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Headwaters looks closely at candidates for coordinator By PAUL FATTIG ASHLAND - Headwaters board members aren't taking lightly their interviews with applicants for the new position of conservation coordinator. They are scrutinizing each applicant very, very carefully, says board chair Roger Butterfield. "In this interview process, we're digging well past the first layer of what might be on an application," he said. "We are double-checking. We are verifying references. "And we're getting independent perspectives on each applicant," he added. The increased scrutiny comes in the aftermath of the arrest of former executive director Richard "Rick" Lee Gwynallen, 44, who was charged late last year with embezzling $159,345 in grant money from the group from December 1998 until June of last year. Gwynallen's charges left the group reeling, both emotionally and financially. But board members say Headwaters has come back leaner, wiser and restructured. It has paid off its debts, which were roughly the amount allegedly embezzled. Board members assumed about $50,000 of the debts, the group has paid off about $60,000 and the remainder has been forgiven, board members said. "We are now in the black," Butterfield said. Tonya Graham, a longtime volunteer and staff member of Headwaters, was named executive director early this month. She previously served as development director. The goal of the group formed in 1974 remains unchanged: to be an environmental watchdog over public forestlands in the region. "Our primary task will be facilitating public involvement in timber sale monitoring, developing policies for management of small-diameter timber and advocating for the protection of roadless areas in Southern Oregon," Graham said in a prepared statement. Although the past year has been difficult for the group, it has been strengthened by the experience, Butterfield said. "It's almost as though it's the beginning of a new organization - there is a tremendous amount of positive energy," he said. "As a board, we made the commitment to stick it out, to make positive changes." Those changes include safeguards to ensure that no single person is responsible for finances, he said. "We will have different people picking up checks, making deposits," he said. "Everything will be done on parallel tracks that are easily double-checked. "We will not only depend on transparency and duplication, but demand verification," he added. He quoted a former president he acknowledged wasn't perceived as a friend to the environmental community. "Reagan often said, 'Trust but verify,' " Butterfield said. "Every nonprofit should have that hanging on a plaque over the door." That verification will include more than one person reading outgoing and incoming mail as well as communicating with funding sources, he reiterated. "As a nonprofit, so much of the work is volunteer," he said. "The staff is underpaid. So it's easy to get in the bad habit of allowing one individual to pick up the mail and deposit the checks." But that is what allowed Gwynallen to allegedly take $159,345 in grants intended for Headwaters, he noted. That, and not properly screening applicants, he added. "Nonprofits are so trusting by nature," he said. "Someone walks in with what appears to be good credentials that are vaguely verifiable and a good personality, chances are they would hire that person on the spot." But not anymore, he said. Originally based in Grants Pass, Headwaters built a hard-nosed reputation of launching administrative appeals or lawsuits when it felt actions of federal agencies were threatening the environment. Headwaters is at 84 Fourth St., Ashland. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.