Meet Our Officers
Dave Powell
President
Dave is a lifelong nature lover with fond childhood memories of trying to spy backyard birds with toy binoculars in hand and cataloging East African birds for a seventh grade science project while living in Tanzania. A former middle school science teacher, his career focuses on advocating for educational equity. He brings the experience in nonprofit management and government affairs he has gained through this work to his service on the board. Dave enjoys growing his birding skills through Wake Audubon along with its embracing community, environmental advocacy, and educational efforts.
Erik Thomas
Vice President
Erik Thomas has been a member of the Wake Audubon Society board since 2007. He has been involved in numerous Wake Audubon efforts over the years and leads our monitoring activities in the Lumber River Important Bird Area. He was president of the Wake Audubon Society in 2020 and 2021. He works as a linguistics professor at North Carolina State University.
Louise Belk
Secretary
Louise is retired from a career in the corporate world. Now her passions are volunteering with the Society of St Andrew, photographing nature, gardening, and nurturing a young longleaf pine farm. She enjoys backyard birding and learning to identity birds by their songs.
Meet The Board
Megan Damico
Megan (she/her/hers) was a co-founder of the UNCG Audubon Campus Chapter in Greensboro and discovered her passion for science policy and protecting birds during the Audubon NC Virtual Advocacy Day in 2020. From that day on, she served as a local advocacy leader in Greensboro where she trained and recruited new participants to be advocates for birds. In 2022, Megan was awarded the Outstanding Advocacy Award by Audubon NC for her outstanding commitment to advocacy for birds and inclusive leadership of advocates in partnership with the state office. Megan received her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences in 2023 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she studied the honey bee gut microbiome and agriculture regulatory policy. She currently serves as the North Carolina STEM Policy Fellow at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech) where she works on innovation and workforce development policy. Megan currently serves as the communication committee chair and is looking forward to finding new birding spots in the Triangle. In her spare time, you can find her knitting, listening to podcasts, or on a bird walk!
John Gerwin
John serves as Research Scientist and Curator of Birds at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, where he has worked for 25 years. He does research on several bird species in North Carolina, South Carolina and Nicaragua. He enjoys giving public programs to widely diverse audiences, from 2nd graders to senior citizens. He loves to garden for and photograph butterflies. He speaks fluent Spanish.
Rick LaRose
As a long-time certified habitat steward with the National Wildlife Federation, Rick has a passion for Audubon’s Plants for Birds program and cultivating native habitat that sustains our local biodiversity. Rick’s career spans research, facilitation, branding and marketing, the combination of which he applies in his role on the board. He champions environmental education among grade school students through National Audubon’s Audubon Adventures. As past president of our chapter, Rick currently serves on our Communications and Governance committees and as co-chair of Wake Audubon’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee.
Anne Wilkinson
Anne grew up in Maryland, but came to North Carolina for law school and has pretty much lived in the Triangle ever since. She is a novice birder, even though she always has been fascinated by nature. She is the Chair of the Advocacy Committee and a member of the WAS Board.
Board meetings
Board meetings are open to all. The board meets the first Tuesday of every month at 6:30 pm at the Prairie Ridge Research Laboratory at 1671 Gold Star Dr, Raleigh. Check with one of the officers before coming to confirm the day and location as they occasionally have to be changed.
Other VIPs
Erla Beegle
Meetup Group Organizer
Jess Beu
Newsletter Editor
Megan Damico
Website
Jeff Olander
Website
Cyd Wang
Social Media and Zoom Coordinator