Board and Leadership
Scooter Cheatham
President and Founder
Scooter Cheatham founded the Useful Wild Plants Project in 1971. He is a professional photographer, writer, and architect and is the lead author of the encyclopedic Useful Wild Plants…
He has been called a Renaissance Man, a Jack-of-All-Trades, and a Polypyroferromaniac (a term coined by bowmaker Ron Hardcastle for someone with a whole lot of irons in the fire). The name “Scooter” is apt for someone who rarely slows down — it was give to him the day he was born.
Actually, just about everything Scooter does is relevant to the same big picture — helping people understand how the pieces of the world fit together, most particularly the many roles that plants play in our lives, where we fit into that, and how our choices and actions affect the world.
He sees the world in big pictures and overviews, as systems and as things to be blown apart so the pieces can put back together in new and better ways using research, experimentation, architecture, resource consulting, teaching, botany, art, film-making, storytelling, experimental archeology, psychology, community organizing, and more to do this — the more tools in the toolbox the better.
For the “why” of it all, go here for a short filmed interview.
Dr. Stanley J. Roux
Vice President
Stan Roux is a Distinguished Teaching Professor at UT Austin and has been honored with the Regents Outstanding Teaching Award along with many other prestigious scientific and teaching awards throughout his career.
He joined the Useful Wild Plants Project in 1991 (here’s why) and has played an active role in exposing UT students to the work we do as well as working in his role as Vice President of the Board of Trustees.
Tomatoes were Stan’s gateway plant into botany. As a student at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, he planted some Big Boy tomato plants that grew to be nine feet tall and yielded 10 pounds of tomatoes each. He also foraged his way around the campus, harvesting tasty wild muscadine grapes and passionflower fruits.
His success at tomato growing caused him to change his major from Classics to botany. This led to a Master’s degree at Loyola University in New Orleans, a PhD at Yale, and a faculty position at UT Austin, where he found his way to the Useful Wild Plants Project via a neighborhood meeting that he and UWP founder Scooter Cheatham both attended.
Sheryl Cheatham
Treasurer
Sheryl has served as an Accounting Manager/Controller in the private sector, helping small start-ups improve their financial processes and develop solutions to further their future, running her own tax and bookkeeping business in her “spare” time.
She has worked with countless neighborhood and community organizations, usually as treasurer (an office generally avoided by the many, whose eyes glaze over when confronted with terms like debits, credits, assets, and liabilities). She is also a stalwart volunteer with Launch Pad Job Club, where she serves refreshments, pours coffee, and offers a sympathetic ear to uncertain job seekers.
At EarthFit/UWP, in addition to serving as treasurer, she oversees ordering and fulfillment, organizes Grassbur volunteer projects, and oversees our information booths at various events.
Lynn Marshal
Secretary of the board
Lynn Marshall joined the Useful Wild Plants Project in 1977. In addition to serving as the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, she is the Research Coordinator and writer, overseeing the procurement and processing of research materials. She directs the preparation and organization of writing materials, supervises preparation of the distribution maps, the interviewing of informants, and the extraction of data for the database. She also casts really good shadows on photographic expeditions, wraps books for shipping, and fixes the office plumbing.
John Flowers
Board Member
John Flowers discovered UWP in 1991 when he signed up for one of Scooter Cheatham’s Weedfeed courses and has been a board member ever since. He has a Masters in English from UT Austin and a Masters of Education in Vocal Rehabilitation Counseling. He has worked in Austin, Argentina, and London teaching English literature and vocal rehabilitation, and he has worked as a trainer at the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. He’s a regular behind the table at our events booths and is usually one of the people hauling the display materials to and from the events.
Click here for a message from John Flowers.
Pat McNeal
Board Member
Pat McNeal is a horticulturist and plant explorer extraordinaire. He is the founder and owner of McNeal Wholesale Growers, growing native plants for the landscape trade and commercial installations.
Pat has designed landscaping for state agencies and organizations and served as the principle endangered plants species researcher for the biological advisory team for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Balcones Canyons lands habitat conservation plan.
Pat can grow just about anything. And he believes that the Useful Wild Plants Project is very important. Read more about that here.
Martin Payne
Board Member
Martin Payne has a BS (with honors!) in Mechanical Engineering from UT Austin and has served in a variety of engineering and management positions in the upstream oil and gas industry including drilling, completion, production, gas gathering, transmission, and treating. He is a co-founder of Drilling Info, Inc. and currently serves as General Manager of Anvil Energy LLC.
Martin raises grass-fed beef, builds tiny homes, experiments with alternate energy technologies, and makes knives and other interesting items. He has been active in Boy Scouts both as a Scout and as a leader. And he makes a great elderberry wine.
For more from Martin, click here.
Stephen Speir
Board Member
Steve Speir has extensive state and local government experience at an executive level, having served sixteen years on the staff of Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro. During that time he served as Director of Public Information for the Texas Veterans Land Board, which administered the Texas Veterans Land and Housing Assistance Program. He was also involved in the first wind farm project on state lands, the Texas Adopt-A- Beach Program, the Texas Coastal Management Program, the first ever State Emergency Oil Spill Response Program, and the creation of the award-winning Texas Alternative Fuels Program. He later served as legislative director for State Rep. Dora Olivo and the Chief of Staff for State Rep. Richard Pena Raymond.
Steve is an avid fisherman, played semi-pro baseball in Mexico, once lived across the street from Jefferson Airplane in San Francisco, and expedited the departure of Country Joe McDonald (of Fish fame) from Killeen’s Oleo Strut on very short notice (it was the ‘60s…).