Board of Directors

Mr. Alsace is a career Senior Foreign Service Officer (ret.) with thirty-two years of service.  His last posting was as U.S. Consul General to Toronto, Canada (2015-2018).   He oversaw a staff of 100 colleagues, focused on U.S.-Canada bilateral relations in Canada’s most populous province.  Key issues included trade and commercial relations, infrastructure development and protection of Great Lakes water resources.  His work on cross-border water issues was recognized by Water Canada and the Council for the Great Lakes Region.  Prior to assuming that position, Mr. Alsace served as Assistant Professor at the National War College in Washington, DC.  (2014-2015), teaching Strategic Leadership.  Additional recent DC postings included as Director of the Office for Caribbean Affairs (2012-2014) and Chief of the War Crimes, Democracy and Human Rights Division, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2010-2012.  His return to Washington service followed several years of overseas postings, including in Iraq as Team Leader of an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (2009-2010), Economic and Political Counselor in Santiago, Chile (2006-2009), and Consul General in Barcelona, Spain (2003-2006).

Mr. Alsace is a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College (2003).  He has also served in Istanbul, Turkey, as Deputy Principal Officer (1999-2002) and in several Washington assignments, including as desk officer for Lebanon and for Kazakhstan, as a staff assistant to the NEA Assistant Secretary, and as Pearson Fellow in the office of Senator Russell Feingold, who was then on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.  Mr. Alsace has also been posted to Karachi, Santo Domingo, and Quito.

Originally from Buffalo, NY, Mr. Alsace is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI and obtained his law degree from the University of Minnesota.   He practiced law for three years before joining the Foreign Service.  Mr. Alsace has received several State Department Awards, including three Superior Honor Awards and four Meritorious Honor Awards.  Married now for thirty-eight years to Nancy, a retired Nurse Practitioner, Mr. Alsace has two children.  He speaks Spanish and remembers a few useful Turkish phrases.  

Born of the countless hours spent along Menomonee River Parkway as a kid, one profound aspect of Mark’s life-long, nature-loving sensibility has been his relationship with water, especially the waters of Wisconsin. He’s on the water, in the water, at the water’s edge or dreaming about his next interaction with lakes and rivers, always.

With a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the UWM, Mark’s creative aesthetic is woven into his relationship with the natural world. His career in creative, design and marketing spans local to Fortune 500 companies. With his creative counsel, Mark helped us rebrand the Milwaukee Riverkeeper.

Mark has been with the Milwaukee Riverkeeper for the past decade and brings his hands-on passion for the Milwaukee River basin. Mark has traveled waterways across North America, from Costa Rica to Canada, strengthening his understanding of the role water plays in all our lives. Informed by countless interactions with those who apply themselves unselfishly to improving our environment, Mark looks forward to the positive role he can play here at home with the Milwaukee Riverkeeper.

Catherine is from Milwaukee and has been fortunate to raise three children in Shorewood, Wisconsin surrounded by both Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River.   She is currently a CFO of a software consulting company based in Brookfield and Madison.  Catherine’s career spans over twenty years in both public and private accounting roles.  She is a natural problem solver, loves to tell the financial story with data and believes our waters are assets that deserve protection for future generations.   Hiking with dogs and power gardening rank right after being on the water in free moments.

With the woods and water of the Pacific Northwest as a childhood playground, Patti has developed a view of the natural environment as a precious resource. A resource she and her family appreciate tremendously from their home along the Milwaukee River. Trained as an architect, she has spent her career exploring the human experience in the built environment and finds the intersection of indoor and outdoor spaces to be one of the most interesting juxtapositions in design. Patti is currently the Director of Design with Stirling Furnishings following roles with Trek Bicycle Company, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, and HGA Architects. She earned a Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, following a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Whitman College. In her free time, Patti enjoys bicycling, running, swimming and spending time outdoors with her family.

Bio Coming

Bio Coming

Brian Spahn is a lawyer in the Milwaukee office of Godfrey & Kahn specializing in commercial litigation and internal investigations. Before returning to Wisconsin in 2010, Brian practiced law in Washington, D.C. for four years. Brian also has a significant background working in Wisconsin government and politics, including work for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Senators Kohl and Feingold, Governor Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Barrett. A native of Shorewood, Wisconsin, Brian enjoys watching and playing sports, bike rides with his wife and two young children and listening to old and new music.

Peter Thornquist spent his childhood looking for fossils with his father on the banks of the Milwaukee River.  He developed a fascination with human cultures and their connections to the natural environment.  He studied anthropology and spent a few years in museum work, and later coordinated private voluntary development projects in Nicaragua.  Peter then pursued a medical education at the Medical College of Wisconsin under the capable leadership of T. Michael Bolger.  He is now a practicing physician in the Milwaukee River basin. Peter maintains a passion for the prehistoric, historic, and natural heritage of our river valleys.  He is a strong believer that healthy communities require healthy environments, which depend on healthy waterways.

Bio Coming