and soil and groundwater pollution assessment and remediation. The projects he worked and involved with include collaboration with USEPA at superfund sites in Los Angeles area, Santa Monica methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) drinking water pollution cleanup, I-710 corridor regional cleanup, and water quality control at oil and gas production fields in Los Angeles area.
Douglas McLaughlin
2018 Earth Caretaker
Douglas McLaughlin
Principal Research Scientist at the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc. (NCASI)
Since 2002, Doug has been a Principal Research Scientist at the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc. (NCASI), a non-profit environmental research organization funded by the forest products industry. He is based near Kalamazoo, Michigan where he provides scientific expertise and research that address questions affecting surface water quality and management. Over the last several years, he has focused on the science underpinning the development of numeric water quality criteria for nutrients and other pollutants. These criteria are a central part of water quality management in the U.S. under the Clean Water Act, and represent potentially important sustainability goals for guiding human interactions with aquatic ecosystems.
Meleesa Johnson
2017 Earth Caretaker
Meleesa Johnson
Director of Solid Waste Management for Marathon County
Meleesa Johnson is the director of solid waste management for Marathon County. She oversees solid waste programming and facilities serving central and north-central Wisconsin. Under her leadership the Solid Waste Department transitioned from primarily a landfill business to a regional resource for residents, businesses and local governments working on waste reduction and recycling programming as means of creating greater sustainability.
Serving as adjunct faculty at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Meleesa helped create the current curriculum for both the introductory and advanced waste management classes. The advanced class now serves as a capstone class for the Waste Management and Soils degree program. While she no longer enjoys a position with the university, she continues to guest lecture and mentor students.
Neil Diboll
2016 Earth Caretaker
Neil Diboll
Prairie Nursery President and Consulting Ecologist
Neil Diboll received his degree from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay in 1978. He has since worked for the U.S. Park Service in Virginia, the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, and the University of Wisconsin. In 1982, Neil began his involvement with Prairie Nursery, producing native plants and seeds and designing native landscapes. He has since devoted his efforts to championing the use of prairie plants, as well as native trees, shrubs and wetland plants, in contemporary American landscapes.
In addition to helping popularize the use of native plants long before they were “cool,’ Neil developed the first scientific methodology for designing prairie seed mixes. By calculating the relative numbers of seeds per square foot for each species in a seed mix, the resultant prairie plant community could be more accurately predicted. Neil also worked to set industry standards for seed purity and germination to assure customers receive quantifiable, viable seed.
David Kriebel
2015 Earth Caretaker
David Kriebel
Professor of Epidemiology at U. Mass Lowell
David Kriebel is a professor of epidemiology in the Department of Work Environment and co-director of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The Lowell Center collaborates with industries, government agencies, unions, and community organizations on the redesign of systems of production to make them healthier and more environmentally sound. Kriebel graduated summa cum laude from UW-Green Bay in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology. He then worked with Dr. Barry Commoner, famed champion of the environmental activist movement, coordinating Commoner’s biology laboratories at Washington University in St. Louis and working on his 1980 Citizens Party campaign for president. Kriebel then discovered his professional passion and earned a master’s in physiology and a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard. He won a Fulbright fellowship to Italy to study at one of the world’s premier cancer-prevention centers. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored two public health textbooks.
Paul Linzmeyer
2014 Earth Caretaker
Paul Linzmeyer
Sustainability Leader at ThedaCare
A leader with proven business acumen who has years of executive level leadership, Paul brings a strong background of 35+ years as a ‘business activist’ with a deep and abiding belief that business can benefit from triple bottom line thinking. He is currently the Sustainability Leader at ThedaCare, which has five hospitals and 25 clinics and is the largest employer in NE Wisconsin. Paul is known as an international strategist and speaker on business Innovation and Sustainability principles. In the past, he was a US delegate to the OECD’s Sustainable Manufacturing and Eco-Innovation committee. He also is a past Chair of the Wisconsin Workforce Investment Council, the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, and the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce.
Ryan Stockwell
2013 Earth Caretaker
Ryan Stockwell
Agriculture Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation
Currently, Ryan is the Agriculture Program Manager for the National Wildlife Federation where he conducts outreach on agriculture policy, performs policy analysis on agricultural legislation impacting wildlife and natural resources, and provides strategic leadership in eliminating barriers to farmer adoption of cover crops.
Victoria Harris
2012 Earth Caretaker
Victoria Harris
Water Quality and Habitat Specialist, UW Sea Grant, Green Bay, WI
Victoria Harris, the longtime water quality and habitat restoration specialist with the UW Sea Grant Institute on the UW-Green Bay campus, has dedicated her life to clean water. Harris spent 37 years devoted to protecting and restoring the environment in and around UW-Green Bay.
Education: M.S. Environmental Science and Policy, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Paul Wozniak
2011 Earth Caretaker
Paul Wozniak
Environmental Historian and Environmental Educator, Chicago, IL
Paul Wozniak is an environmental historian, a statistical analyst and an environmental educator. He helped write the book on Earth Day — collaborating on Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise with U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson and former UW-Green Bay instructor Susan Campbell. Wozniak works as a senior consultant with Navigant Consulting of Chicago. His work involves the evaluation of programs attempting to influence energy behaviors through advanced communications systems. He is currently advising three of the nation's largest electric utilities. Wozniak volunteers as a historian for the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame and he worked as an associate to help launch UW-Green Bay's Environmental Management Business Institute. He also serves as a research director for the Fox/Wolf Rivers Environmental History Project.
Paul Tower
2010 Earth Caretaker
Paul Tower
President and CEO of Applied Filter Technology, in Snohomish, Washington
Paul Tower is the recipient of UW-Green Bay's first Alumni Earth Caretaker Award. Tower graduated from UW-Green Bay in 1978 with a Master's Degree in Environmental Arts and Sciences and an emphasis in process engineering. Tower has focused his career on improving the environment with technology. He is President and CEO of Applied Filter Technology (AFT), in Snohomish, Wash., a firm that designs, builds, and operates waste gas recovery processes for use in energy production. His company provides the technology to create biogas energy from green wastes, such as lumber byproducts and landscaping trimmings. For the city of Madison, for example, technology created by AFT helps the Wisconsin Waste Water Treatment Plant process waste by a methane digester to produce electricity and heat used for plant operations. AFT has 167 operational sites in North America and 300 internationally.
Education: M.S. Environmental Science and Policy, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Have Questions?
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