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Starting at 15 years old, Brandon worked at Diamond P Ranch in West Yellowstone, Montana, as a horseback mountain guide and wrangler. It was there that his passion for building beautiful places would take root. On horseback, Brandon would head out into Grizzly country alone, doing his best to make stream and trail repairs that even the wildlife would applaud as natural.
Over the past 30 years, Brandon has lived in several different countries and worked as a whitewater rafting guide, fly fishing guide, and National Geographic documentary filmmaker in addition to working on environmental conservation and restoration projects all over the world. Throughout Brandon's career, he has specialized in highly complex conservation projects for various U.S and foreign governments as an advisor, contractor and project planner working in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and North America.
In 2017, Brandon started Pangaea World Foundation, an international NGO working to accelerate the rescue of people, animals and nature from harmful exploitation and suffering. His most recent conservation project is the Reef Rescue School in Puerto Morelos, Mexico along the Mesoamerican reef where he teaches local youth to become scuba divers and reef restoration technicians.
Brandon's passion is creating places where people can connect with nature so they will value and protect it for future generations.
Todd Burke, Founder & CEO of multiple design and construction firms over the past 30 years, is expert in a variety of fields, including environmental & building construction and restoration, civil & critical infrastructure and wireless telecommunications engineering and development. The grandson of an Industrialist from Boston, as a young man, Todd worked in steel and ductile iron foundries throughout New England. He learned the skills of design molding with wood and metals fabrication and became inspired to work on the historical preservation of many buildings across New England.
From the beginning, Todd designed and constructed many barn-to-home conversions and, in collaboration with the Historical Building Society of Boston, he performed restorations on structures that were originally built in the 18th and 19th centuries. Todd’s restorative projects include barns, churches, brownstone structure/houses and important buildings such as The Paul Revere House, Massachusetts State House, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Trinity Church, and The Newport Naval War College. By the mid-(90s), being seriously enamored with the Old West, Native American culture, all-things art, horses, and fly fishing, Todd moved with his family to Colorado with his eye set on the preservation of land, streams, and Western-Southwestern natural habitats and structures.
Todd’s new construction and building restoration designs are inspired by renowned Santa Fe Architect, John Gaw Meem, and original Native American and Old-World Spanish-style designs. In tandem with his “reduce the impact” philosophy, Todd’s environmental preservation concepts are profoundly affected by the natural world. Projects exemplifying Todd’s reverence for Nature include the historical Caribou Ranch in Boulder, CO, multiple Colorado parks & wildlife stream habitats and many natural-disaster recovery efforts, such as the 2013 historic 1,000-year flood in Boulder, CO. It was here, that Todd Burke and the Oxbow team designed and restored approximately 20 miles of stream corridors and rebuilt over 20 critical bridge structures. During his career, Todd Burke has managed over 250M in public & private sector projects. He now resides in New Mexico, USA, where he is developing his own off-the-grid ranch property.
Over the past 20 years, Jeff has long been an advocate for the conservation of rivers and streams. He began his career studying the ill effects of bulldozing and other well-intentioned but misguided attempts to direct and control the natural course of rivers. In 1996 he launched the North Fork River Improvement Association (NFRIA) with a project on the North Fork of the Gunnison River in west-central Colorado, a project which would become a template for the many other community projects that followed. Since then Jeff has become a committed activist for restoring rivers to their natural function and integrity while meeting the social and economic needs of stakeholders.
As a pioneer in river and floodplain restoration and watershed planning, Jeff has accomplished dozens of restoration projects and aided many communities in organizing and planning for managing and improving their river corridors. Shortly after the devastating flood of September 2013 on the Colorado Front Range, Jeff was hired by the Colorado Water Conservation Board to assist communities in identifying local needs, developing emergency bank stabilization projects, organizing watershed master planning projects, advocating for local natural stream restoration and leading the State’s Technical Assistance Team. The team was tasked with developing eleven (11) new watershed coalitions in the flood-affected watersheds to build consensus and cooperation among diverse stakeholder groups including landowners, local government, environmental and recreational organizations, agriculture and others.
In addition, the team developed criteria for master plans for each of the watersheds and designed and implemented emergency stream stabilization projects. Since the establishment of the new coalitions the team regularly assists State officials and watershed coalitions with project reviews, budget analysis and technical criteria for the implementation of $70 million worth of stream and floodplain restoration projects developed and prioritized by the stakeholder coalitions. The team provides project development assistance to the coalitions to ensure compliance with multiple federal granting requirements and advice on cost-effective restoration treatments.