Meet our team.

The Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance is driven by a passionate group of volunteers and one staff member. We protect and preserve the dunes through the generous support and dedicated time of individuals in our community.

Elaine Sterrett Isely

Executive Director

Elaine Sterrett Isely brings a powerful blend of environmental advocacy, not-for-profit leadership, and litigation expertise to the Coastal Alliance as the organization’s first full-time Executive Director.

  • Elaine took the helm at the Coastal Alliance in the Fall of 2025. She brings a diversity of knowledge and experience in environmental advocacy, water policy, social justice, litigation, and appellate practice to the position. She is passionate about making the world a better place for all people and creatures, and works to do so by protecting and preserving our natural and urban green spaces.

    A big proponent of collaboration and interdisciplinary work, Elaine builds and maintains partnerships and networks to bring different voices and skills to the work at hand. She has strong professional connections in West Michigan, as well as throughout the State and the Great Lakes basin.

    Elaine lives in Grand Rapids with her husband and son. Her family has hosted international students since 2022. They have a house full of adopted pets, including 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Bobbie Gaunt

Board Chair

Bobbie was the first woman to enter Ford Motor Company's Management Program in 1972.  Twenty-nine years later she retired as a corporate vice president and President & CEO of Ford of Canada, a 16,000-employee global affiliate. 

  • Her career included many firsts as a woman within Ford and the industry, where she became known as a leader unafraid to speak her mind, including challenging how the industry addressed 'inconvenient truths' and the needs of under-represented populations.

    Bobbie and her late husband Bob retired to Saugatuck in 2000. She soon joined the board of the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, leading efforts to raise funding and friends to save the Center in the early 2000s.

    Bobbie is a lifelong advocate and activist for social and environmental justice.

Holly Anderson

Secretary

Holly was elected to the City of Saugatuck’s City Council in 2023 and currently serves as Mayor. She previously served on the City’s Planning Commission and chaired the City’s Short-Term Rental Task Force in 2023.

  • Her policy priorities include neighborhoods, the environment, sustainable tourism, and strategic resource allocation.

    Before retiring from paid work in 2021, Holly spent 40+ years consulting with organizations and leaders on corporate communications and change initiatives. A native of Idaho, Holly loves the outdoors, including walks and hikes with her German Shepherd. She moved to Saugatuck in 2018.

Vicki Rosenberg

Treasurer

Vicki Rosenberg is president of Vicki Rosenberg & Associates, a national firm that helps leaders turn inspiring visions into measurable results through executive coaching, organizational development and change consulting.

  • She formed the firm after a 30-year career in management and executive leadership with the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Council of Michigan Foundations. Rosenberg has an MBA from UCLA and BA from the University of MN. She has served on numerous boards including the Saugatuck Public Schools Board of Education, Allegan County Community Foundation, and Resilience, Advocates for Ending Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Dr. Frank Alfieri III

A lifelong resident of Allegan County, Frank has spent his life honoring and enhancing the natural environment through his support of local organizations.

  • He was a founding member of the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance and a past board member of the Outdoor Discovery Center. He is past president and current board member of the Lake Michigan Shore Association and a member of the Great Lakes Coalition. He has a thriving Saugatuck Township chiropractic practice and has served as team chiropractor for Saugatuck and Fennville high schools.

Lynn McClure

Lynn McClure is a strategic professional with more than 25 years experience in protecting public lands.  Her successful advocacy campaigns began in the late 1990s through passing local ballot initiatives for  Illinois park districts and forest preserves that increased access to parks and recreation.

  • In the early  2000s, Lynn led an award-winning campaign to reinstate more than $36 million in Illinois budget cuts  for open space acquisition. Between 2007 and 2023, Lynn was Midwest Director at the National Parks Conservation Association,  leading the 11-state region’s advocacy to protect and enhance national parks. In her role, she led efforts to:  designate Pullman National Monument and the advocacy for renaming legislation; expand national park  wilderness at Sleeping Bear Dunes; uphold policy to protect park waters and landscapes; and increase  funding to the National Park Service for transportation, transit, and Great Lakes restoration.  

    Lynn has deep knowledge of public lands, historic preservation, and land use and she possesses strong  strategic planning skills that bring people together around innovative ideas. 

Christian Birky

Christian’s work is at the intersection of climate and investment in the apparel industry. He is the founder of Because Capital and the co-founder and Board Vice-Chair of the Industrial Sewing & Innovation Center.

  • Previously, he co-chaired the Ethical Fashion Lab within Nexus, the leading global network of significant young philanthropists and impact investors. Christian was a founding board member of the Coastal Alliance and rejoined the board in 2022. He holds a degree from Princeton.

Kathryn Birky

Kathryn co-founded Because Capital alongside her brother. Her work over the past decade around sustainability in apparel supply chains builds on a track record of conservation and NGO work in West Africa.

  • She currently chairs the board of Youth Action International, which focuses on economic development in postwar Sierra Leone and Liberia. Kathryn interned with the Coastal Alliance in college and joined the board in 2022. She holds a graduate degree in environmental studies from Brown.

Lynne Heasley

Lynne Heasley is a professor in the School of Environment, Geography, and Sustainability at Western Michigan University. Her earliest research was in West Africa. Today she is a committed writer and educator on the more-than-human worlds of the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest. 

  • Her most recent book, The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards grand prize winner for nonfiction, and a Nautilus Silver winner for lyric prose.

    Lynne feels privileged to be part of a passionate community of scholars, scientists, policy-makers, writers, artists, and activists devoted to our vast but vulnerable inland seas. Whenever possible, she travels with her husband Phillip, son Jake, and daughter-in-law Ema to the lands and cities that make up our natural and cultural heritage  Lynne also loves nesting at home with her affectionate cats, Edmund and Fitzgerald.

Nick Wallace

Nick grew up in Chicago, visiting his historic family cottage in Saugatuck on summer weekends. Canoeing, fishing, hiking, birdwatching, and foraging were commonplace in his family among the forests of the Kalamazoo river mouth neighborhood. He became very familiar with the species present within the Saugatuck Dunes.

  • This exposure to wild spaces motivated him to pursue a degree in Biological Sciences with a concentration in ecology, environment, and evolution. He is passionate about climate justice and habitat conservation, preservation, and reconstruction. At 24, Nick is the youngest Coastal Alliance board member.

EMERITA

David Swan

Founder

Together with concerned neighbors, David helped found the Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance in 2007 to play a more proactive role in locally determined zoning and wise land-use.

  • Previously, David co-founded with Alison Swan the Concerned Citizens for Saugatuck Dunes State Park; they received the Michigan Environmental Council’s Petoskey Prize for Grassroots Environmental Leadership.

    David was honored with the West Michigan Environmental Action Council CR Everson Award in 2017. In 2011, David received the distinguished Landslide Award from the Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Cynthia McKean

Originally trained as a biologist, Cynthia later returned to school to study architecture, driven by a desire to better understand how human needs and the natural environment can coexist. Throughout her career, she has worked to build respect, consensus, and partnership between conservationists, planners, and developers—often in spaces where those interests collide.

  • A resident of Saugatuck for more than 35 years, Cynthia has played a significant role in shaping the community. She served for 16 years as Chair of the Saugatuck Planning Commission and later spent six years on City Council. She was a member of the committee that created the original Tri-Community Plan and was instrumental in guiding development decisions that preserved the character of downtown Saugatuck.

    Cynthia officially joined the Alliance’s Board of Directors in 2017. Her ability to read blueprints, evaluate development proposals, and visualize long-term impacts brings critical insight to the Alliance’s work protecting dunes, wetlands, and cultural landscapes.

Dawn Schumann

Dawn was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, where she chaired a 300-member council to create the village’s long-range strategic plan. This led to the development of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic district and acquisition of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, of which Dawn was the founding president.

  • She has worked with national, state, and local government to create preservation law and environmental policies in three states. In 2020 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Michigan Historic Preservation Network.

The Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance has been recognized with the Michigan Historic Preservation Network Leadership Award (2014), the West Michigan Environmental Action Council Leadership Award (2012), the Fresh Water Futures Leadership Award (2010), and the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society Leadership Award (2009).


Right: The Prairie Warbler is an endangered species found at the contested marina site.