Due to the Coronavirus pandemic and cancellation of our April and May 2020 chapter meetings, SWTU is conducting the 2020 Board of Directors election online. Please complete this web ballot by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 20, 2020. One vote per SWTU member.

The Nominating Committee of the SWTU Board presents the following slate of candidates for the 2020-2021 program year:

President: Jim Hess
Vice President: Topf Wells
Treasurer: Tom Parker
Secretary: Henry Nehls-Lowe
Directors: Dave Fowler, Pat Hasburgh, Ben Lubchansky, Zach Olufs, Curt Riedl, Tom Thrall
State Council Delegate: Michael Williamson
Past President: Amy Klusmeier

Meet the nominated new board members and officers

Jim Hess
Jim has been a member of SWTU for 19 years, joining the chapter after moving to Madison to become the Executive Director of Monona Terrace Convention Center. After retiring in 2010, he focused his efforts on conservation issues, including volunteering at our workdays. He is currently the Chair of the Conservation Committee, planning and leading our workday activities, which he plans to continue doing with help from his committee members. He also has served as a SWTU Board Director from 2013 to 2019.

Zach Olufs
Zach has been living in and fishing the Madison area since 2009. He joined SWTU in 2017 attracted by the stream restoration workdays. Since joining, he has attended most chapter meetings and stream workdays, participated in the fly tying classes and volunteered at the SWTU booth at the Wisconsin Fishing Expo. He has also taken the responsibility of monitoring an easement on East Branch Blue Mounds Creek as part of the Streamkeepers Program. Zach currently works in research for UW’s Department of Anesthesiology and in his free time actively maintains an all-things-fishing social media presence on YouTube and Instagram under the ‘brand’ of Olufs Waterview.

Henry Nehls-Lowe
Henry previously served on the SWTU board for 2000-02, and during his term led a chapter-sponsored stream improvement project of 1 mile of the West Branch of the Sugar River. For the past 14 years he has co-instructed the SWTU intermediate and advanced fly tying courses, and currently coordinates fly tier demonstrations at the SWTU Icebreaker. In 2017 Henry retired from 28 years in environmental public health with the State Department of Health Services.

Michael Williamson
Michael first joined SWTU in 1980 and has been a member of TU ever since, either here in Wisconsin or his home state of North Carolina where he first started trout fishing in the Smokies. He has served on the SWTU Finance Committee for the past five years and has been active in Chapter events and workdays since moving back to the state in 2012.  He has been a lifelong fisherman and outdoorsman and has focused on conservation issues in both states including his service as Deputy Secretary of the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources and as a board member for the Wisconsin Natural Resources Foundation. He retired in 2017 as Executive Director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.