Meet Our Board

David Doyle (San Diego, CA) - President & Chair

David Doyle is a retired attorney with a passion for plants and nature conservation residing in San Diego. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Magna cum Laude, from the University of California -San Diego (UCSD), and subsequently took a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from the University of California – Los Angeles Law School.

After working in government as a Law Clerk and Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of California, Mr. Doyle entered private practice specializing in patent litigation.  He served as managing partner of the San Diego office of Baker & McKenzie and as Chair of the Patent Group at Morrison & Foerster, where he was named in multiple years by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top ten national patent trial lawyers.

Mr. Doyle has engaged in many community activities, including serving on the Boards of Trustees of the UCSD Alumni Foundation, UCSD CONNECT (a University/ Technology Industry interface organization), the Kyoto Symposium Organization (Board Chair 2015-2022), as well as volunteering with Big Brother San Diego (2008 – 2015). In 2017, he co-chaired the annual Gala of Voices for Children – San Diego with his wife, former Center for Plant Conservation Trustee Nancy Doyle.

Dr. Allison Alberts (San Diego, CA) - Vice Chair

Allison served as Chief Conservation and Research Officer at San Diego Zoo Global, where she established a team dedicated to plant conservation and a native plant seed bank. She is Board President of Eden Project USA, serves on the Advisory Board of the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, and is a Senior Advisor at Ecoleaders LLC. Allison is a member of the IUCN Conservation Planning and Conservation Translocation Specialist Groups and advises the Reverse the Red initiative. She serves on the board of the San Diego Natural History Museum and is a long time member of the California Native Plant Society. In 2015, she was honored with the Athena Pinnacle Award for excellence in recognition, promotion, and mentorship of women in science.

Brian Vogt (Denver, CO) - Treasurer

Brian Vogt has been CEO of Denver Botanic Gardens since April 2007. In that time, attendance has grown to over 1.3 million per year, programs have been launched to address access to food in urban areas, a comprehensive diversity and inclusion project has been integrated into daily activity, the Center for Global Initiatives was launched focusing on plant research and crop genetics, an exhibit program has curated works by legends such as Henry Moore, Dale Chihuly and Alexander Calder, and Denver Botanic Films premiered their first documentary.  Under his leadership, over $116 million has been raised to take a Master Development Plan from concept to completion. The capstone project of the Plan, the $40 million Freyer – Newman Center, was completed in the spring of 2020.  In 2022, a new Master Development Plan for DBG Chatfield Farms was launched with funding secured for the first phase.

Previous professional experience includes three Cabinet positions for the State of Colorado and President of the South Metro Chamber of Commerce. Vogt serves as Past President of the Board of the American Public Gardens Association and as Board Treasurer for Plant Select.  He was awarded the 2019 Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal for leadership in environmental protection and quality of life from the Garden Club of America. He is an active participant with many civic organizations in the Denver area and speaks frequently on intentional culture, regeneration, adaptation and leadership. He holds a BA in Classical Antiquity from the University of Colorado.

Dr. Lucinda McDade (Claremont, CA) - Secretary

Executive Director of California Botanic Garden since 2013, Lucinda holds a Ph.D. in botany from Duke University. She has been Director of Research at Rancho Santa Ana since 2006 and continues to hold this position in conjunction with her role in leading the Garden as a whole.  Before joining RSABG, Lucinda was Curator of Botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), on the faculty at the University of Arizona, and led the science and education programs for the Organization for Tropical Studies. As a research scientist, her focus is on the large plant family Acanthaceae which she has studied most extensively in the Americas, but also in Africa.

Dr. Barbara Millen (Westwood, MA) - Immediate Past Chair

Chairman of the Boston Nutrition Foundation and President of Millennium Prevention, Inc. Chairman of the 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines Expert Advisory Committee, and Advisor to the 2015-2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Former Professor of Family Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, Founding Chairman of the Graduate Programs in Medical Nutrition Sciences, and Director of Nutrition Research at the Framingham Heart Study. Trustee of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy (Boston), the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Westport (MA) Land Trust (managed by the Trustees of Reservation), former Chair and Member-at-Large of the Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America, and Life Trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston).  Recipient of the Natural Lands Trust (PA) Award in Conservation and the Elaine Monsen Award of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation for a global body of research literature.

Lee Clippard (Austin, TX) - Trustee

Lee Clippard is the executive director of The University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. He has been a member of the leadership team at the Wildflower Center since 2014, and prior to serving as executive director, he led the Center’s communications, marketing, plant information and guest experience efforts. Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from UT Austin and a master’s degree in entomology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the Wildflower Center, he was the Senior Director of Communications for the UT Austin College of Natural Sciences. He is a native plant and natural history enthusiast committed to plant conservation and supporting botanic garden efforts to transform lives and create beautiful, resilient environments.

Arabella Dane (Milwaukee, WI) - Trustee

Passionate about conservation, native plants and their pollinators and habitats, Arabella Dane is a Board member of the Native Plant Trust and the National Garden Clubs, where she is a Master Flower Show Judge, Master Landscape Critic, and Gardening Study Consultant. She is also a Master Gardener through University of New Hampshire Extension.

A past Chair of the Garden Club of America’s (GCA) Boston Committee, Arabella is a member of GCA clubs in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, and is a GCA Flower Show judge in Horticulture, Design and Photography.  Her lectures and articles on photography and on conservation topics are popular with garden clubs and other groups.  In 2020, Arabella was awarded the GCA’s 2020 Achievement Medal.

Dana Dirickson (San Francisco, CA) - Trustee

Accomplished in journalism and marketing, she published a newspaper for 10 years and wrote Lenny Bruce’s wife’s autobiography, “Honey.”  She was a Commissioner of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and Vice Chair of Quarryhill Botanic Garden.  She is currently Vice President of the Western United States for the International Dendrology Society.  Dana is devoted to urban gardens and is presently serving on the board of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Dr. Ruth Evans (Del Mar, CA) - Trustee

Since retiring from private medical practice in internal medicine and geriatrics, Ruth has been an active and founding member of the Rancho Santa Fe Literary Society and the Rancho Santa Fe Women’s Fund and has served as president of the Rancho Santa Fe Art Guild Board. She has served on the board of a CPC Participating Institution, the San Diego Botanic Garden, chairing a committee that envisioned and created a popular children’s garden, Seeds of Wonder. She designed and developed a small organic farm and served on the board of the Rancho Santa Fe Garden Club. She is also an award-winning artist and illustrator and has published two children’s books.

Mrs. Diana Fish (Carmel, CA) - Trustee

Diana has an MA in Asian Art History and is a member of The Garden Club of America where she has been active in the Horticulture Committee and the Conservation and NAL Committees. Recommended by Emeritus Trustee Shirley Meneice, she is deeply interested in plant conservation and gardening. Diana lives on a ranch where she is involved in restoration of her native coastal prairie.

Dr. M. Patrick Griffith (Coral Gables, FL) - Trustee

Dr. M. Patrick Griffith has led Montgomery Botanical Center since 2005 – developing the team, focusing resources, and setting priorities to meet the mission. Patrick has worked in leadership, living collections, herbaria, rare plant survey, floristics, lab research, and land management, and for botanic gardens, universities, government, and private interests. Patrick’s research has been in plant systematics and conservation. Compelling palms and cycads have called Patrick to six continents and countless islands, but he is still not quite finished looking for them.

Karyn Larkin Ries (St. Louis, MO) - Trustee

Karyn has been the PR Director for Jill Stuart, National Product Trainer for Southern Glazers, and founder of the Werkstätte Gallery in New York City where she curated exhibitions of new work by established and emerging contemporary artists. A native New Yorker, Karyn moved to St. Louis in 2015 and switched her focus to local ecological restoration efforts. She is a Missouri Master Naturalist, a Missouri Master Gardener, and a regular volunteer at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Litzinger Road Ecology Center and Forest Park’s Nature Reserve. Karyn is currently working toward the Native Plant Trust’s Botany and Conservation certificate.

Thomas Lloyd-Butler (California) - Trustee

Thomas Lloyd-Butler is an investor and 7th generation California rancher. He is a director at Grand-Jean Capital Management and a manager of Rancho Santa Clara del Norte, a 200-year-old family farming business.

Thomas’s experience with plant conservation is personal. A self-taught gardener with the support and imagination of his partner, Dan Zelen, he manages the ranch’s 1,250 working acres with an additional six acres of historic grounds and gardens, all supporting a broad and historic plant a tree collection of nearly 1,000 taxa, 57 of which are documented on the IUCN red list. Thomas is overseeing the ranch’s transition from traditional to regenerative farming in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley and other partners, planting habitat gardens of native plants that support the ranch’s 126 documented species of native pollinators.

Thomas graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, and began his career in the investment business at Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. in New York City soon after. He has been a principal with Grand-Jean Capital Management since 2011 where he analyzes investments in a variety of industries and manages client portfolios.

Suzanne Loomis - Trustee

Suzanne Loomis, educated at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and San Francisco State University, has had a varied career as a writer and researcher, an active volunteer for community-based garden projects and as a former gallerist and museum director. She served on the board of directors of the Sonoma Botanical Garden (then Quarryhill Botanical Garden where she wrote a comprehensive history of the project) and the John Fairey Garden near Houston, and served a previous terms as a Trustee of the Center for Plant Conservation. She has lived in distinctive places around the world, including Northern California, New Orleans, Louisiana, Cuernavaca, Mexico, Karen, Kenya, (East Africa) and Sussex, England. Experience in these different zones has fostered a strong appreciation for the varied riches of the natural world.  At home in Weston CT, she divides her time writing and working in her wild hillside garden.

Mr. Andrew (Andy) S. Love, Jr. (St. Louis, MO) - Trustee

Mr. Love was Chairman, Co-CEO and a principal owner of Love Savings Holding Company prior to the merger of it and its subsidiaries, Heartland Bank and Love Funding Corporation, with Midland States Bancorp.  He is currently Chairman and Co-CEO of Hallmark Investment Corporation and a manager of its subsidiary, Allegro Senior Living, LLC.   Mr. Love has over 40 years of experience in real estate and finance and was a partner at the St. Louis law firm of Bryan, Cave, McPheeters, and McRoberts. He has served as a board member of many charitable organizations, including the St. Louis Symphony Society, St. Louis Country Day School, St. Louis Repertory Theatre, the Missouri Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Webster University, the Edward K. Love Conservation Foundation and the Martha Love Symington Charitable Foundation / Love Family Charitable Trust.  Mr. Love received an A.B. degree from Harvard College and an LL.B. degree from the Harvard Law School.

Alison Luckman (Hailey, ID) - Trustee

Alison is a homemaker, living in Hailey Idaho. She was born, raised and lived in Los Angeles until her early forties. While in Los Angeles she was chairman of the Bel Air Garden Club and participated in a myriad of charitable organizations. Since being in Idaho she has served on the board of the Sun Valley Music Festival and maintains an interest in several local philanthropies. Her hobbies include hiking the local mountains and maintaining her home landscape and vegetable gardens.

Ms. Janine Luke (New York, NY) - Trustee

Graduate of Radcliffe College and has served on their board. Currently she is serving as the president of Silbanc Properties, a real estate investment company. Janine previously served as Director of the investment firms Shepherd Management Corporation and Windrove Service Corporation and currently serves on the boards of numerous organizations including Freer and Sackler Galleries (Smithsonian), Charleston Library Society, American Friends of Shanghai Museum, and the Master Drawings Association of the Morgan Library.

Janet Mayfield (Kalaheo, Kauai, Hawaii) - Trustee

Janet Mayfield is the President and Chief Executive Officer at National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). Janet leads five geographically distinct botanical gardens whose combined mission is to enrich life by perpetuating tropical plants, ecosystems, and cultural heritage. Rare plant conservation and research is at the forefront of our science and conservation programs.

Having lived on Kauaʻi for over 36 years, she has a deep appreciation for the community, the culture, and the environment. She was raised on a farm in Eastern Washington and recognizes the complexity of creating sustainable food sources and the challenges of maintaining environmentally responsible agriculture.

Janet holds a BS in Accounting from Arizona State University and began her career with NTBG as Controller in 1997. From 2003-2018 she served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Janet assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer and Director in 2019 and successfully led the organization through the pandemic and helped to ensure a thriving, sustainable future for the organization. She is currently guiding the NTBG leadership team through the creation and implementation of a new 2023 – 2027 five-year strategic plan.

In addition to her role with NTBG, Janet has extensive experience in the management and finances of other non-profit organizations and continues to serve on community boards and advisory committees.

Clark Mitchell (New York, NY) - Trustee

Clark Mitchell is a director of the BAND Foundation, the primary focus of which is biodiversity conservation. Grassland ecosystems have become one of Clark’s key focuses in his work with the foundation. In 2016, he helped to create the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative, a nonprofit that is addressing the loss of native grassland plant communities across the southeastern United States. He currently serves on the group’s steering committee. On Long Island, he has helped secure a multiyear grant from the BAND Foundation to expand the conservation footprint of the Friends of Hempstead Plains, a group that manages rare tracts of remnant tallgrass prairie. He has also secured grants for the Nature Conservancy of Mongolia and the Plant Extinction Prevention Program. Clark lives in New York City, where he serves on the board of the Natural Areas Conservancy, a nonprofit that manages NYC’s wild spaces for biodiversity health and human recreation.

Damon E. Waitt, Ph.D. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) - Trustee

Dr. Damon Waitt is Director of the North Carolina Botanical Garden and Professor of the Practice in Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As Director, Damon has broad responsibility for overall leadership and management of the North Carolina Botanical Garden and for ensuring that the Garden fulfills its mission to inspire understanding, appreciation, and conservation of plants and to advance a sustainable relationship between people and nature. Damon came to the North Carolina Botanical Garden from the Lady Bird Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas where he served as Senior Director and Botanist from 2001-2015. Damon has served on the Invasive Species Advisory Committee of the National Invasive Species Council, as President of the Texas Academy of Science and the Texas Invasive Plant and Pest Council, and as board chair of North Carolina’s Plant Conservation Program. Damon holds a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Texas in Austin, an M.S in Botany from Louisiana State University Baton Rouge and a B.S. in Biology from Tulane University.

Nancy Ylvisaker (St. Louis, MO) - Trustee

Nancy worked in finance in NYC for 17 years, first at JP Morgan as an investment banker and then President of its Community Development Corporation (CDC), and then at Merrill Lynch as the head of its CDC. Moving home to St. Louis in 2001, she served as President of historic Bellefontaine Cemetery & Arboretum, a Level II arboretum and public educator on the NRHP. She also headed Bellefontaine’s community development affiliate. Nancy is the board chair for The Nature Conservancy in Missouri, and on other boards including the Danforth Plant Science Center Leadership Council, the Harris World Ecology Center, Missouri Botanical Garden Conservation Mission Council and the Garden Club of America Finance Committee. She has a BA in Philosophy from Brown and an MBA from Yale.