The East Gulf Coastal Plain Joint Venture Management Board is pleased to welcome Catherine Rideout as the new coordinator for our partnership.

Catherine will be stationed at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University, where she will assume myriad roles and responsibilities that advance the capacity of the East Gulf Coastal Plain Joint Venture to plan and deliver our ambitious birdconservation goals. Catherine will be following in the footsteps of Allison Vogt, who left the partnership this past summer to pursue her professional aspirations working for a non-profit in Maine.   

Some of Catherine's immediate priorities willinclude continuing to position the Joint Venture for long-term Congressional funding; addressing comments and finalizing the East Gulf Coastal Plain Joint Venture Implementation Plan; further developing, refining and implementing conservation planning tools for open-pine and grassland systems; coordinating our efforts with neighboring Joint Ventures and other partnerships; and assessing challenges and opportunities tied to climate change initiatives.  

Catherine comes to us most recently from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission where she served as the Partners in Flight biologist for six years.  During this time, she worked extensively with Joint Ventures, including the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Central Hardwoods Joint Ventures, and served as a Co-chair of Southeast Partners inFlight.  Her position with the state of Arkansas included coordination of monitoring programs, development of conservation partnerships, and implementation of habitat projects to benefit high priority bird species. Catherine has helped coordinate and integrate landbird and northern bobwhite conservation monitoring and habitat projects, and has a strong interest in capitalizing on the unrealized synergies among "game" and"nongame" conservation interests.  She played a principal role in representing Arkansas Game and Fish Commission on Ivory-billed Woodpecker search and recovery efforts, where she gained highly relevant experience insuccessfully managing sensitive and potentially controversial issues with the public and the larger conservation community. 

Catherine earned a B.S. degree in Biology at Davidson College in North Carolina (1994).  After working on several avian research projects in the U.S. and abroad, she attained her M.S. degree in Biology from Boise State University (2001) studying the impacts of habitat fragmentation on sagebrush-obligate bird species.  Catherine brings awealth of enthusiasm, energy and highy relevant experience to the Coordinator position, and is eager to put it to use in furthering the East Gulf Coastal Plain Joint Venture's bird conservation mission.  We anticipate Catherine to be settled in and taking over the reigns by Feb 1st.