Missouri Prairie Foundation Technical Advisors

MPF Technical Advisors provide specialized expertise to the MPF Board of Directors and staff related to our work to protect prairie and promote native plants. Technical advisors, appointed by the MPF President for a designated period of time, are professionals in the areas of conservation, education, finance, law, real estate, and other disciplines.

Jeff Cantrell

NEOSHO, MO

Jeff was destined to have a livelihood centered on natural history. He grew up with family pen pals’ letters from the African bush, was surrounded by birders, and lived adjacent to a zoo.

Having childhood ownership in the family garden kicked off valuable botany skills. That experience led him into landscaping with natives and botany jobs for Missouri National Guard camps, The Nature Conservancy, and The Wildlife Conservation Society. Naturescaping has been a focus of the educational programming he has offered to garden clubs, educators, public groups, city parks departments and teacher conferences for over 25 years.

Currently Jeff is employed by the Missouri Department of Conservation as a Missouri Stream Team Biologist with an emphasis on working with volunteers for Missouri Master Naturalist, Missouri Stream Team, and other citizen science programs.  He is a frequent contributor to the Joplin GLOBE newspaper and a staff writer for SHOW ME the OZARKS magazine.  Native plants and the proficiency in naturescaping continue to be entwined in his work with educators, rehabbing urban streams, nature centers and bird conservation related projects.

Steve Clubine

WINDSOR, MO

Steve was born on a small crop and stock farm in southeast Kansas. He earned a bachelor degree in wildlife and range management at Kansas State University.  After a short stint with the U.S.F.W.S. in South Dakota and Kansas Fish and Game Commission, he came to the Missouri Department of Conservation in 1977 to work with Tom Toney and Don Christisen on prairies. With Tom, he reintroduced fire and trained over 650 MDC staff and related agency personnel in prescribed fire management.  As grassland biologist, he had a statewide assignment that took him to every county working with landowners and public land staff on prairie and grassland restoration. He is particularly interested in ensuring prairie and other grasslands remain functional for indigenous flora and fauna, controlling woody encroachment and invasive species, and maintaining working grasslands on private lands. He was instrumental in Missouri’s prairie-chicken reintroduction program and recently coordinated translocating Kansas birds to Illinois’ Prairie Ridge Grasslands. Since retiring from the Department in 2010, he has restored native grasses on 40 acres of 120 acres his family bought in Benton County on which he grazes steers for grassfed beef, does contract prescribed burning, quail habitat management consulting, trade shows for Truax Manufacturing (grass drills); remains active in the patch-burn grazing working group, the Prairie Grouse Technical Council, The Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Society, and Society for Range Management; and is a Windsor city alderman.  

Michael Leahy

JEFFERSON CITY, MO

Mike has worked for over 25 years with state agencies in Indiana, Virginia, and Missouri on the conservation of natural resources. Most of this work has been with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), serving in the roles of regional natural history biologist, Heritage community ecologist and natural areas coordinator. Over the past 10+ years he has worked with MDC field staff to inventory and designate more than 13 new Missouri Natural Areas and seven additions, totaling more than 8,000 acres.  He has published technical and popular articles on natural history topics, including the 2011 publication of the field guide, Discover Missouri Natural Areas – A Guide to 50 Great Places. Leahy has a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a MS in Forest Ecology from Michigan State University. Leahy’s love of natural areas began as a kid with family trips to the Morton Arboretum in the Chicago area. He enjoys exploring the outdoors with his wife and son.

Dr. Quinton Long

ST. LOUIS, MO

Quinn Long is the Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve, a 2,400+ acre matrix of diverse natural communities and curated native gardens open to the public. He received a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Kansas, researching limitations to plant diversity in prairie restorations. His research interests include fire ecology, invasive species, and restoration of grassland, savanna, and woodland communities. Quinn has 15 years of first-hand experience managing prairie plantings and restoring woodlands on his family property in northwestern Franklin County.

Rudi Roeslein

ST. LOUIS, MO

Rudi Roeslein says he majored in soccer while attending Saint Louis University and minored in engineering. “But somehow I managed to scrape out a career,” he said. And quite an impressive one at that. Roeslein launched Roeslein Associates, which designs and builds manufacturing systems, in 1990. The company, including its Integrated Manufacturing Technologies subsidiary based in Red Bud, Ill., now has more than 200 employees and expects to reach $120 million in revenue this year. Roeslein grew up in south St. Louis, after immigrating here from Austria with his parents in 1956. “I really have lived the American dream in being able to start on my own and build a business and see that business flourish to where it is today,” Roeslein said. In recent years, Roeslein, also has been pursuing a different kind of dream — focused on prairie and wildlife restoration.  In 2012, he founded Roeslein Alternative Energy, a renewable energy company with three areas of focus: energy production, ecological services, and wildlife benefits.

Dr. James Trager

PACIFIC, MO

James C. Trager is an entomologist who recently retired from the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve near St. Louis, were he worked as a naturalist, educator and natural habitats steward. He claims to be inordinately fond of ants, but it doesn’t seem to interfere with his love and caring for the extensive acreage of diverse, planted prairies, constructed wetlands, and remnant dolomite glades, woodland and forest on the 4-sq.-mile Reserve. He regularly participates in the MPF BioBlitzes, engaging participants with his extensive knowledge of insects and their interactions with prairie plants, soils, and other animals. He also is an occasional contributor to the Missouri Prairie Journal.