Our Team

Staff

Winona bateman (She/Her)

Executive Director

Winona Bateman is the founder and executive director of Families for a Livable Climate. In her work, Ms. Bateman is interested in bridging the yawning gap between the urgent need for bold climate policies and the pervasive silence surrounding climate change. She sees storytelling as a key way to make connections across differences, create meaning in our lives, and envision an equitable and thriving future. From 2021 to 2022, Winona served as the U.S. representative for the International Climate Parent Fellowship through Parents for Future Global and Our Kids' Climate, training with eleven other climate mothers from around the globe. Ms. Bateman has a Bachelors of Arts in Biology from Carleton College, and Masters of Fine Arts in Media Arts from the University of Montana. She lives with her husband and daughter, and enjoys growing and preserving food, observing animals and insects, and otherwise learning from our living world.

CAssidy Green (she/her)

Communications Coordinator

Cassidy has resided in Montana for over two decades and enjoys spending her time exploring the wilderness in the form of mountains, lakes,  rivers, and camping with her partner and two boys. Cassidy is slightly obsessed with growing plants, both indoors and in her backyard garden, appreciating the natural processes of plant growth and the many benefits they provide.

Cassidy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Montana, where she studied Integrated Digital Media and Communications. Over the past 20 years, she has focused on supporting Montana's nonprofit organizations, fostering community connections to promote the betterment of our planet, resources, and inhabitants. Cassidy served on the board of the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition (CFAC).

Cassidy's fervent dedication to climate justice is the driving force to joining the Families for a Livable Climate team and to help ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.

CAITLYN LEWIS (she/her)

Events & Education Director

Caitlyn Lewis has always been drawn to action-oriented work and her love for the natural world has led her to environmental education and climate action. She found her way to Montana for graduate school in Communications Studies at UM and has been determined to be a part of the Missoula community ever since. Caitlyn founded Soil Cycle, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste and educating about the potential that composting has to heal our planet. She has used her knowledge of living ecosystems to create a thriving flower farm, Blue Mountain Flowers, with her husband Rick. When she isn't getting her hands dirty, she is hiking around Montana, biking across Idaho, or creating art with friends.

Sarah Lundquist (She/Her)

Communications Director

Sarah Lundquist is an outreach professional, mother, and zero waste enthusiast originally from the Seattle area. She worked in the field of solid waste for nearly 7 years in Oregon, Vermont, and Montana. Sarah has a bachelor's degree in American Sign Language Studies and Psychology from Western Oregon University, and a master's in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. Her graduate work focused primarily on zero waste policies and included several interesting internships with Home ReSource, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and the City of Missoula. Before joining FLC, she worked at Home ReSource and served on the board of Missoula Urban Demonstration Project (MUD). Sarah spends her days chasing around a toddler; mediocrely cooking, knitting, and practicing yoga; marveling at the natural world; and dreaming about an equitable, climate-stable future.

Winona Rachel (They/Them)

Field Organizer

Winona Rachel, FLC's second Winona on staff, found their way to Montana for the Environmental Studies graduate program at the University of Montana. They have spent much of their time in the west working on small-scale flower and vegetable farms and doing youth outdoors programming. Originally from rural Minnesota, they were introduced to climate organizing through pipeline resistance and treaty rights work in the northern part of the state. Winona has been involved in community organizing around other issues including immigration, community safety, food sovereignty, and housing in both Minneapolis and Missoula. They are also a writing and arts workshop facilitator with The Free Verse Project in mental health and juvenile detention facilities across Montana. Winona enjoys baking bread, trail running, cross country skiing, and gardening.

Sarah Capdeville (She/Her)

Magazine Volunteer Editor

Sarah Capdeville graduated from the University of Montana with a BS in Resource Conservation and a BA in Spanish. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Always in search of wild places, she's rambled high desert, glacial basins, and boreal forests two-hundred miles north of the arctic circle. For five seasons, she's proudly worn the title of wilderness ranger in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Welcome Creek Wilderness, and Rattlesnake Wilderness, her home of homes. She has been on the editorial team of the Chatham MFA program's literary journal The Fourth River, and is currently a nonfiction editor with The Hopper and a reader and fact-checker with Creative Nonfiction Magazine. Currently, she lives in Missoula, Montana with her partner and rescue greyhound, where she navigates chronic illness and daydreams about the crosscut saw.

Youpa Stein (She/Her)

Plastics Working Group Co-Chair

Youpa Stein was born in Montana. She is grateful to have lived on the Flathead Reservation next to Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Forest Land since 1980. As an artist and concerned citizen, Youpa works to raise awareness about the pollution and climate impacts of plastics and the solutions to address them through giving talks, writing, creating art, and policy actions. Her work is shaped by belief in the rights of nature, the importance of ending the health and environmental justice harm caused by plastics, and the necessity and the creative potential of collaboration. She volunteers for the Beyond Plastics Speakers Bureau and is a volunteer Co-Chair of the Families for a Livable Climate Plastics Working Group. Youpa is one of nine Montana citizen plaintiffs represented by Cottonwood Environmental Law Center who have filed a constitutional lawsuit challenging HB 407 (dubbed the “ban on bans”), a bill passed by the 2021 MT Legislature that banned citizens and local governments from passing ordinances or ballot initiatives that regulate single-use plastics. Youpa agrees with writer, farmer and activist, Wendell Berry, in his belief that the care of the earth is our most ancient and worthiest responsibility. She writes, “We have responsibilities in our kinship with the web of life that makes our lives and all lives possible. Our health depends on a healthy, regenerative, just, diverse, and vibrant earth.”

Liz Ametsbichler (She/Her)

Plastics Working Group Co-Chair

Liz Ametsbichler was born and raised in Montana. As a young adult, she left Montana to travel abroad and ended up living in Germany for many years. After returning to Montana, she attended the University of Montana and then the University of Maryland, where she earned her PhD in German Language and Literature. She taught at the University of Montana as Professor of German for 27 years. As a Montanan and world citizen, she has always cared about the environment and was instilled with a sense of stewardship and responsibility for the land. Last year (2023), she discovered the Plastic Working Group of Families for a Livable Climate and volunteered to be a Co-Chair of the Working Group. Education has always been an integral part of her life, as has her belief in social and environmental justice. She believes that raising awareness about plastics and the harm that they cause in the health of all living beings on this planet and the planet itself is of utmost urgency. This belief led her to become one of nine Montana citizen plaintiffs, represented by Cottonwood Environmental Law Center (Bozeman), who has filed a constitutional lawsuit challenging HB 401 -- the "ban on bans" bill passed by the Montana legislature in 2021.

Alysha Goheen (she/her)

Board President; Clean Energy Working Group Co-Chair

Alysha Goheen was lucky to grow up in the Bitterroot woods and always has the forest in her heart. She has enjoyed working the last two decades in nonprofits serving and advocating for women and children. Alysha is blessed to be the mother of two bright lights, Sylvie and Gigi. Their futures and the futures of all children and living beings on our planet is what motivates her to step into this new-to-her world of climate action. In her free time, Alysha most enjoys backpacking with her girls and her furry dog-friend, Tucker.

Isaac Kantor (he/him)

Board Member

Isaac Kantor was born and raised in Missoula, Montana. He lives in the mountains just outside of town with his wife, their three children, and a small menagerie of dogs, chickens, and sheep. In their spare time, the family enjoys Montana’s outdoors, including backpacking, floating rivers, skiing, and running. Isaac works as an attorney representing people, small businesses, and nonprofits. He has cared deeply about climate change and its effects since childhood.

Annie Watson (she/her)

Board Member

Annie is a mother of two girls and educated as an RN. Currently she works in the Missoula school district as a substitute. Annie cares deeply about the health of the planet, people, and the community. She is happiest outside, biking, hiking, running, skiing, picking berries, and playing on rivers, beaches, and shores. Annie has worked as an outdoor educator with the National Outdoor Leadership School, as a hospital nurse at Saint Patrick's Hospital, and she has served on the board of Women's Voices for the Earth.