Board of Directors

Will Sears has served on the Lomakatsi Board of Directors since 2003 and is a former Board President.

He has a degree in Political Science from the University of Washington and has completed 3 years of postgraduate study in Anthropology at Portland State University. Will has also studied at the American University of Beirut and The University of the Philippines.

Will is currently a semi-retired contractor, woodworker and artist and also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Birch Creek Arts and Ecology Center and the Health Research Institute, among others.

As his father’s career involved designing and supervising landscape restoration projects, first for the U.S. Forest Service and later, the United Nations, Will was literally born into the ethos of restoration. For the last 35 years, Will has carefully studied and encouraged natural process as he has steadily worked toward the healing and management of his own 40 acre home property in the forested mountains of Southern Oregon.

Belinda has been with Lomakatsi Restoration Project for 6 years as a consultant and currently serves as the Tribal Partnerships Director and Secretary of the Lomakatsi Board of Directors.

She is honored to bring the voice of tribal communities to the leadership of Lomakatsi and work to maintain their integrity as the first, best stewards of the land, incorporating Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge into our policies, procedures and protocols and assisting the development of the tribal youth curriculum, positive youth development and live classroom environments where experiential learning takes place.

Belinda served a term on the California Rural Indian Health Board as a tribal delegate for the Pit River Tribe, and was an ex-officio board member for Modoc Indian Health Project/Strong Family Health Center for six years as the Executive Director of an Indian Health Service, tribal nonprofit. She has held elected office for the Pit River Tribal government, including council and cultural representative. She has served on advisory and steering committees for many health and human services organizations, including the Commission on Children and Families, Prop 36 Steering Committee, First 5, Harney County Partners for Children and Families, Inter-Tribal Council of California Board Advisory Committee appointee.

Belinda excels at building partnerships between NGOs, government agencies, and Tribal governments.

Braulio Cortez Maya has worked for Lomakatsi since 2004, and serves as the Lead Restoration Crew Manager, overseeing all on-the-ground workforce personnel operations.  He brings a strong background in reforestation, forestry and wildland fire management, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, as well as across multiple western states, working for private forestry contractors on federal, state and industry timber lands.

His current responsibilities include directing forest restoration crew members in ecological thinning, slash treatments, prescribed burning, tree planting and other re-vegetation projects. The majority of my work is performed in the field, working directly with and managing the daily activities of a 10-person Latino workforce.

He serves as Lomakatsi’s cross cultural workforce liaison engaging Latino, Native American and Euro-American workers, utilizing not only his years of forestry and restoration implementation experience, but also my Spanish/English bi-lingual skills to direct operations. He additionally serves as one of Lomakatsi’s key workforce training staff, mentoring workers in ecological forestry techniques and restoration application skills, from entry level, to advanced.