Sarah Sherwood is the Environmental Coordinator at CRNA. She works with the regional compacted tribes on all environmental topics and concerns: water quality sampling, improving indoor air quality, solid waste, recycling, climate change activities, emergency preparedness, brownfield sites, and more.

Sarah has been in the conservation field and has done environmental work since 2013. Over the past three years, she developed a Copper River Climate Change Adaptation Plan. Working with many organizations, state and federal agencies, businesses, and tribes, we documented climate change observations and issues, identified regional risks, and developed climate action plans to address those issues.

When Sarah is not working, she loves to go backcountry skiing, fishing, and hunting.

Colleen Merrick is a biologist living and leading climate adaptation efforts in South Central Alaska. She coordinates the efforts of the Copper River Native Association villages, Tribal members, and partner agencies to promote and implement the Regional Climate Change Adaptation Plan. Originally trained in human health, Colleen shifted her focus to fisheries in 2018 to work in the management of stocks across the North Pacific. She was trained by NOAA, and was fortunate enough to visit many remote locations across the state. While this work was challenging and fulfilling, the human health and cultural aspect of her training was missing.

She now resides in Copper Center, and can employ her diverse skill set to organize and manage adaptation strategies for those living on the front lines of climate change. Experience managing remote health centers and various businesses lends to her ability to bring people and supplies together in a timely and efficient manner, and background in healthcare and fisheries motivates her to find the best way to balance goals of habitat conservation and thriving peoples.