Thank you for voting in Friends’
2024 Board of Directors General Election
Newly Elected Executive Committee Officer:
Secretary: Janet Annelli, Ph.D.
Janet was elected to the board in 2023. She serves on two Friends Committees: Advocacy and Events. Janet is passionate about wildlife and Bosque del Apache, where she has enjoyed the opportunity to participate in events, classes, and meetings for over a decade. She has attended birding and photography classes at Festival of the Cranes over many years. From her home in White Rock, NM, she loves seeing and hearing the cranes fly over each spring and fall. Now that she is about to retire, she wants to pursue her art and volunteer to support the Friends and the refuge with her many skills. Janet is a training professional with over thirty years’ experience in a range of instructional and educational settings. She has been skilled at developing effective working relationships with clients and staff even during times of change and uncertainty. She has managed work groups in various organizations performing a range of activities/projects including programs with instructional analysis, design, development, and evaluation components. Her skills include business planning, budgeting, scheduling, staffing, developing client and staff relations, development, and improvement of processes, ensuring work quality, managing overall and day-to-day work, and project and program activities. Janet is also very experienced in program development and planning as well as instruction design and development. She is a skilled communicator: writing proposals, strategic training plans and training materials, and research reports; and designing and delivering presentations. Since 2005, Janet has served as the Group Leader of Training Services at Los Alamos National Labs. Previously, she was an education administrator in the New Mexico Public Education Department, supporting professional development activities for NM teachers.
Newly Elected At-Large Directors:
Mary Beth Kuderik
Mary Beth was elected to the Friends of Bosque del Apache NWR board in 2021 and serves on Friends Finance Committee. She first visited Bosque del Apache on a break from a work-related trip to El Paso in the mid-winter of 1988. The magic and wonder of that first visit has never left her no matter how many times she has visited since. Following her love of the Southwest, she relocated to Santa Fe from Birmingham Michigan in mid-2020 and is happy to now call New Mexico home. Mary Beth currently serves as President of MBHK Consulting, a strategic advisory firm that serves healthcare and nonprofit organizations looking to amplify their mission and impact through strategic financial and operational transformation. She is also lead Principal in the New Mexico practice of Kuderik and Associates CPAs providing financial advisory services to a diverse group of small businesses, non-profits, trusts, estates, and individuals. Prior to relocating to New Mexico, Mary Beth was Chief Strategy and Financial Officer at the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, the largest private purchaser of retiree health care in the United States. In that role, Mary Beth oversaw all aspects of strategy, finance, internal audit, information technology, investment operations, and risk management. Prior to the Trust, she held several finance and employee benefit management roles at General Motors. Mary Beth also enjoys sharing her experience in strategy and finance through her service on the Boards of the New Mexico Wildlife Center, Ouldolf Garden Detroit, STEM Santa Fe and as Treasurer of Michigan Women Forward. Mary Beth holds a Master of Health Care Delivery Science from the Tuck School of Business and Geisel School of Medicine of Dartmouth College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Management Accountant. Mary Beth loves to be outdoors in our magnificent public lands pursuing her passion for southwest archeology, flyfishing, wildlife and photography.
Rex Myers, Ph.D.
Rex was elected to the Friends of Bosque del Apache NWR board in 2021 and serves on the Friends Advocacy Committee. He also currently serves as the Board President for Amigos de la Sevilleta and provides an important link between our two Friends groups and refuges. Rex and his wife Susan Richards “discovered” Bosque del Apache and New Mexico in the mid-1990’s, returned to Socorro annually enjoying both, and retired to the area in 2017. Rex is a former college faculty member and administrator. He has a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Montana and published books and scholarly articles, as well as short stories and poems. He taught at colleges and universities in California, Montana, South Dakota, Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Wyoming plus held administrative positions at several schools. Also actively involved in community life, Rex has been a Kiwanian since 1973, and served on boards of many public/non-profit organizations: chambers of commerce, arts, libraries, Buffalo Bill Dam Visitors Center, Amigos de la Sevilleta, and others. He is also a volunteer Santa. Rex and Susan have been members of Friends of Bosque del Apache for more than twenty years, hiked all the refuge trails more than once, and keep an annual tally of birds they see.
John Courtney, Ph. D.
A native of Louisiana, Dr. John Courtney is a double-boarded neuropsychologist and is currently the Associate Director of Psychiatry for Presbyterian Medical Services in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before moving to New Mexico in 2015, John owned clinics in Indiana and was the previous director of psychology at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. He has held faculty appointments at several universities, most recently Tulane University Health Sciences Center and the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. In addition to his professional career, he is an avid nature photographer whose photography has been exhibited in various galleries across the US as well as in publications. His photographic work, including images of the Bosque del Apache, can be seen at www.johncourtneyfineartphotography.com. In recent years, John has generously allowed Friends to use his photographs in our publications and social media, and has given a portion of profits from his sales directly to the Friends.
As a prescribing neuropsychologist and photographer, John fully understands the healing qualities of nature and often prescribes time outdoors to his patients. He has always considered wetlands and water an integral part of his life; so when he first arrived in Socorro, he was delighted to find the wetlands at Bosque del Apache so nearby. Arriving at Bosque del Apache for the first time felt like a “homecoming” to him. Though he has moved to Las Cruces now, he often returns to Bosque del Apache. Visiting often, John feels a sense of ownership and responsibility to help protect this special place and its wildlife, and one way to ensure that is to take photographs that help others fall in love with this oasis in the desert. He noted that each of us needs to do our part to be good stewards—speaking out and advocating for wildlife and public lands and doing whatever we can to ensure that precious places like Bosque del Apache are sustained.